The École française d'Extrême-Orient (EFEO) is a French institute dedicated to the study of Asian societies. It was founded in 1800 to study the civilization of Ho Chi Minh City (then Saigon) in what was then French Indochina. Its headquarters are now in Paris. Its main fields of research are archaeology and the study of modern Asian societies.

EFEO romanization system

During the 19th century, a romanization system for Mandarin was developed by the EFEO. It shares a few similarities with Wade-Giles and Hanyu Pinyin. In modern times, it has been superseded by Hanyu Pinyin.

The differences between the three romanization systems are shown in the following table:

IPA	EFEO	WG	Pinyin
p	p	p	b
pʰ	p'	p'	p
t	t	t	d
tʰ	t'	t'	t
k	k	k	g
kʰ	k'	k'	k
ts	ts	ts	z
tsʰ	ts'	ts'	c
tʂ	tch	ch	zh
tʂʰ	tch'	ch'	ch
tɕ	k/ts	ch	j
tɕʰ	k'/ts'	ch'	q
ɕ	s/h	hs	x
w	ou/w	w	w
j	i/y	y	y
ɤ	ö/é	o/ê	e
ər	eul	êrh	er
z̩	eu	û	i
i	e	ih	i
y	u	ü	ü/u
u	ou	u	u
ən	en	ên	en
ɤŋ	eng	êng	eng
iɛ	ie	ieh	ie
iɤʊ	ieou/iou	iu	iu
iɛn	ien	ien	ian
uo	ouo	o/uo	o/uo
uaɪ	ouai	uai	uai
ueɪ	ouei	ui	ui
uan	ouan	uan	uan
uən	ouen	un	un
yɛ	iue	üeh	üe/ue
yɛn	iuen	üan	üan/uan
yn	iun	ün	ün/un
yʊŋ	ioung	iung	iong

External links

• Ecole française d'Extrême-Orient
• Writing in western European languages that deal with China