Wade-Giles
Wade-Giles (), sometimes abbreviated
Wade, is a
Romanization (phonetic notation and
transliteration) system for the
Chinese language based on the form of
Mandarin used in
Beijing. It developed from a system produced by
Thomas Wade in the mid-
19th century, and reached settled form with
Herbert Giles's
Chinese-
English dictionary of
1892. It was the main system of transliteration in the English-speaking world for most of the
20th century, replacing the
Nanjing-based romanization systems that had been common until late in the
19th century. It was mostly replaced by
Pinyin system today but its use can still be seen in the
Republic of China (
Taiwan).
The Wade-Giles system was designed to transliterate Chinese terms for Chinese specialists. This origin has led to a general sense that the system is non-intuitive for non-specialists and not useful for teaching Chinese
pronunciation.
The
Republic of China (
Taiwan) has used Wade-Giles for decades as the
de facto standard, co-existing with several official but obscure
Romanizations in succession, namely,
Gwoyeu Romatzyh (
1928),
MPS II (
1986), and
Tongyong Pinyin (
2000). Taiwanese placenames in international use have still been virtually all in Wade-Giles. Many
Taiwanese Americans and Taiwanese
Canadians also have their Chinese names written in Wade-Giles, while consistently ignoring some
punctuation.
The
Hanyu Pinyin system is the official and most widely used system in the
People's Republic of China. In
Singapore, Pinyin is taught in national schools and widely used in official documents, although an about-turn in government policy reversed the requirement to register people's Chinese names in Pinyin. Wade-Giles spellings for Taiwanese placenames and words long accepted in English usage are still used interchangeably in English language texts in both countries, however.
A common complaint about the Wade-Giles system is the representation of the unaspirated-aspirated
stop consonant pairs using
apostrophes:
p, p', t, t', k, k', ch, ch'. However, the use of apostrophes preserves
b,
d,
g, and
j for the romanization of
Chinese dialects containing
voiced consonants, such as
Shanghainese (which has a full set of voiced consonants) and
Taiwanese (Hō-ló-o") whose century-old Missionary Romanisation is similar to Wade-Giles.
On the other hand, people unfamiliar with the Wade-Giles often ignore the apostrophes, even so far as leaving them out when copying texts, unaware that they represent vital information. Hanyu Pinyin addresses this issue by employing the Latin letters customarily used for voiced stops, unneeded in Mandarin, to represent the unaspirated stops:
b, p, d, t, g, k, j, q, zh, ch. Partly because of the popular omission of the apostrophe, the four sounds represented in Hanyu Pinyin by
j,
q,
zh, and
ch all become
ch in many literature and personal names. However, were the diacritics to be kept, the system reveals a symmetry that leaves no overlap:
* The non-
retroflex ch (Pinyin
j) and
ch' (Pinyin
q) are always before either
i or
ü.
* The
retroflex ch (Pinyin
zh) and
ch' (Pinyin
ch) are always before
a,
e,
ih,
o, or
u.
In addition to several sounds presented using the same letter(s), sometimes, one single sound is represented using several sets of letters. There exists two versions of Wade-Giles Romanizations for each of the Pinyin syllables
zi,
ci, and
si.
* The older version writes
tsû,
ts'û, and
ssû* The newer version writes:
**
tzu for
tsû, but it still remains
ts- before other vowels, as in
tsung for the Pinyin
zong.
**
tz'u for
ts'û, but remains
ts'- before other vowels.
**
szu or
ssu for
ssû, but is
s- before other vowels. Note, not
ss-.
On the other hand, Wade-Giles shows precisions not found in other major Romanizations in regard to the rendering of the two types of empty
rimes (空韻):
*
-u (formerly
û) after the
sibilant tz,
tz', and
s (Pinyin
z,
c, and
s).
*
-ih after the
retroflex ch,
ch',
sh, and
j (Pinyin
zh,
ch,
sh, and
r).These empty rimes are all written as
-i in
Hanyu Pinyin (hence undistinguishable from true
i as in
li), and all written as
-ih in
Tongyong Pinyin.
Zhuyin, as a non-Romanization, does not require the representation of any empty rime.
