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Chinese postal romanization

Postal romanization[1] was a system of transliterating place names in China developed by postal authorities in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. For many cities, the corresponding postal romanization was the most common English-language form of the city's name from the 1890s until the 1980s, when postal romanization was replaced by pinyin, but the system remained in place on Taiwan until 2002.

Postal romanization
郵政式拼音邮政式拼音
Script type romanization
Time period
1892–2002
LanguagesChinese
 This article contains phonetic transcriptions in the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA). For an introductory guide on IPA symbols, see Help:IPA. For the distinction between [ ], / / and  , see IPA § Brackets and transcription delimiters.
Chinese postal romanization
A map of China with romanizations published in 1947
Traditional Chinese郵政式拼音
Simplified Chinese邮政式拼音
Literal meaningPostal-style romanization system
Transcriptions
Standard Mandarin
Hanyu PinyinYóuzhèng shì Pīnyīn
Bopomofoㄧㄡˊ ㄓㄥˋ ㄕˋ ㄆㄧㄣ ㄧㄣ
Wade–GilesYu2-cheng4 shih4 P'in1-yin1
Tongyong PinyinYóu-jhèng shìh Pin-yin
IPA[jǒʊ.ʈʂə̂ŋ ʂɻ̩̂ pʰín.ín]
Wu
Shanghainese
Romanization
Yoe1tzen3 seq4 Phin1in1
Yue: Cantonese
Yale RomanizationYàuhjing sīk Pingyām
Jyutpingjau4 zing3 sik1 ping3 jam1
IPA[jɐu˩ tseŋ˧ sek̚˥ pʰeŋ˧ jɐm˥]
Southern Min
Hokkien POJIû-chèng sek Phèng-im

In 1892, Herbert Giles created a romanization system called the Nanking syllabary. The Imperial Maritime Customs Post Office would cancel postage with a stamp that gave the city of origin in Latin letters, often romanized using Giles's system. In 1896, the Customs Post was combined with other postal services and renamed the Chinese Imperial Post. As a national agency, the Imperial Post was an authority on Chinese place names.[2]

When the Wade–Giles system became widespread, some argued that the post office should adopt it. This idea was rejected at a conference held in 1906 in Shanghai. Instead, the conference formally adopted Nanking syllabary.[3] This decision allowed the post office to continue to use various romanizations that it had already selected. Wade–Giles romanization is based on the Beijing dialect, a pronunciation standard since the 1850s. The use of Nanking syllabary did not suggest that the post office considered Nanjing pronunciation to be standard. Rather, it was an attempt to accommodate a variety of Mandarin pronunciations with a single romanization system.

Comparison table edit

Chinese D'Anville (1790)[4] Postal Wade–Giles[5] Pinyin[6]
1907[a] 1919,[7] 1947[b]
北京 Peking
  • Peking
  • Pehking
Peking (1919) Pei-ching Běijīng
北平 Peiping (1947) Pei-pʻing Běipíng
成都 Tching-tou-fou Ch'êngtu Chengtu Ch’êng-tu Chéngdū
重慶;重庆 Tchong-kin-fou Ch'ungk'ing Chungking Ch’ung-ch’ing Chóngqìng
廣東;广东 Quang-tong Kwangtung Kwangtung Kuang-tung Guǎngdōng
廣州;广州
  • Quang-tcheou
  • Canton
Kwangchow
  • Canton
  • Kwangchow
Kuang-chou Guǎngzhōu
桂林 Quei-li-ng-fou Kweilin Kuei-lin Guìlín
杭州 Hang-tcheou Hangchow Hang-chou Hángzhōu
江蘇;江苏 Kiang-nan Kiangsu Chiang-su Jiāngsū
濟南;济南 Tci-nan-fou Tsinan Chi-nan Jǐnán
南京 Nan-king Nanking Nan-ching Nánjīng
青島青岛 Ts'ingtao Tsingtao Ch’ing-tao Qīngdǎo
四川 Se-tchuen Szechw'an Szechwan Ssu-ch’uan Sìchuān
蘇州;苏州 Sou-tcheou-fou
  • Soochow
  • Suchow
Soochow Su-chou Sūzhōu
天津 Tien-king-oei T'ientsin Tientsin T’ien-chin Tiānjīn
廈門厦门
  • Hia-men
  • Emoui
Hsiamên Amoy Hsia-mên Xiàmén
西安 Si-ngan-fou Singan
  • Sianfu
  • Sian
Hsi-an Xī'ān

