École française d'Extrême-Orient

The École française d'Extrême-Orient (EFEO) is a French institute dedicated to the study of Asian societies. Translated into English, it approximately means the French School of the Far East. It was founded in 1900 with headquarters in Hanoi in what was then French Indochina. After independence, its headquarters were transferred to Paris. Its main fields of research are archaeology and the study of modern Asian societies.Since 1907, the EFEO has been in charge of conservation work at the archeological site of Angkor.

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 In modern times, it has been superseded by Hanyu Pinyin.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:

The Centers of the École

*Siège : Maison de l’Asie, Paris
*Pondicherry in India
*Rangoon in Burma
*Chiang Mai in Thailand
*Kuala Lumpur in Malaysia
*Jakarta in Indonesia
*Phnom Penh and Siem Reap in Cambodia
*Vientiane in Laos
*Hanoi in Vietnam
*Hongkong and Peking in China
*Taipei in the Republic of China (Taiwan)
*Seoul in South Korea
*Kyoto and Tokyo in Japan

The Directors

*1900: Louis Finot
*1905: Alfred Foucher
*1908: Claude-Eugène Maitre
*1920: Louis Finot
*1926: Léonard Aurousseau
*1929: George Cœdès
*1947: Paul Lévy
*1950: Louis Malleret
*1956: Jean Filliozat
*1977: François Gros
*1989: Léon Vandermeersch
*1993: Denys Lombard
*1998: Jean-Pierre Drège
*2004: Franciscus Verellen

See also

EFEO Chinese transcription

External links

* [http://www.efeo.fr/ Ecole française d'Extrême-Orient]
* [http://www.sinistra.net/els/sup/utftranscript.html Writing in western European languages that deal with China]