Legge romanization

Description

Although frequently called a "transliteration", Legge's system is a transcription of Chinese, as there can be no transliteration of Chinese script into any phonetic script, like the Latin alphabet.

Features of the Legge system include:

• the use of ⟨h⟩ to signal consonantal aspiration: e.g. pinyin ⟨pi⟩ or Wade–Giles ⟨p'i⟩ corresponds to ⟨phî⟩,
• the use of a Fraktur letter z ⟨𝖟⟩ distinct from Roman ⟨z⟩, and
• the use of italicized consonants distinct from their normal forms.

Comparing words in the Legge system with the same words in Wade–Giles shows that there are often minor but non-systematic differences, which makes direct correlation of the systems difficult.

Vowels

The system uses the following vowels and semivowels:

a â ă e ê i î o u û ü w y

Vowel letters also occur in various digraphs, which include:

âi âo âu eh ei ih ui

Consonants

Legge transcription uses the following consonants: