History Chinese postal romanization

disappointed wade-based map, hart made attempt promote localism in 1905. directed postmasters submit romanizations not directed wade, according accepted or usual local spellings. local missionaries consulted, hart suggested. however, wade s system reflected pronunciation in areas served post office, @ least in mandarin-speaking areas.

a more serious disadvantage french viewed wade s system anglophone. top position in post office held postal secretary théophile piry, had been appointed in 1901 in part influence of french government. until 1911, post office remained part of maritime customs service. customs inspector general, hart piry s boss, french backing gave piry postal fiefdom.

1906 conference

piry responded hart s moves organising imperial postal joint-session conference in shanghai in spring of 1906. joint postal , telegraphic conference, allowed piry go on hart s head. conference resolved existing spellings retained names transliterated. accents, apostrophes, , hyphens dropped facilitate telegraphic transmission. requirement addresses given in chinese characters dropped. new transliterations, local pronunciation followed in guangdong in parts of guangxi , fujian. in other areas, system called nanking syllabary used.

nanking syllabary presented giles in dictionary. despite name, system not tied city based on southern mandarin, idealized form of jianghuai dialect spoken in lower yangtze region. jianghuai divergent form of mandarin , spoken in both jiangsu , anhui provinces. in giles idealization, speaker consistently makes various phonetic distinctions not made in beijing dialect (or in dialect of other specific city). giles created system encompass range of dialects. corresponds traditional romanizations such peking , nanking, created french missionaries in 17th , 18th century, when nanjing dialect lingua franca. selection of nanking syllabary did not suggest post office treating nanjing pronunciation standard. principal advantage of system allowed romanization of non-english speaking people met far possible, piry put it.

atlases explaining postal romanization issued in 1907, 1919, 1933, , 1936. divided , nuanced result of 1906 conference led critics complain postal romanization idiosyncratic. according modern scholar lane j. harris:

what have criticized strength of postal romanization. is, postal romanization accommodated local dialects , regional pronunciations recognizing local identity , language vital true representation of varieties of chinese orthoepy evinced post office s repeated desire transcribe according local pronunciation or provincial sound-equivalents.

later developments

prompted 1919 ministry of education decision teach beijing dialect in elementary schools, post office briefly reverted wade s system in 1920 , 1921. era of may fourth movement, when language reform rage , beijing dialect promoted national standard. post office adopted dictionary william edward soothill standard reference. while soothill-wade system adopted newly created offices, existing romanizations retained.

china s internal politics did not override anglo-french rivalry long. in december 1921, codirector henri picard-destelan quietly ordered return nanking syllabary until such time uniformity possible. although soothill-wade period brief, time when 13,000 offices created, rapid , unprecedented expansion. @ time policy reversed, 1 third of postal establishments used soothill-wade spelling.

in 1943, japanese ousted a.m chapelain, last french head of chinese post. post office had been under french administration continuously since piry s appointment postal secretary in 1901.

the chinese communists seized power in 1949 , announced abolition of postal romanization in 1964. same, system remained in common use until 1980s. china daily, official english-language news source, adopted pinyin romanization in 1981, , system adopted international organization standardization in 1982.

postal romanization remained official in taiwan until 2002, when tongyong pinyin adopted. in 2009, hanyu pinyin replaced tongyong pinyin official romanization (see chinese language romanization in taiwan). while street names in taipei have been romanized via hanyu pinyin, municipalities throughout taiwan, such kaohsiung , taichung, presently use number of romanizations, including tongyong pinyin , postal romanization.

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