Resource Guide for Chinese Language

Contact: Jennie McKee , Access Services Librarian

A Brief History of Chinese Romanization

Searching for and using materials written in a non-Roman alphabet or ideographs presents special challenges for library users. Chinese can be more challenging than most.

Until two years ago the Library of Congress, who sets the standard for libraries in the United States, used the Wade-Giles transliteration system. This system, developed by Sir Thomas Francis Wade in the mid-nineteenth century and modified by Herbert Allen Giles in 1912, remained the world standard for most of the 20th century. The Wade-Giles system was based on pronunciation from nonstandard speech sounds and contains symbols that represent different sounds and sometimes different symbols for the same sound.

Pinyin, the Chinese Phonetic Alphabet based on the pronunciation of Mandarin Chinese, was created by the Committee on Language Reform in China in 1956 and further modified in 1958. In 1979 the State Council of the People's Republic of China for Romanization prescribed that Pinyin would be used for all translated publications for English speaking countries.


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Problems in the Library

You can encounter several problems in searching for Chinese names and titles in the catalog and in databases. There are several reasons why the records for the items may still use Wade-Giles instead of Pinyin romanization:

  • even though the People's Republic of China has adopted Pinyin, Taiwan has not fully adopted it. Many names of Taiwanese authors are still romanized in Wade-Giles.
  • with some names the combination of syllables is not consistently applied. Sun Tzu is a good example. It can be found in recent items as Sun Zi or Sunzi. In the catalog it is Sunzi [The Library of Congress guidelines indicate it should be Sun Zi.]
  • publishers can be inconsistent as to whether they use the Chinese form of the author's name with the patronymic first or the English form with the patronymic last. Sometimes this also happens in the catalog if the record has been prepared by a cataloger not familiar with the Chinese language.
  • although most of the Reed Library catalog has had authors, titles and subjects changed to the Pinyin romanization there are still some Wade-Giles romanization left. These could be older materials, books where the origin of author is uncertain and there is no authoritative record in the Library of Congress files to justify using one or the other system, or they are translated works where the original author and/or title is not easily verifiable.
  • titles and contents from English language materials with Wade-Giles romanization.
  • searches in Summit may require using both romanization schemes as not all Summit libraries have completed the conversion. If you pass a search from our catalog to Summit, you may want to then try the same search with the Wade-Giles romanization
  • call number labels inside the books on the verso of the title page still have the Wade-Giles romanization.
  • while most Chinese books we have use the simplified rather than traditional ideographs, the library does have some books with traditional ideographs or reproductions of calligraphic ideographs.


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Dictionaries: Chinese-English

Han Ying Ci Dian = A Chinese-English Dictionary
Ref. PL1455 .H362 1995
Arranged by Pinyin romanization and sub-arranged by tone. Has three indexes to find entries in the dictionary:
(1) Syllables of Pinyin romanization with range of pages for that syllable. Shows the glyphs for words beginning with that syllable sub-arranged by tone.
(2) Syllables of the Wade romaization with Pinyin equivalent and page.
(3) Radical index.

Zui Xin Shi Yong Han Ying Ci Dian / A New Practical Chinese-English Dictionary
Ref PL1455 .L693 1989
Arranged by radical and stroke number order. Taiwan. Uses Wade-Giles romanization.

ABC Chinese-English Dictionary: Alphabetically Based Computerized
Ref PL1455 .A24 1996
Arranged alphabetically by Pinyin syllable. Shows tonal markings and ideographs along with English definition.

Han Ying Cheng Yu Shou Ce = A Chinese-English Handbook of Idioms
Ref PL1497 .Y52 1987
4000 common Chinese idioms arranged alphabetically by Pinyin syllable and subarranged by tone level.

Read Chinese Signs =Zhong Wen Lu Biao Yu Zhao Pai De Ren Shi
Ref PL1489 .K78 1993
A fun resource with photographs of signs in Chinese arranged by broad topical areas with the Pinyan romanization complete with tonal markings and their English meaning. The unfortunate aspect of the book is that the information is on the back of the page with the photo rather than directly across from the photo.

A Chinese-English Dictionary
Ref PL1455 .G62 1964
This dictionary uses the traditional rather than the simplified ideographs. Has a radical index in the front but arranged alphabetically by Wade-Giles syllable.


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Dictionaries: English-Chinese

Far East English-Chinese Dictionary = Yuan Dong Ying Han Da T'zu Dian
Ref PL1455 .F37 1975

Niujin Gao Jie Ying Han Shuang Jie Ci Dian = Oxford Advanced Learner's English-Chinese Dictionary
Ref PL1455 .O93 1999


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Dictionaries: Chinese

The library has some good multi-volume Chinese dictionaries.

Han Yu Da Ci Dian
Ref PL1420 .H349 1986

Han Yu Da Zi Dian
Ref PL1455 .H36 1986


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Websites

Library of Congress Pinyin Conversion Project

New Chinese Romanization Guidelines
Has a table of Wade-Giles to Pinyan correspondence.

What Is The Difference Between Wade-Giles and Pinyin?

Chinese Cultural Studies: Pinyin/Wade-Giles Names
A list of names familiar in their Wade-Giles form and their Pinyin form.

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