The spelling "Amoy" is based on pronunciation of Xiamen in the neighboring Zhangzhou dialect of Hokkien 廈門; Ēe-mûi, which historically contributed to the formation of the local Amoy dialect of Hokkien in Xiamen. "Peking" is carried over from the d'Anville map which also came from older texts, such as Italian Jesuit Martino Martini's De Bello Tartarico Historia (1654) and Novus Atlas Sinensis (1655). In Nanking syllabary, the city is Pehking.[8] The irregular oo in "Soochow" is to distinguish this city from Xuzhou in northern Jiangsu.[9] The other postal romanizations are based on "Southern Mandarin", the historical court dialect based on the Nanjing dialect, which used to be the imperial lingua franca of the late Ming and early Qing court. Pinyin spellings are based on Standard Chinese, a form based on the Beijing dialect that is taught in the Chinese education system.

After the Kuomintang (KMT) party came to power in 1927, the capital was moved from Peking ('northern capital') to Nanking ('southern capital'). Peking was renamed tp "Peiping" ('northern peace').[10]

History edit

 
The 1903 Postal Working Map – Harvard University Library

The Customs Post, China's first government-run post office, opened to the public and began issuing postage stamps in 1878. This office was part of the Imperial Maritime Customs Service, led by Irishman Robert Hart. By 1882, the Customs Post had offices in twelve Treaty Ports: Shanghai, Amoy, Chefoo, Chinkiang, Chungking, Foochow, Hankow, Ichang, Kewkiang, Nanking, Weihaiwei, and Wuhu. Local offices had postmarking equipment so mail was marked with a romanized form of the city's name. In addition, there were companies that provided local postal service in each of these cities.

A Chinese-English Dictionary by Herbert Giles, published in 1892, popularized the Wade–Giles method of transliteration. This system had been created by Thomas Francis Wade in 1867. It is based on pronunciation in Beijing. Giles's dictionary also gives pronunciation in the dialects of various other cities, allowing the reader to create locally based transliteration. From January 1893 to September 1896, local postal services issued postage stamps that featured the romanized name of the city they served using local pronunciation.[11]

An imperial edict issued in 1896 designated the Customs Post a national postal service and renamed it the Chinese Imperial Post. The local post offices in the Treaty Ports were incorporated into the new service. The Customs Post was smaller than other postal services in China, such as the British. As the Imperial Post, it grew rapidly and soon became the dominant player in the market.

In 1899, Hart, as inspector general of posts, asked postmasters to submit romanizations for their districts. Although Hart asked for transliterations "according to the local pronunciation", most postmasters were reluctant to play lexicographer and simply looked up the relevant characters in a dictionary. The spellings that they submitted generally followed the Wade–Giles system, which was the standard method of transliteration at this time.

The post office published a draft romanization map in 1903.[12] Disappointed with the Wade-based map, Hart issued another directive in 1905. This one told postmasters to submit romanizations "not as directed by Wade, but according to accepted or usual local spellings." Local missionaries could be consulted, Hart suggested. However, Wade's system did reflect pronunciation in Mandarin-speaking areas.[c]

Théophile Piry, a long-time customs manager, was appointed postal secretary in 1901. Appointing a French national to the top position fulfilled an 1898 commitment by China to "take into account the recommendations of the French government" when selecting staff for the post office. Until 1911, the post office remained part of the Chinese Maritime Customs Service, which meant that Hart was Piry's boss.[13]

1906 conference edit

To resolve the romanization issue, Piry organized an Imperial Postal Joint-Session Conference[d] in Shanghai in the spring of 1906. This was a joint postal and telegraphic conference. The conference resolved that existing spellings would be retained for names already transliterated. Accents, apostrophes, and hyphens would be dropped to facilitate telegraphic transmission. The requirement for addresses to be given in Chinese characters was dropped. For new transliterations, local pronunciation would be followed in Guangdong as well as in parts of Guangxi and Fujian. In other areas, a system called Nanking syllabary would be used.[10]

