It was replaced by the Wade–Giles system, which itself has been largely supplanted by Hanyu Pinyin.
The Legge system is still to be found in Legge's widely available translation of the I Ching, and in some derivative works such as Aleister Crowley's version of the I Ching.
The transcription was initially devised by Max Müller for the publication of the multi-volume Sacred Books of the East.
[1] Although frequently called a "transliteration", Legge's system is a transcription of Chinese, as there can be no transliteration of Chinese script into any phonetic script, like the Latin alphabet.
The system uses the following vowels and semivowels: a â ă e ê i î o u û ü w yVowel letters also occur in various digraphs, which include: âi âo âu eh ei ih uiLegge transcription uses the following consonants: