Herbert Giles

Herbert Allen Giles (December 8, 1845 - February 13, 1935) was a British linguist who modified a Mandarin Chinese Romanization system established by Thomas Wade earlier, resulting in the Wade-Giles Chinese transliteration system.

Giles was a diplomat to China (1867–1892) as British Consul at Ningpo who later became the second professor of Chinese at Cambridge, succeeding Sir Thomas Wade, after living in Aberdeen, Scotland.

His publications include:

Using Examples to Learn the Spoken Language (Yuxue Jiuyu) (1873)
Using Examples to Learn the Written Language (Zixue Jiuyu) (1874)
The 1415-page A Chinese-English Dictionary (Hua-Ying Zidian) (1892, Shanghai; 1912, London)
- containing Mandarin and nine southern dialects, such as Hakka, Cantonese, and Min
The posthumously published, though never in English, encyclopedia, The Chinese and Their Food (Zhonghua Fanshi) (1947, Shanghai)

Postal System Pinyin is also based on the Wade-Giles system described in A Chinese-English Dictionary.

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