This Wade–Giles table is a complete listing of all
Wade–Giles
Wade–Giles ( ) is a romanization system for Mandarin Chinese. It developed from the system produced by Thomas Francis Wade during the mid-19th century, and was given completed form with Herbert Giles's '' A Chinese–English Dictionary'' ...
syllables used in
Standard Chinese
Standard Chinese ( zh, s=现代标准汉语, t=現代標準漢語, p=Xiàndài biāozhǔn hànyǔ, l=modern standard Han speech) is a modern standard form of Mandarin Chinese that was first codified during the republican era (1912–1949). ...
.
['' A Chinese-English Dictionary''.] Each syllable in a cell is composed of an
initial
In a written or published work, an initial is a letter at the beginning of a word, a chapter (books), chapter, or a paragraph that is larger than the rest of the text. The word is ultimately derived from the Latin ''initiālis'', which means '' ...
(columns) and a
final
Final, Finals or The Final may refer to:
*Final examination or finals, a test given at the end of a course of study or training
*Final (competition), the last or championship round of a sporting competition, match, game, or other contest which d ...
(rows). An empty cell indicates that the corresponding syllable does not exist in Standard Chinese.
The below table indicates possible combinations of
initials
In a written or published work, an initial is a letter at the beginning of a word, a chapter, or a paragraph that is larger than the rest of the text. The word is ultimately derived from the Latin ''initiālis'', which means ''of the beginning ...
and
finals
Final, Finals or The Final may refer to:
*Final examination or finals, a test given at the end of a course of study or training
*Final (competition), the last or championship round of a sporting competition, match, game, or other contest which d ...
in Standard Chinese, but does not indicate
tones, which are equally important to the proper pronunciation of Chinese. Although some initial-final combinations occur with each of the five different tones, most do not. Some only occur with one tone.
Finals
Final, Finals or The Final may refer to:
*Final examination or finals, a test given at the end of a course of study or training
*Final (competition), the last or championship round of a sporting competition, match, game, or other contest which d ...
are grouped into subsets ''a'', ''i'', ''u'' and ''ü''. ''i'', ''u'' and ''ü'' groupings indicate a combination of those finals with finals from Group ''a''. The following exceptions exist:
Most syllables are a combination of an initial and a final. However, some syllables have no initials. These are written in Wade–Giles according to the following rules:
*if the final begins with a ''u'', replace the ''u'' with a ''w''
*if the final begins with an ''ü'', add ''y'' in the beginning (no exceptions)
*if the final begins with an ''i'', replace the ''i'' with a ''y'' if there are other vowels; if there are no other vowels, add ''y'' in the beginning
*if the final begins in any other way, keep the final as is
*exceptions to the rules above are indicated by blue in the table's ''no initial'' column:
::Colour Legend:
::
::Syllables that end with ''o'' have either the ''o/uo'' final or the ''ê/o'' final:
::
See also
*
Wade–Giles
Wade–Giles ( ) is a romanization system for Mandarin Chinese. It developed from the system produced by Thomas Francis Wade during the mid-19th century, and was given completed form with Herbert Giles's '' A Chinese–English Dictionary'' ...
*
Pinyin table
*
Palladius table
*
Zhuyin table
References
{{DEFAULTSORT:Wade-Giles table
Romanization of Chinese