Herbert Giles

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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) 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.