Wade–Giles

Wade–Giles
Traditional Chinese	韋氏拼音
Simplified Chinese	韦氏拼音
Transcriptions Standard Mandarin Hanyu Pinyin Wéi Shì Pīnyīn Bopomofo ㄨㄟˊ ㄕˋ ㄆㄧㄣ ㄧㄣ Gwoyeu Romatzyh Wei Shyh Pin'in Wade–Giles Wei2-shih4 P'in1-yin1 Tongyong Pinyin Wéi Shìh Pinyin MPS2 Wéi Shr̀ Pīnyīn
Alternative name
Traditional Chinese	威妥瑪拼音
Simplified Chinese	威妥玛拼音
Transcriptions Standard Mandarin Hanyu Pinyin Wēituǒmǎ Pīnyīn Bopomofo ㄨㄟ ㄊㄨㄛˇ ㄇㄚˇ ㄆㄧㄣ ㄧㄣ Gwoyeu Romatzyh Ueituoomaa Pin'in Wade–Giles Wei1-t'o3-ma3 P'in1-yin1 Tongyong Pinyin Weituǒmǎ Pinyin MPS2 Wēituǒmǎ Pīnyīn

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

Wade–Giles was the system of transcription in the English-speaking world for most of the 20th century, used in standard reference books and in English language books published before 1979. It replaced the Nanjing-based romanization systems that had been common until the late 19th century, such as the Postal romanization (still used in some place-names). In mainland China it has been entirely replaced by the pinyin system approved in 1958. Outside mainland China, it has mostly been replaced by pinyin, even though Taiwan still implements a multitude of romanization systems in daily life. Additionally, its usage can still be seen in the common English names of certain individuals and locations such as 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, the Yü-yen tzu-erh chi (traditional: 語言自邇集; simplified: 语言自迩集), 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 1912 by Herbert Allen Giles, a British diplomat in China and his son, Lionel Giles, a curator at the British Museum.

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), Mandarin Phonetic Symbols II (1986), and Tongyong pinyin (2000). With the election of the Kuomintang party in Taiwan in 2008, Taiwan officially switched to Hanyu pinyin. However, people in Taiwan, both native and overseas, use or transcribe their legal names in the Wade–Giles system.

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 zhuyin fuhao and hanyu pinyin.

Initials

		Bilabial		Labiodental	Dental/Alveolar		Retroflex		Alveolo-palatal	Velar
		Voiceless	Voiced	Voiceless	Voiceless	Voiced	Voiceless	Voiced	Voiceless	Voiceless
Nasal			m [m] ㄇ m			n [n] ㄋ n
Plosive	Unaspirated	p [p] ㄅ b			t [t] ㄉ d					k [k] ㄍ g
	Aspirated	p' [pʰ] ㄆ p			t' [tʰ] ㄊ t					k' [kʰ] ㄎ k
Affricate	Unaspirated				ts [ts] ㄗ z		ch [ʈʂ] ㄓ zh		ch [tɕ] ㄐ j
	Aspirated				ts' [tsʰ] ㄘ c		ch' [ʈʂʰ] ㄔ ch		ch' [tɕʰ] ㄑ q
Fricative				f [f] ㄈ f	s [s] ㄙ s		sh [ʂ] ㄕ sh		hs [ɕ] ㄒ x	h [x] ㄏ h
Liquid						l [l] ㄌ l		j [ɻ] ㄖ r

For variant representations (ts, ts', ss, tz, tz', sz) used before the "empty rime", see the Empty rime section, below.

Finals

		Coda
		∅			/i/		/u/		/n/		/ŋ/			/ɻ/
Medial	∅	ih/û [ɨ] ㄭ -i	ê/o [ɤ] ㄜ e	a [a] ㄚ a	ei [ei̯] ㄟ ei	ai [ai̯] ㄞ ai	ou [ou̯] ㄡ ou	ao [au̯] ㄠ ao	ên [ən] ㄣ en	an [an] ㄢ an	ung [ʊŋ] ㄨㄥ ong	êng [əŋ] ㄥ eng	ang [aŋ] ㄤ ang	êrh [aɚ̯] ㄦ er
	/i/	i [i] ㄧ i	ieh [i̯e] ㄧㄝ ie	ia [i̯a] ㄧㄚ ia			iu [i̯ou̯] ㄧㄡ iu	iao [i̯au̯] ㄧㄠ iao	in [in] ㄧㄣ in	ien [i̯ɛn] ㄧㄢ ian	iung [i̯ʊŋ] ㄩㄥ iong	ing [iŋ] ㄧㄥ ing	iang [i̯aŋ] ㄧㄤ iang
	/u/	u [u] ㄨ u	o/uo [u̯o] ㄨㄛ uo	ua [u̯a] ㄨㄚ ua	ui [u̯ei̯] ㄨㄟ ui	uai [u̯ai̯] ㄨㄞ uai			un [u̯ən] ㄨㄣ un	uan [u̯an] ㄨㄢ uan		uêng [u̯əŋ] ㄨㄥ ueng	uang [u̯aŋ] ㄨㄤ uang
	/y/	ü [y] ㄩ ü	üeh [y̯e] ㄩㄝ üe						ün [yn] ㄩㄣ ün	üan [y̯ɛn] ㄩㄢ üan

