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A Study on the Chinese Romanization Standard in Libraries

1996; Taylor & Francis; Volume: 21; Issue: 1 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1300/j104v21n01_06

1544-4554

Suping Lu,

Korean Peninsula Historical and Political Studies

Two major Chinese romanization systems are used in libraries: Wade-Giles and Pinyin. Due to structural defects and distorted pronunciation, Wade-Giles, the Chinese romanization standard in the North American library community, is beyond the knowledge of most Library users. On the other hand, Pinyin, the international transliteration standard for Chinese, is as accurate in rendering standard Chinese pronunciation as it is popular with library users. Though the shift of the Chinese romanization standard from Wade-Giles to Pinyin appears to be a logical and reasonable choice, the conversion issue has been repeatedly raised and discussed, but has never materialized. In order t6 facilitate the implementation of the switch without delay, the issues must be clearly and widely understood so that the attending problems can be promptly resolved.