Nanking syllabary is one of several transliteration systems presented by Giles to represent various local dialects. Nanjing had once been the capital and its dialect was, like that of Beijing, a pronunciation standard. But the decision to use Nanking syllabary was not intended to suggest that the post office recognized any specific dialect as standard. The Lower Yangtze Mandarin dialect spoken in Nanjing makes more phonetic distinctions than other dialects. A romanization system geared to this dialect can be used to reflect pronunciation in a wider variety of dialects.

Southern Mandarin is widely spoken in both Jiangsu and Anhui. In Giles' idealization, the speaker consistently makes various phonetic distinctions not made in Beijing dialect (or in the dialect of any other specific city). Giles created the system to encompass a range of dialects. For the French-led post office, an additional advantage of the system was that it allowed "the romanization of non-English speaking people to be met as far as possible," as Piry put it.[3] That is to say, Piry considered the Wade–Giles system to be specific to English.

Atlases explaining postal romanization were issued in 1907, 1919, 1933, and 1936. The ambiguous result of the 1906 conference led critics to complain that postal romanization was idiosyncratic.[10] According to modern scholar Lane J. Harris:

What they have criticized is actually the very strength of postal romanization. That is, postal romanization accommodated local dialects and regional pronunciations by recognizing local identity and language as vital to a true representation of the varieties of Chinese orthoepy as evinced by the Post Office's repeated desire to transcribe according to "local pronunciation" or "provincial sound-equivalents".[14]

Later developments edit

At the Commission on the Unification of Pronunciation in 1913, the idea of a national language with a standardized trans-regional phonology was approved.[15] A period of turmoil followed as President Yuan Shikai reversed course and attempted to restore the teaching of Literary Chinese. Yuan died in 1916 and the Ministry of Education published a pronunciation standard now known as Old National Pronunciation for Guoyu in 1918. The post office reverted to Wade's system in 1920 and 1921. It was the era of the May Fourth Movement, when language reform was the rage. The post office adopted a dictionary by William Edward Soothill as a reference.[16] The Soothill-Wade system was used for newly created offices. Existing post offices retained their romanizations.

Critics described the Ministry's standard, now called Old National Pronunciation, as a mishmash of dialects, bookish, and reminiscent of previous dynasties.[17] While drawing phonetic features from Beijing dialect, many phonological features of Southern Mandarin had been retained. In December 1921, Henri Picard-Destelan, co-director of the Post Office, quietly ordered a return to Nanking syllabary "until such time as uniformity is possible." Although the Soothill-Wade period was brief, it was a time when 13,000 offices were created, a rapid and unprecedented expansion. At the time the policy was reversed, one third of all postal establishments used Soothill-Wade spelling.[18] The Ministry published a revised pronunciation standard based strictly on Jilu Mandarin in 1932.[e]

In 1943, the Japanese ousted A. M. Chapelain, the last French head of the Chinese post. The post office had been under French administration almost continuously since Piry's appointment as postal secretary in 1901.[f]

In 1958, Communist China announced that it was adopting the pinyin romanization system. Implementing the new system was a gradual process. The government did not get around to abolishing postal romanization until 1964.[18] Even then, the post office did not adopt pinyin, but merely withdrew Latin characters from official use, such as in postal cancellation markings.

Mapmakers of the time followed various approaches. Private atlas makers generally used postal romanization in the 1940s, but they later shifted to Wade–Giles.[19] The U.S. Central Intelligence Agency used a mix of postal romanization and Wade–Giles.[20] The U.S. Army Map Service used Wade–Giles exclusively.[21]

The U.S. government and the American press adopted pinyin in 1979.[22][23] The International Organization for Standardization followed suit in 1982.[24]

Postal romanization remained official in Taiwan until 2002, when Tongyong Pinyin was adopted. In 2009, Hanyu Pinyin replaced Tongyong Pinyin as the official romanization (see Chinese language romanization in Taiwan). While street names in Taipei have been romanized via Hanyu Pinyin, municipalities throughout Taiwan, such as Kaohsiung and Tainan, presently use a number of romanizations, including Tongyong Pinyin and postal romanization.

