EFEO Chinese transcription

The Chinese transcription system invented by the French School of the Far East (EFEO) was the most widely used in the French-speaking world until the mid-20th century. While it is often deemed to have been devised by Séraphin Couvreur, who was not an EFEO member, its actual creator was Template:Ill (1858–1930). It was superseded by Hanyu Pinyin.

The transcription of the EFEO did not borrow its phonetics from the national official Standard Chinese. Rather, it was synthesized independently to be a mean of Chinese dialects, and shows a state of sounds a little older in form (as in Latinxua Sin Wenz and the older version of Wade-Giles). Hence, the phoneme (Pinyin: Template:Grapheme), is transcribed as either Template:Grapheme or Template:Grapheme; before the jian-tuan merger in contemporary Mandarin, i.e. the merger between the alveolar consonants and the alveolo-palatal consonants, before the high front vowels Template:IPAblink and Template:IPAblink.

Since EFEO makes use, to a large extent, of the phonetic values of Latin letters as used in French, the transcription of many Chinese syllables into the EFEO system is quite similar to how they were transcribed by French missionaries in the late 17th to 19th centuries (e.g., as seen in Description ... de la Chine compiled by Jean-Baptiste Du Halde); for example, "Yanzhou Fou" is "Yen-tcheou-fou" in both cases. However, a few features (notably, the wide use of "ts", and the use of apostrophes to show aspiration) distinguishes it from the early French missionary systems.

Table

Initials

		Bilabial		Labiodental	Alveolar		Retroflex		Alveolo-palatal	Velar
		Voiceless	Voiced	Voiceless	Voiceless	Voiced	Voiceless	Voiced	Voiceless	Voiceless
Nasal			m ㄇ			n ㄋ
Plosive	Unaspirated	p ㄅ			t ㄉ					k ㄍ
	Aspirated	p' ㄆ			t' ㄊ					k' ㄎ
Affricate	Unaspirated				ts ㄗ		tch ㄓ		k or ts ㄐ
	Aspirated				ts' ㄘ		tch' ㄔ		k' or ts' ㄑ
Fricative				f ㄈ	s ㄙ		ch ㄕ		h or s ㄒ	h ㄏ
Liquid						l ㄌ		j ㄖ

Finals

		Coda
		∅
Medial	∅	e/eu ㄭ -	ö/é ㄜ	a ㄚ	ei ㄟ	ai ㄞ	eou ㄡ	ao ㄠ	en ㄣ	an ㄢ	ong ㄨㄥ	eng ㄥ	ang ㄤ	eul ㄦ
		i ㄧ	ie ㄧㄝ	ia ㄧㄚ			ieou ㄧㄡ	iao ㄧㄠ	in ㄧㄣ	ien ㄧㄢ	iong ㄩㄥ	ing ㄧㄥ	iang ㄧㄤ
		ou ㄨ	ouo ㄨㄛ	oua ㄨㄚ	ouei ㄨㄟ	ouai ㄨㄞ			ouen ㄨㄣ	ouan ㄨㄢ	ouong ㄨㄥ		ouang ㄨㄤ
		iu ㄩ	iue ㄩㄝ						iun ㄩㄣ	iuan ㄩㄢ

Bibliography

• Template:Cite newsletter

External links

• UNESCO transcription norms for Chinese