What is pronounced as a
close-mid back unrounded vowel is written usually as
-e as in
pinyin, but sometimes as
-o. This vowel in an isolate syllable is written as
o or
ê. When placed in a syllable, it is
e; except when preceded by
k,
k', and
h, when it is
o.
What is actually pronounced as
-uo is virtually always written as
-o in Wade-Giles, except
shuo and the three syllables of
kuo,
k'uo, and
huo, which already have the counterparts of
ko,
k'o, and
ho that represent pinyin
ge,
ke, and
he.
In addition to the
apostrophes used for distinguishing the
multiple sounds of a single Latin symbol, Wade-Giles uses
hyphens to separate all
syllables within a
word, whereas Pinyin only uses apostrophes to separate ambiguous syllables. Originally in his dictionary, Giles used left apostrophes (
‘) consistently. Such orientation was followed in Sinological works until the 1950s or 60s, when it started to be gradually replaced by right apostrophes (
') in academic literature. On-line publications almost always use the plain apostrophe ('). Apostrophes are completely ignored in Taiwanese passports, hence their total absence in overseas Chinese's names.
If the syllable is not the first in a word, its first letter is not
capitalized, even if it is a
proper noun. The use of apostrophes, hyphens, and capitalization is frequently not observed in placenames and personal names. For example, the majority of
overseas Chinese of
Taiwanese origin write their
given names like "Tai Lun" or "Tai-Lun", whereas the Wade-Giles actually writes "Tai-lun". The capitalization issue arises partly because ROC passports indiscriminately capitalize all letters of the holder's names (beside the photograph). It is also due to the misunderstanding that the second syllable is a
middle name. (See also
Chinese name)
Wade-Giles uses superscript
numbers to indicate
tone, and official Pinyin uses diacritics. The tone marks are ignored except in
textbooks.
* Wade-Giles chose the
French-like
j to represent a Northerner's pronunciation of what now is represented as
r in Pinyin.
*
Ü (as in 玉 "jade") always has a
diaresis above, while Pinyin only employs it in the cases of
lü,
lüe,
nü,
nüe, while leaving it out in
ju-,
qu-,
xu-, and
yu-, because
u cannot otherwise appear in those positions.
* The Pinyin
vowel cluster
ong is
ung in Wade-Giles. (See
Confucius as an example.)
* After a consonant, the Wade-Giles vowel cluster
uei is written
ui in pinyin. However, both Romanizations, unlike some others, use
iu and
un instead of the complete syllables:
iou and
uen.
*
Single i is never preceded by
y, as in pinyin. The only exception is in
placenames, which are hyphenless, so without a
y, syllable ambiguity could arise.
* The isolated syllable
eh is written as
ê, like in Pinyin. (
Schwa is occasionally written as
ê as well.) But unlike Pinyin, which uses
-e if there is a consonant preceding the sound, Wade-Giles uses
-eh. (See
circumflex)
* In addition to being the
schwa,
ê also represents the Pinyin
er as
êrh.
Postal System Pinyin is based on Wade-Giles, but incorporating a number of exceptions that override the systematic rules.
*
Cyrillization of Chinese from Wade-Giles*
Daoism-Taoism Romanization issue, an exceptional example for employing Wade-Giles instead of pinyin.
*
Chinese Romanization Converter - Convert between Hanyu Pinyin, Wade-Giles, Gwoyeu Romatzyh and other known or (un-)common Romanization systems.
*
Wade-Giles ' Zhuyin ' Pinyin conversion table (See
Zhuyin)
*
Pinyin ' Wade-Giles ' Zhuyin conversion table*
A conversion table of Chinese provinces and cities from Wade-Giles to Pinyin*
Pinyin4j: Java library supporting Chinese to Wade-Giles Support Simplified and Tranditional Chinese; Support most popular Pinyin systems, including Hanyu Pinyin, Tongyong Pinyin, Wade-Giles, MPS2, Yale and Gwoyeu Romatzyh; Support multiple pronunciations of a single character; Support customized output, such as ü or tone marks.
*
Pronunciation Guide From Chuang Tzu's Genius of the Absurd