System features

Consonants and initial symbols

A feature of the Wade–Giles system is the representation of the unaspirated-aspirated stop consonant pairs using apostrophes: p, p', t, t', k, k', ch, ch'. The use of apostrophes preserves b, d, g, and j for the romanization of Chinese varieties containing voiced consonants, such as Shanghainese (which has a full set of voiced consonants) and Min Nan (Hō-ló-oē) whose century-old Pe̍h-ōe-jī (POJ, often called Missionary Romanization) is similar to Wade–Giles. POJ, Legge romanization, Simplified Wade, and EFEO Chinese transcription use the letter ⟨h⟩ instead of an apostrophe to indicate aspiration (this is similar to the superscript ʰ used in IPA). The convention of the apostrophe or ⟨h⟩ to denote aspiration is also found in romanizations of other Asian languages, such as McCune–Reischauer for Korean and ISO 11940 for Thai.

People unfamiliar with Wade–Giles often ignore the apostrophes, sometimes omitting them 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.

Vowels and final symbols

Syllabic consonants

Wade–Giles shows precisions not found in other major Romanizations in regard to the rendering of the two types of syllabic consonant (simplified Chinese: 空韵; traditional Chinese: 空韻; pinyin: kōngyùn):

• -u (formerly û) after the sibilants written in this position as tz (ts), tz' (ts') and sz (ss) (pinyin z, c and s).
• -ih after the retroflex ch, ch', sh, and j (pinyin zh, ch, sh, and r).

These finals are both written as -i in Hanyu pinyin (hence distinguishable only by context from true i as in li), and as -ih in Tongyong pinyin. They are typically omitted in Zhuyin (Bopomofo).

IPA		ʈ͡ʂɻ̩	ʈ͡ʂʰɻ̩	ʂɻ̩	ɻɻ̩	t͡sɹ̩	t͡sʰɹ̩	sɹ̩
Wade–Giles	new	chih	ch'ih	shih	jih	tzu	tz'u	szu
	old					tsû	ts'û	ssû
Zhuyin		ㄓ	ㄔ	ㄕ	ㄖ	ㄗ	ㄘ	ㄙ
Pinyin		zhi	chi	shi	ri	zi	ci	si

Vowel o

Final o in Wade–Giles has two pronunciations in modern Mandarin: [u̯o] and [ɯ̯ɤ]. What is pronounced today as a close-mid back unrounded vowel is written usually as ê as in pinyin, but sometimes as o, depending on historical pronunciation (at the time Wade–Giles was developed). Notably, after velar initials k-, k'- and h- (and a historical ng-, which has been dropped by the time Wade–Giles was developed), o is used for characters like "哥" (Wade–Giles ko, pinyin ge), though ê also exists after velars, like in "刻" (Wade–Giles k'ê, pinyin ke). Ê is used in other environments. By modern Mandarin, -o after velars (and what used to be ng-) have shifted to -ê, thus they are written as ge, ke, he and e in pinyin.

What is pronounced today as -uo is virtually always written as -o in Wade–Giles, except for characters like "說" (pronounced shuo even back at the time Wade–Giles was developed) and the three syllables of kuo, k'uo, and huo (as in 過, 霍, etc.), which contrasted with ko, k'o, and ho that correspond to pinyin ge, ke, and he. This is because characters like 羅, 多, etc. (Wade–Giles: lo, to; pinyin: luo, duo) did not originally carry the medial -u-. By modern Mandarin, the phonemic distinction between -o and -uo has been lost (except in interjections when used alone), and the medial -u- is added in front of -o, creating the modern -uo.