See also edit

Notes edit

  1. ^ Richard, Louis, Kennelly, M, L. Richard's Comprehensive geography of the Chinese empire and dependencies Shanghai: Tusewei press, 1908, pp. 590 and ff. Cites the Government Red Book of April 1907.
  2. ^ 1947 Chinese Republic, Outer Mongolia," 1947. p. 6. This map uses postal romanization, but with some misspellings.
  3. ^ This map shows where the various dialects of Chinese are spoken. Both Wade-Giles and pinyin are based on Northern Mandarin, which is shown in red.
  4. ^ 帝國郵電聯席會議; dìguó yóudiàn liánxí huìyì.
  5. ^ Vocabulary of National Pronunciation for Everyday Use, pinyin: Guóyīn Chángyòng Zìhuì (国音常用字汇 / 國音常用字彙)
  6. ^ The only break in French control of the post office was 1928 to 1931, when Norwegian Erik Tollefsen was foreign head.

References edit

Citations edit

  1. ^ Postal Romanization. Taipei: Directorate General of Posts. 1961. OCLC 81619222.
  2. ^ Harris (2009), p. 96.
  3. ^ a b Harris (2009), p. 101.
  4. ^ Anville, Jean Baptiste Bourguignon, Atlas général de la Chine, de la Tartarie chinoise, et du Tibet : pour servir aux différentes descriptions et histoires de cet empire (1790). This is an expanded edition of an atlas first published in 1737.
  5. ^ "Mongolia and China", Pergamon World Atlas, Pergamon Press, Ltd, 1967).
  6. ^ "China.," United States. Central Intelligence Agency, 1969.
  7. ^ Jacot-Guillarmod (1919).
  8. ^ Richard, p. 618.
  9. ^ Richard, p. 625.
  10. ^ a b c Harris, Lane J. (2009). "A "Lasting Boon to All": A Note on the Postal Romanization of Place Names, 1896–1949". Twentieth-Century China. 34 (1): 96–109. doi:10.1353/tcc.0.0007. S2CID 68653154.
  11. ^ Giles, Herbert (1892). A Chinese-English Dictionary. London: Bernard Quaritch.
  12. ^ Oriental Press (1903).
  13. ^ Twitchett, Denis, and Fairbank, John K., Cambridge History of China: Republican China 1912-1949, Volume 12, part 1, 1983, p. 189.
  14. ^ Harris (2009), p. 97.
  15. ^ Kaske, Elizabeth, The Politics of Language in Chinese Education, 1895–1919 Boston 2008, "The Conference for the Unification of Reading Pronunciations", pp. 405 and ff.
  16. ^ William Edward Soothill (1908). The student's four thousand tzu and general pocket dictionary
  17. ^ Kaske, p. 415.
  18. ^ a b Harris (2009), p. 105.
  19. ^ Compare Hammond 1948 ("Japan and China," Hammond, C.S. 1948) to Pergamon 1967 ("Mongolia and China", Pergamon World Atlas, Pergamon Press, Ltd, 1967). The latter is a pure Wade-Giles map.
  20. ^ "China, administrative divisions," United States. Central Intelligence Agency, 1969.
  21. ^ "China 1:250,000," 1954, Series L500, U.S. Army Map Service.
  22. ^ USBGN (1979).
  23. ^ "Times due to revise its Chinese spelling," New York Times, Feb. 4, 1979.
  24. ^ "ISO 7098:1982 – Documentation – Romanization of Chinese". Retrieved 2009-03-01.

