Word: pinyin
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Eugene Wu, librarian of the Harvard-Yenching Library, said yesterday that the library has been using the Wade-Giles system of transliteration since it opened 50 years ago, but the Chinese government's decision on January 1 to publish all its foreign-language publications by the Pinyin system may force East Asian libraries to convert to Pinyin...
...said. "It might be very, very expensive to switch. And it would add some extra burden on Chinese students who would have to learn the Pinyin system. Unlike the newspapers, which just have to occasionally change a name, we would have to live with the system...
...said he was waiting to see if the Library of Congress and other East Asian libraries switch to Pinyin before deciding whether the Yenching Library should convert. "We also intend to talk to faculty and students. If the faculty very much wants Pinyin, I suppose we'll definitely have to switch," Wu said...
...Pinyin is the biggest problem we have ever faced," said Richard R. Randall, executive secretary of the U.S. Board on Geographic Names. The board will have to alter thousands of traditional spellings on now outdated Chinese maps. Among the unhappy Sinologists was Tufts University Professor Donald Klein. Said he: "It's driving me up the wall. It's hard enough to get my students to remember such names as the Yangtze River. If I now have to change it to Chang Jiang, it would confuse them beyond hope...
...switched to Pinyin, which some scholars regard as more accurate than Wade-Giles as a way of transcribing Chinese sounds. Taiwan has no plans to switch, since it sees the adoption of Pinyin as an acceptance of Communist claims. Others have more personal reasons. "If they want to call Vice Premier Teng Hsiao-p'ing 'Deng Xiaoping,' that's their business," grumped Boston Globe Columnist Anthony Spinazzola. "I don't have to order him in a restaurant." Which is something...