IPA	pu̯o	pʰu̯o	mu̯o	fu̯o	tu̯o	tʰu̯o	nu̯o	lu̯o	kɤ	kʰɤ	xɤ	ʈʂu̯o	ʈʂʰu̯o	ʐu̯o	ʦu̯o	ʦʰu̯o	su̯o
Wade–Giles	po	p'o	mo	fo	to	t'o	no	lo	ko	k'o	ho	cho	ch'o	jo	tso	ts'o	so
Zhuyin	ㄅㄛ	ㄆㄛ	ㄇㄛ	ㄈㄛ	ㄉㄨㄛ	ㄊㄨㄛ	ㄋㄨㄛ	ㄌㄨㄛ	ㄍㄜ	ㄎㄜ	ㄏㄜ	ㄓㄨㄛ	ㄔㄨㄛ	ㄖㄨㄛ	ㄗㄨㄛ	ㄘㄨㄛ	ㄙㄨㄛ
Pinyin	bo	po	mo	fo	duo	tuo	nuo	luo	ge	ke	he	zhuo	chuo	ruo	zuo	cuo	suo

Tones

Tones are indicated in Wade–Giles using superscript numbers (1–4) placed after the syllable; the neutral tone is denoted either by the super-script number '5' or '0' or, sometimes, by the absence of tone number. This contrasts with the use of diacritics to represent the tones in pinyin. For example, the pinyin qiàn (fourth tone) has the Wade–Giles equivalent ch'ien⁴. The tone numbers are generally omitted except in textbooks.

Punctuation

Wade–Giles uses hyphens to separate all syllables within a word (whereas pinyin separates syllables only in ambiguous cases, using apostrophes, as in Xi'an).

If a syllable is not the first in a word, its first letter is not capitalized, even if it is part of a proper noun. The use of apostrophes, hyphens, and capitalization is frequently not observed in place names and personal names. For example, the majority of overseas Taiwanese write their given names like "Tai Lun" or "Tai-Lun", whereas the Wade–Giles is actually "Tai-lun". (See also Chinese name.)

For the apostrophes used in Wade–Giles to denote aspirated consonants, Giles's original dictionary used left apostrophes (‘) consistently. This orientation was followed in Sinological works until the 1950s or 60s, when it started to be gradually replaced by right apostrophes (’) in academic literature. Online publications almost invariably use the plain apostrophe ('). Apostrophes are not included in Taiwanese passports, and are absent in overseas Chinese names.

Comparison with other systems

Pinyin

• Wade–Giles chose the French-like j to represent a Northerner's pronunciation of what is represented as r in Pinyin.
• Ü always has a trema (diaeresis) above, while pinyin only employs it in the cases of nü, lü, nüe and lüe, while leaving it out in -ue, ju-, qu-, xu-, -uan and yu- as a simplification because u cannot otherwise appear in those positions. Because yü (as in 玉 "jade") must have a diaeresis in Wade, the diaeresis-less yu in Wade–Giles is freed up for what corresponds to you (有) in Pinyin.
• The pinyin vowel cluster ong is ung in Wade–Giles. (Compare Kung Fu to Gong Fu as an example.)
• After a consonant, both the Wade–Giles and Pinyin vowel cluster uei is written ui. Furthermore, both Romanizations 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.

Chart

Vowels a, e, o

IPA	a	ɔ	ɛ	ɤ	ai	ei	au	ou	an	ən	aŋ	əŋ	ʊŋ	aɹ
Pinyin	a	o	ê	e	ai	ei	ao	ou	an	en	ang	eng	ong	er
Tongyong Pinyin
Wade–Giles			eh	ê/o						ên		êng	ung	êrh
Bopomofo	ㄚ	ㄛ	ㄝ	ㄜ	ㄞ	ㄟ	ㄠ	ㄡ	ㄢ	ㄣ	ㄤ	ㄥ	ㄨㄥ	ㄦ
example	阿	喔	誒	俄	艾	黑	凹	偶	安	恩	昂	冷	中	二

Vowels i, u, y

IPA	i	je	jou	jɛn	in	iŋ	jʊŋ	u	wo	wei	wən	wəŋ	y	ɥe	ɥɛn	yn
Pinyin	yi	ye	you	yan	yin	ying	yong	wu	wo/o	wei	wen	weng	yu	yue	yuan	yun
Tongyong Pinyin											wun	wong
Wade–Giles	i/yi	yeh	yu	yen			yung				wên	wêng	yü	yüeh	yüan	yün
Bopomofo	ㄧ	ㄧㄝ	ㄧㄡ	ㄧㄢ	ㄧㄣ	ㄧㄥ	ㄩㄥ	ㄨ	ㄨㄛ/ㄛ	ㄨㄟ	ㄨㄣ	ㄨㄥ	ㄩ	ㄩㄝ	ㄩㄢ	ㄩㄣ
example	一	也	又	言	音	英	用	五	我	位	文	翁	玉	月	元	雲

