ABSTRACT
There have been several systems for transcribing Chinese characters into the Roman alphabet. The system used in this book, known as Wade-Giles, was until recently the most widely adopted in Britain and the USA. It was devised by Sir Thomas Wade in 1859 and modified a little by H. A. Giles in 1912. In 1958 the Chinese authorities published a system called 'Pinyin zimu', which has advantages especially for teachers of Chinese. Pinyin is widely used nowadays for reference books and for labelling in museums. Nevertheless many basic books that are required by students and others (including the majority in the bibliography of this book) are only available in Wade-Giles. The following list shows the differences between the two systems, together with some examples.
