Patrick, > Let's assume I want to "transliterate" a large Wade-Giles database into > pinyin. It this a purely algorithmic process? For all nouns ? Common and > proper (cf. Chiang Kai-Shek vs Jiang Jeshi )? Even for "dialectal" words?
Mostly, but not completely. (Note that "Kai-Shek" is not standarard Mandarin name, and won't convert to pinyin. The Wade-Giles for pinyin "Jieshi" would be "Chieh-Shih".) I suggest you visit the Library of Congress Pinyin Conversion Project page: http://www.loc.gov/catdir/pinyin/ and then contact them regarding their process and issues. In particular, Wade-Giles romanization practices are not all consistent, so you are bound to run into edge cases. > > Would any data in the Unicode database help me in this process? I don't think so. --Ken > > Patrick Andries