Non-sibilant consonants

IPA	p	pʰ	m	fəŋ	tjou	twei	twən	tʰɤ	ny	ly	kɤ	kʰɤ	xɤ
Pinyin	b	p	m	feng	diu	dui	dun	te	nü	lü	ge	ke	he
Tongyong Pinyin				fong	diou	duei			nyu	lyu
Wade–Giles	p	pʻ		fêng	tiu	tui	tun	tʻê	nü	lü	ko	kʻo	ho
Bopomofo	ㄅ	ㄆ	ㄇ	ㄈㄥ	ㄉㄧㄡ	ㄉㄨㄟ	ㄉㄨㄣ	ㄊㄜ	ㄋㄩ	ㄌㄩ	ㄍㄜ	ㄎㄜ	ㄏㄜ
example	玻	婆	末	封	丟	兌	頓	特	女	旅	歌	可	何

Sibilant consonants

IPA	tɕjɛn	tɕjʊŋ	tɕʰin	ɕɥɛn	ʈʂɤ	ʈʂɨ	ʈʂʰɤ	ʈʂʰɨ	ʂɤ	ʂɨ	ɻɤ	ɻɨ	tsɤ	tswo	tsɨ	tsʰɤ	tsʰɨ	sɤ	sɨ
Pinyin	jian	jiong	qin	xuan	zhe	zhi	che	chi	she	shi	re	ri	ze	zuo	zi	ce	ci	se	si
Tongyong Pinyin		jyong	cin	syuan	jhe	jhih		chih		shih		rih			zih		cih		sih
Wade–Giles	chien	chiung	chʻin	hsüan	chê	chih	chʻê	chʻih	shê	shih	jê	jih	tsê	tso	tzŭ	tsʻê	tzʻŭ	sê	ssŭ
Bopomofo	ㄐㄧㄢ	ㄐㄩㄥ	ㄑㄧㄣ	ㄒㄩㄢ	ㄓㄜ	ㄓ	ㄔㄜ	ㄔ	ㄕㄜ	ㄕ	ㄖㄜ	ㄖ	ㄗㄜ	ㄗㄨㄛ	ㄗ	ㄘㄜ	ㄘ	ㄙㄜ	ㄙ
example	件	囧	秦	宣	哲	之	扯	赤	社	是	惹	日	仄	左	字	策	次	色	斯

Tones

IPA	ma˥	ma˧˥	ma˨˩˦	ma˥˩	ma
Pinyin	mā	má	mǎ	mà	ma
Tongyong Pinyin	ma				må
Wade–Giles	ma1	ma2	ma3	ma4	ma
Bopomofo	ㄇㄚ	ㄇㄚˊ	ㄇㄚˇ	ㄇㄚˋ	˙ㄇㄚ
example (Chinese characters)	媽	麻	馬	罵	嗎

Note: In Hanyu pinyin the so-called fifth accent (neutral accent) is written leaving the syllable with no diacritic mark at all. In Tongyong Pinyin a ring is written over the vowel instead.

Bastardized Wade-Giles (Intuitiveness Issues with Wade-Giles)

Due to the system's use of the apostrophe, or the ayn, to distinguish voiceless and voiced consonants, such as in "p'a" and "pa" respectively, rather than using separate letters like in Pinyin and many other romanisations, such as in "pa" and "ba" respectively, many Western scholars have omitted the apostrophe in transcribing Chinese words and names, assuming that it was an optional diacritic, thus leading to many Westerners mispronouncing many Chinese words and adding difficulty to Westerners trying to learn how to speak Mandarin. Examples of Mandarin Chinese words that have been frequently mispronounced are tai chi (which is actually pronounced more like "tai ji"), Tao ("Dao"), Peking ("Beijing"), Taichung ("Taizhong"), kung fu ("gong fu"), tofu ("dou fu"), and several others. Due to the unintuitiveness of the spelling system misleading Westerners, the Communist Party of China (CPC) made Pinyin the official romanization system of mainland China in the 1970s, which uses separate letters instead of apostrophes and tends to more accurately reflect modern Mandarin pronunciation for certain phonemes, like using the letter "j" as in "Beijing" instead of "k" as in "Peking".

See also

• Romanization of Chinese
• Wade–Giles table
• Simplified Wade
• Legge romanization
• Cyrillization of Chinese
• Daoism–Taoism romanization issue

External links

• Chinese Romanization Converter – Convert between Hanyu Pinyin, Wade–Giles, Gwoyeu Romatzyh and other known or (un-)common Romanization systems.
• Wade-Giles → Zhuyin → Pinyin → Word list
• A conversion table of Chinese provinces and cities from Wade-Giles to Pinyin
• Pinyin4j: Java library supporting Chinese to Wade-Giles – Support Simplified and Traditional 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.
• Chinese without a teacher, Chinese phrasebook by Herbert Giles with romanization
• Chinese Phonetic Conversion Tool – Converts between Wade–Giles and other formats
• Wade-Giles Annotation – Wade–Giles pronunciation and English definitions for Chinese text snippets or web pages.
• 國語拼音對照表