Bibliography edit

  • China Postal Working Map 大清郵政公署備用輿圖, Shanghai: Oriental Press, 1903.
  • China Postal Album: Showing the Postal Establishments and Postal Routes in Each Province (1st ed.), Shanghai: Directorate General of Posts, 1907.
  • Jacot-Guillarmod, Charles, ed. (1919), China Postal Album: Showing the Postal Establishments and Postal Routes in Each Province (2nd ed.), Beijing: Directorate General of Posts.
  • Postal Atlas of China 中華郵政輿圖, Nanjing: Directorate General of Posts, 1933.
  • China Postal Atlas 中華民國郵政輿圖, Nanjing: Directorate General of Posts, 1936.
  • Playfair, G.M.H. (1910), The Cities and Towns of China: A Geographical Dictionary (2nd ed.), Shanghai: Kelly & Walsh.
  • Stanford, Edward (1917), Complete Atlas of China (2nd ed.), London: China Inland Mission.
  • Stoneman, Elvyn A.; et al., eds. (July 1979), Gazetteer of the People's Republic of China, Washington, DC: United States Board on Geographic Names.
  • "邮政式拼音 Postal-Style Spelling]", 中国大百科全书 (in Chinese), Beijing: Encyclopedia of China Publishing House, 1998.

chinese, postal, romanization, postal, romanization, system, transliterating, place, names, china, developed, postal, authorities, late, 19th, early, 20th, centuries, many, cities, corresponding, postal, romanization, most, common, english, language, form, cit. Postal romanization 1 was a system of transliterating place names in China developed by postal authorities in the late 19th and early 20th centuries For many cities the corresponding postal romanization was the most common English language form of the city s name from the 1890s until the 1980s when postal romanization was replaced by pinyin but the system remained in place on Taiwan until 2002 Postal romanization郵政式拼音 邮政式拼音Script typeAlphabet romanizationTime period1892 2002LanguagesChinese This article contains phonetic transcriptions in the International Phonetic Alphabet IPA For an introductory guide on IPA symbols see Help IPA For the distinction between and see IPA Brackets and transcription delimiters Chinese postal romanizationA map of China with romanizations published in 1947Traditional Chinese郵政式拼音Simplified Chinese邮政式拼音Literal meaningPostal style romanization systemTranscriptionsStandard MandarinHanyu PinyinYouzheng shi PinyinBopomofoㄧㄡˊ ㄓㄥˋ ㄕˋ ㄆㄧㄣ ㄧㄣWade GilesYu2 cheng4 shih4 P in1 yin1Tongyong PinyinYou jheng shih Pin yinIPA jo ʊ ʈʂe ŋ ʂɻ pʰi n i n WuShanghaineseRomanizationYoe1tzen3 seq4 Phin1in1Yue CantoneseYale RomanizationYauhjing sik PingyamJyutpingjau4 zing3 sik1 ping3 jam1IPA jɐu tseŋ sek pʰeŋ jɐm Southern MinHokkien POJIu cheng sek Pheng imIn 1892 Herbert Giles created a romanization system called the Nanking syllabary The Imperial Maritime Customs Post Office would cancel postage with a stamp that gave the city of origin in Latin letters often romanized using Giles s system In 1896 the Customs Post was combined with other postal services and renamed the Chinese Imperial Post As a national agency the Imperial Post was an authority on Chinese place names 2 When the Wade Giles system became widespread some argued that the post office should adopt it This idea was rejected at a conference held in 1906 in Shanghai Instead the conference formally adopted Nanking syllabary 3 This decision allowed the post office to continue to use various romanizations that it had already selected Wade Giles romanization is based on the Beijing dialect a pronunciation standard since the 1850s The use of Nanking syllabary did not suggest that the post office considered Nanjing pronunciation to be standard Rather it was an attempt to accommodate a variety of Mandarin pronunciations with a single romanization system Contents 1 Comparison table 2 History 2 1 1906 conference 2 2 Later developments 3 See also 4 Notes 5 References 5 1 Citations 5 2 BibliographyComparison table editChinese D Anville 1790 4 Postal Wade Giles 5 Pinyin 6 1907 a 1919 7 1947 b 北京 Peking PekingPehking Peking 1919 Pei ching Beijing北平 Peiping 1947 Pei pʻing Beiping成都 Tching tou fou Ch engtu Chengtu Ch eng tu Chengdu重慶 重庆 Tchong kin fou Ch ungk ing Chungking Ch ung ch ing Chongqing廣東 广东 Quang tong Kwangtung Kwangtung Kuang tung Guǎngdōng廣州 广州 Quang tcheouCanton Kwangchow CantonKwangchow Kuang chou Guǎngzhōu桂林 Quei li ng fou Kweilin Kuei lin Guilin杭州 Hang tcheou Hangchow Hang chou Hangzhōu江蘇 江苏 Kiang nan Kiangsu Chiang su Jiangsu濟南 济南 Tci nan fou Tsinan Chi nan Jǐnan南京 