Professional Documents
Culture Documents
Chino Romanizacion 0
Chino Romanizacion 0
Chino Romanizacion 0
EBSCO Publishing Formato de citas: APA (American Psychological Assoc.):
NOTA: repase las instrucciones en http://support.ebsco.com/help/?int=ehost&lang=&feature_id=APA
y realice las correcciones necesarias antes de implementar este formato. Preste especial atención a
los nombres propios, las fechas y el uso de las mayúsculas. Siempre consulte los recursos de la
biblioteca en cuanto a normas de formato y puntuación.
Referencias
Hu, J. (1999). Chinese romanization in Library of Congress cataloging. Illinois Libraries, 81(4), 250
251.
<!Información adicional:
Vínculo persistente a este informe (enlace permanente): http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?
direct=true&db=llf&AN=502830658&lang=es&site=ehostlive
Fin de la cita>
Chinese Romanization in Library of Congress Cataloging
AUTHOR:Jiajian Hu
TITLE:Chinese Romanization in Library of Congress Cataloging
SOURCE:Illinois Libraries 81 no4 2501 Fall 1999
The magazine publisher is the copyright holder of this article and it is reproduced with
permission. Further reproduction of this article in violation of the copyright is prohibited.
In 1997 the Library of Congress announced its decision to switch from the WadeGiles (WG)
system to the pinyin system for the romanization of Chinese. This conversion will affect all
online Chinese bibliographic records in almost entire fields, including the fields of main and
added entries, title and statement of responsibility, series, notes, subject headings, as well as
some part of the Library of Congress classification and cutter number. Following is some
background and reasons of this historical conversion.
BACKGROUND
The multiplicity of dialects spoken by the Chinese in different regions have caused different
romanized forms of Chinese. There are many romanized schemes used by different institutions
to transliterate Chinese to English, e.g., WadeGiles, pinyin, Gwoyeu Romatzhy and Yale, etc.
The most prevalent transliteration scheme, adopted by Library of Congress from near the
beginning of the century and then used by most libraries of the Western world, is the Wade
Giles system. This system was developed in the 1850s by Sir Thomas Francis Wade, a British
military and diplomatic officer who spent much of his career in China. His system later was
modified by Herbert Allen Giles, who used it in his Landmark ChineseEnglish Dictionary, and it
has since been commonly called the WadeGiles system. In 1958, however, the pinyin scheme
was adopted for transliteration of Chinese by the Mainland Chinese government. It is not the
official romanization scheme used in Mainland China.
After several years of cataloging practice, The Library of Congress found that the WadeGiles
http://eds.a.ebscohost.com/ehost/delivery?sid=6e057c4f33be4080bec2d016698adb87%40sessionmgr4002&vid=1&hid=4111&ReturnUrl=http%3a%2f%… 1/2
5/1/2016 EBSCOhost
system was problematic and needed revision. The Library of Congress was dissatisfied with
WadeGiles for the following reasons. First, it had phonetically redundant syllables. Second, it
failed to render the Chinese national standard pronunication. Finally, it wasn't able to show the
semantic distinctions between multiple readings of single characters.
Since its first official promulgation in 1958, the pinyin scheme has remained unchanged. It
has succeeded in maintaining clarity, consistency and unified standard. After 40 years of
practice, pinyin has proved to be scientifically wellstructured and reliable romanization scheme
that faithfully and exactly represents the Chinese phonemes and syllables. It is an accurate
rendition of the standard Chinese pronunication based on Beijing dialect.
Because of pinyin's demonstrable superiority to WadeGiles for online retrieval and its
widespread trend, the Library of Congress had announced its decision to tentatively adopt the
pinyin system for cataloging of Chinese publications on June 29, 1979. The decision was
immediately dropped a year later after opposition from major university libraries in the United
States. These institutions were reluctant to make the effort and bear the financial cost for such
an endeavor, especially because at the time they were not sure that pinyin was a superior
system. Now, 30 years later, the matter was examined again. The Library of Congress finally
made the decision to convert from WadeGiles to pinyin for romanization of Chinese. The effort
to change to pinyin is worth making.
REASONS FOR CHANGING
a. The Pinyin system of romanization of Chinese is now generally recognized as the standard
through the world. Since the 1970s, Western newspapers and journals began to use the pinyin
system, (e.g., New York Times in 1979) readers began to see "Mao Zedong" and "Deng
Xiaoping" rather than "Mao Tsetung" and "Teng Hsiaop'ing". The British library began to use
pinyin for bibliographic control of its Chinese collected. Other institutions, including most
European libraries and all U.S. federal agencies except the Library of Congress, followed suit.
Because most of the rest of the world is now using pinyin, Library of Congress should, for
practical reason, switch to pinyin.
b Most users of America libraries today are familiar with the pinyin romanization of Chinese
names and places. Providing access to Chinese language with that system will make it easier
for them to locate material.
c. The use of pinyin romanization by libraries also will facilitate the exchange of data with
foreign libraries.
d. Pinyin has more access point than WadeGiles for online retrieval. By using diacritical
marks, WadeGiles has reduced 25 percent more machinereadable units than that by pinyin.
Because diacritical marks are ignored in online processing, WadeGiles has provided 25
percent less access points than that of pinyin. For instance, pinyin romanization use the
consonant pairs "B" and "P," "J" and "Q," "D" and "T," "G" and "K" to represent sounds that
approximate the sound they represent in English. The WadeGiles uses identical letters for each
of its consonant pairs, adding an aspirate mark to one of each pair to distinguish them, namely
"P" and "P'," "Ch" and 'Ch'," "T" and "T'" and "K" and K'."
ADDED MATERIAL
Jiajian Hu, technical service librarian, The Chicago Library.
Source: Illinois Libraries, Fall 1999, Vol. 81 Issue 4, p250, 2p
Item: 502830658
http://eds.a.ebscohost.com/ehost/delivery?sid=6e057c4f33be4080bec2d016698adb87%40sessionmgr4002&vid=1&hid=4111&ReturnUrl=http%3a%2f%… 2/2