Wade–Giles System

Wade–Giles () is a romanization system for Mandarin Chinese. It developed from a system produced by Thomas Francis Wade, during the mid-19th century, and was given completed form with Herbert A. Giles's '' Chinese–English Dictionary'' of 1892.

The romanization systems in common use until the late 19th century were based on the Nanjing dialect, but Wade–Giles was based on the Beijing dialect and was the system of transcription familiar in the English-speaking world for most of the 20th century. Both of these kinds of transcription were used in postal romanizations (romanized place-names standardized for postal uses). In mainland China Wade–Giles has been mostly replaced by the Hanyu Pinyin romanization system, which was officially adopted in 1958, with exceptions for the romanized forms of some of the most commonly-used names of locations and persons, and other proper nouns. The romanized name for most locations, persons and other proper nouns in Taiwan is based on the Wade–Giles derived romanized form, for example Kaohsiung, the Matsu Islands and Chiang Ching-kuo.

History

Wade–Giles was developed by Thomas Francis Wade, a scholar of Chinese and a British ambassador in China who was the first professor of Chinese at Cambridge University. Wade published in 1867 the first textbook on the Beijing dialect of Mandarin in English,
Yü-yen Tzŭ-erh Chi
' (), which became the basis for the romanization system later known as Wade–Giles. The system, designed to transcribe Chinese terms for Chinese specialists, was further refined in 1892 by Herbert Allen Giles (in '' A Chinese–English Dictionary''), a British diplomat in China and his son, Lionel Giles, a curator at the British Museum.

Taiwan used Wade–Giles for decades as the ''de facto'' standard, co-existing with several official romanizations in succession, namely, Gwoyeu Romatzyh (1928), Mandarin Phonetic Symbols II (1986), and Tongyong Pinyin (2000). The Kuomintang party has previously promoted Hànyǔ Pīnyīn with Ma Ying-jeou's successful presidential bid in 2008 and in a number of cities with Kuomintang elected mayors. However, the current Tsai Ing-wen administration and Democratic Progressive Party along with the majority of the people in Taiwan, both native and overseas, use spelling and transcribe their legal names in the Wade–Giles system, as well as the other aforementioned systems.

Initials and finals

The tables below show the Wade–Giles representation of each Chinese sound (in bold type), together with the corresponding IPA phonetic symbol (in square brackets), and equivalent representations in Bopomofo and Hànyǔ Pīnyīn.

Initials

Instead of ''ts'', ''ts'' and ''s'', Wade–Giles writes ''tz'', ''tz'' and ''ss'' before ''ŭ'' (see below).

Finals

Wade–Giles writes ''-uei'' after ''k'' and ''k'', otherwise ''-ui'': ''kuei'', ''kuei'', ''hui'', ''shui'', ''chui''.

It writes as ''-o'' after ''k'', ''k'' and ''h'', otherwise as ''-ê'': ''ko'', ''ko'', ''ho'', ''shê'', ''chê''. When forms a syllable on its own, it is written ''ê'' or ''o'' depending on the character.

Wade–Giles writes as ''-uo'' after ''k'', ''k'', ''h'' and ''sh'', otherwise as ''-o'': ''kuo'', ''kuo'', ''huo'', ''shuo'', ''cho''.

For ''-ih'' and ''-ŭ'', see below.

Giles's '' A Chinese–English Dictionary'' also includes the syllables ''chio'', ''chio'', ''hsio'', ''yo'', which are pronounced like ''chüeh'', ''chüeh'', ''hsüeh'', ''yüeh'' in Peking dialect.

Syllables that begin with a medial

Wade–Giles writes the syllable as ''i'' or ''yi'' depending on the character.

System features

Consonants and initial symbols

A feature of the Wade–Giles system is the representation of the unaspirated-aspirated stop consonant pairs using a character resembling an apostrophe. Thomas Wade and others have used the spiritus asper ( or ), borrowed from the polytonic orthography of the Ancient Greek language. Herbert Giles and others have used a left (opening) curved single quotation mark