Nan king Nanking Nan ching Nanjing青島 青岛 Ts ingtao Tsingtao Ch ing tao Qingdǎo四川 Se tchuen Szechw an Szechwan Ssu ch uan Sichuan蘇州 苏州 Sou tcheou fou SoochowSuchow Soochow Su chou Suzhōu天津 Tien king oei T ientsin Tientsin T ien chin Tianjin廈門 厦门 Hia menEmoui Hsiamen Amoy Hsia men Xiamen西安 Si ngan fou Singan SianfuSian Hsi an Xi anThe spelling Amoy is based on pronunciation of Xiamen in the neighboring Zhangzhou dialect of Hokkien 廈門 Ee mui which historically contributed to the formation of the local Amoy dialect of Hokkien in Xiamen Peking is carried over from the d Anville map which also came from older texts such as Italian Jesuit Martino Martini s De Bello Tartarico Historia 1654 and Novus Atlas Sinensis 1655 In Nanking syllabary the city is Pehking 8 The irregular oo in Soochow is to distinguish this city from Xuzhou in northern Jiangsu 9 The other postal romanizations are based on Southern Mandarin the historical court dialect based on the Nanjing dialect which used to be the imperial lingua franca of the late Ming and early Qing court Pinyin spellings are based on Standard Chinese a form based on the Beijing dialect that is taught in the Chinese education system After the Kuomintang KMT party came to power in 1927 the capital was moved from Peking northern capital to Nanking southern capital Peking was renamed tp Peiping northern peace 10 History edit nbsp The 1903 Postal Working Map Harvard University LibraryThe Customs Post China s first government run post office opened to the public and began issuing postage stamps in 1878 This office was part of the Imperial Maritime Customs Service led by Irishman Robert Hart By 1882 the Customs Post had offices in twelve Treaty Ports Shanghai Amoy Chefoo Chinkiang Chungking Foochow Hankow Ichang Kewkiang Nanking Weihaiwei and Wuhu Local offices had postmarking equipment so mail was marked with a romanized form of the city s name In addition there were companies that provided local postal service in each of these cities A Chinese English Dictionary by Herbert Giles published in 1892 popularized the Wade Giles method of transliteration This system had been created by Thomas Francis Wade in 1867 It is based on pronunciation in Beijing Giles s dictionary also gives pronunciation in the dialects of various other cities allowing the reader to create locally based transliteration From January 1893 to September 1896 local postal services issued postage stamps that featured the romanized name of the city they served using local pronunciation 11 An imperial edict issued in 1896 designated the Customs Post a national postal service and renamed it the Chinese Imperial Post The local post offices in the Treaty Ports were incorporated into the new service The Customs Post was smaller than other postal services in China such as the British As the Imperial Post it grew rapidly and soon became the dominant player in the market In 1899 Hart as inspector general of posts asked postmasters to submit romanizations for their districts Although Hart asked for transliterations according to the local pronunciation most postmasters were reluctant to play lexicographer and simply looked up the relevant characters in a dictionary The spellings that they submitted generally followed the Wade Giles system which was the standard method of transliteration at this time The post office published a draft romanization map in 1903 12 Disappointed with the Wade based map Hart issued another directive in 1905 This one told postmasters to submit romanizations not as directed by Wade but according to accepted or usual local spellings Local missionaries could be consulted Hart suggested However Wade s system did reflect pronunciation in Mandarin speaking areas c Theophile Piry a long time customs manager was appointed postal secretary in 1901 Appointing a French national to the top position fulfilled an 1898 commitment by China to take into account the recommendations of the French government when selecting staff for the post office Until 1911 the post office remained part of the Chinese Maritime Customs Service which meant that Hart was Piry s boss 13 1906 conference edit To resolve the romanization issue Piry organized an Imperial Postal Joint Session Conference d in Shanghai in the spring of 1906 This was a joint postal and telegraphic conference The conference resolved that existing spellings would be retained for names