Lessing-Othmer
The Lessing -Othmer system for phonetic transcription of Chinese characters and language in Latin script goes back to Ferdinand Lessing (1882-1961) and Wilhelm Othmer ( 1882-1934 ). By Richard Wilhelm was also referred to as Wilhelm Lessing'sches system.
The German merchants in Qingdao (then German name for Qingdao) had proposed to set up courses in the Chinese written language for German. Othmer, Wilhelm and Ferdinand Lessing, who worked on the translation of the institution, which opened in October 1909 German -Chinese School in Qingdao, these courses conducted. To this end, they did not use the British Wade- Giles romanization, but worked out - each as well as other German sinologist - your own, the usual German custom sounds transliteration.
The Lessing -Othmer system in 1911 was charged by an assembly of German teachers in China and the standard used mainly in German-speaking countries. For example, based on the transcriptions by Hermann Bohner Lessing -Othmer system. Today it is no longer in use. The authored by Lessing and Othmer based on their courses textbook was, until the 1930s the most popular in German-speaking Chinese textbook.
Lute in detail
For comparison, the IPA transcription in square brackets and the Pinyin version of the character in parentheses are indicated with in each case.
Initial sounds
Similar to the Pinyin and in contrast to the Wade- Giles romanization are not aspirated sounds are ( " NASP " column of the table) represented by the letter for the voiced consonant in the Lessing -Othmer system, while for the aspirated sounds ( " asp " column of the table) the signs of the voiceless counterparts used. This is partly because, in contrast to the voiced sounds are also pronounced in the German aspirated voiceless sounds, thus obtaining the largest possible match.