already transliterated Accents apostrophes and hyphens would be dropped to facilitate telegraphic transmission The requirement for addresses to be given in Chinese characters was dropped For new transliterations local pronunciation would be followed in Guangdong as well as in parts of Guangxi and Fujian In other areas a system called Nanking syllabary would be used 10 Nanking syllabary is one of several transliteration systems presented by Giles to represent various local dialects Nanjing had once been the capital and its dialect was like that of Beijing a pronunciation standard But the decision to use Nanking syllabary was not intended to suggest that the post office recognized any specific dialect as standard The Lower Yangtze Mandarin dialect spoken in Nanjing makes more phonetic distinctions than other dialects A romanization system geared to this dialect can be used to reflect pronunciation in a wider variety of dialects Southern Mandarin is widely spoken in both Jiangsu and Anhui In Giles idealization the speaker consistently makes various phonetic distinctions not made in Beijing dialect or in the dialect of any other specific city Giles created the system to encompass a range of dialects For the French led post office an additional advantage of the system was that it allowed the romanization of non English speaking people to be met as far as possible as Piry put it 3 That is to say Piry considered the Wade Giles system to be specific to English Atlases explaining postal romanization were issued in 1907 1919 1933 and 1936 The ambiguous result of the 1906 conference led critics to complain that postal romanization was idiosyncratic 10 According to modern scholar Lane J Harris What they have criticized is actually the very strength of postal romanization That is postal romanization accommodated local dialects and regional pronunciations by recognizing local identity and language as vital to a true representation of the varieties of Chinese orthoepy as evinced by the Post Office s repeated desire to transcribe according to local pronunciation or provincial sound equivalents 14 Later developments edit At the Commission on the Unification of Pronunciation in 1913 the idea of a national language with a standardized trans regional phonology was approved 15 A period of turmoil followed as President Yuan Shikai reversed course and attempted to restore the teaching of Literary Chinese Yuan died in 1916 and the Ministry of Education published a pronunciation standard now known as Old National Pronunciation for Guoyu in 1918 The post office reverted to Wade s system in 1920 and 1921 It was the era of the May Fourth Movement when language reform was the rage The post office adopted a dictionary by William Edward Soothill as a reference 16 The Soothill Wade system was used for newly created offices Existing post offices retained their romanizations Critics described the Ministry s standard now called Old National Pronunciation as a mishmash of dialects bookish and reminiscent of previous dynasties 17 While drawing phonetic features from Beijing dialect many phonological features of Southern Mandarin had been retained In December 1921 Henri Picard Destelan co director of the Post Office quietly ordered a return to Nanking syllabary until such time as uniformity is possible Although the Soothill Wade period was brief it was a time when 13 000 offices were created a rapid and unprecedented expansion At the time the policy was reversed one third of all postal establishments used Soothill Wade spelling 18 The Ministry published a revised pronunciation standard based strictly on Jilu Mandarin in 1932 e In 1943 the Japanese ousted A M Chapelain the last French head of the Chinese post The post office had been under French administration almost continuously since Piry s appointment as postal secretary in 1901 f In 1958 Communist China announced that it was adopting the pinyin romanization system Implementing the new system was a gradual process The government did not get around to abolishing postal romanization until 1964 18 Even then the post office did not adopt pinyin but merely withdrew Latin characters from official use such as in postal cancellation markings Mapmakers of the time followed various approaches Private atlas makers generally used postal romanization in the 1940s but they later shifted to Wade Giles 19 The U S Central Intelligence Agency used a mix of postal romanization and Wade Giles 20 The U S Army Map Service used Wade Giles exclusively 21 The U S government and the American press adopted pinyin in 1979 22 23 The International Organization for Standardization followed suit in 1982 24 Postal romanization remained official in Taiwan until 2002 when Tongyong Pinyin was adopted In 2009 Hanyu Pinyin replaced Tongyong Pinyin as the official romanization see Chinese language romanization in Taiwan While street names in Taipei have been romanized via Hanyu Pinyin municipalities throughout Taiwan such as Kaohsiung and Tainan presently use a number of romanizations including Tongyong Pinyin and postal romanization See also editEFEO Chinese transcription Postage stamps and postal history of ChinaNotes edit Richard Louis Kennelly M L Richard s Comprehensive geography of the Chinese empire and dependencies Shanghai Tusewei press 1908 pp 590 and ff Cites the Government Red Book of April 1907 1947 Chinese Republic Outer Mongolia 1947 p 6 This map uses postal romanization but with some misspellings This map shows where the various dialects of Chinese are spoken Both Wade Giles and pinyin are based on Northern Mandarin which is shown in red 帝國郵電聯席會議 diguo youdian lianxi huiyi Vocabulary of National Pronunciation for Everyday Use pinyin Guoyin Changyong Zihui 国音常用字汇 國音常用字彙 The only break in French control of the post office was 1928 to 1931 when Norwegian Erik Tollefsen was foreign head References edit nbsp Look up Category English terms derived from Postal Romanization in Wiktionary the free dictionary Citations edit Postal Romanization Taipei Directorate General of Posts 1961 OCLC 81619222 Harris 2009 p 96 a b Harris 2009 p 101 Anville Jean Baptiste Bourguignon Atlas general de la Chine de la Tartarie chinoise et du Tibet pour servir aux differentes descriptions et histoires de cet empire 1790 This is an expanded edition of an atlas first published in 1737 Mongolia and China Pergamon World Atlas Pergamon Press Ltd 1967 China United States Central Intelligence Agency 1969 Jacot Guillarmod 1919 Richard p 618 Richard p 625 a b c Harris Lane J 2009 A Lasting Boon to All A Note on the Postal Romanization of Place Names 1896 1949 Twentieth Century China 34 1 96 109 doi 10 1353 tcc 0 0007 S2CID 68653154 Giles Herbert 1892 A Chinese English Dictionary London Bernard Quaritch Oriental Press 1903 Twitchett Denis and Fairbank John K Cambridge History of China Republican China 1912 1949 Volume 12 part 1 1983 p 189 Harris 2009 p 97 Kaske Elizabeth The Politics of Language in Chinese Education 1895 1919 Boston 2008 The Conference for the Unification of Reading Pronunciations pp 405 and ff William Edward Soothill 1908 The student s four thousand tzu and general pocket dictionary Kaske p 415 a b Harris 2009 p 105 Compare Hammond 1948 Japan and China Hammond C S 1948 to Pergamon 1967 Mongolia and China Pergamon World Atlas Pergamon Press Ltd 1967 The latter is a pure Wade Giles map China administrative divisions United States Central Intelligence Agency 1969 China 1 250 000 1954 Series L500 U S Army Map Service USBGN 1979 Times due to revise its Chinese spelling New York Times Feb 4 1979 ISO 7098 1982 Documentation Romanization of Chinese Retrieved 2009 03 01 Bibliography edit China Postal Working Map 大清郵政公署備用輿圖 Shanghai Oriental Press 1903 China Postal Album Showing the Postal Establishments and Postal Routes in Each Province 1st ed Shanghai Directorate General of Posts 1907 Jacot Guillarmod Charles ed 1919 China Postal Album Showing the Postal Establishments and Postal Routes in Each Province 2nd ed Beijing Directorate General of Posts Postal Atlas of China 中華郵政輿圖 Nanjing Directorate General of Posts 1933 China Postal Atlas 中華民國郵政輿圖 Nanjing Directorate General of Posts 1936 Playfair G M H 1910 The Cities and Towns of China A Geographical Dictionary 2nd ed Shanghai Kelly amp Walsh Stanford Edward 1917 Complete Atlas of China 2nd ed London China Inland Mission Stoneman Elvyn A et al eds July 1979 Gazetteer of the People s Republic of China Washington DC United States Board on Geographic Names 邮政式拼音 Postal Style Spelling 中国大百科全书 in Chinese Beijing Encyclopedia of China Publishing House 1998 Retrieved from https en wikipedia org w index php title Chinese postal romanization amp oldid 1213763503, wikipedia, wiki, book, books, library,

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