Wade–Giles (; ; Wade-Giles: Wei-t'o-ma P'in-yin
), sometimes abbreviated
Wade, is a
romanization system for the
Mandarin language used in
Beijing. It developed from a system produced by
Thomas Wade during the mid-19th century, and was given completed form with
Herbert Giles'
Chinese–
English dictionary of 1892.
Wade–Giles was the main system of transcription in the English-speaking world for most of the 20th century, used in several standard reference books and in all books about
China published before 1979. It replaced the
Nanjing-based romanization systems that had been common until late in the 19th century. It has mostly been replaced by the
pinyin system (developed by the Chinese government and approved during 1958) nowadays, but parts of it, especially the names of individuals and certain cities remain in use in the
Republic of China (Taiwan).
History
Wade–Giles was developed by
Thomas Francis Wade, a British ambassador in China and Chinese scholar who was the first professor of Chinese at
Cambridge University. Wade published the first Chinese textbook in English in 1867. The system was refined in 1912 by
Herbert Allen Giles, a British diplomat in China and his son,
Lionel Giles, a curator at the British Museum.
The Wade–Giles system was designed to transcribe Chinese terms, for Chinese specialists.
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). With the election of the Nationalist government in 2008, Taiwan has officially switched to
Hanyu pinyin. However, many signs and maps in Taiwan are still in Wade–Giles, and many overseas Chinese write their Chinese names in Wade–Giles.
Wade–Giles spellings and pinyin spellings for Taiwanese place names and words long accepted in English usage are still used interchangeably in English-language texts in both countries.
Technical aspects
Multi-sound symbols
A common 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'. However, the use of apostrophes preserves
b,
d,
g, and
j for the romanization of
Chinese languages 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 Romanisation) 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 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, 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.
Furthermore, Wade uses
lo for three distinct sounds (
le,
luo, and
lo in Pinyin);
jo for two (
re and
ruo); and
no for two (
ne and
nuo).
Multi-symbol sounds
In addition to several sounds presented using the same letter(s), sometimes, one single sound is represented using several sets of letters. There exist 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-.
Precision with empty rime
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 ():
- -u (formerly û) after the sibilant tz, tz', and ss (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 indistinguishable 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.
Partial interchangeability of uo and e with o
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.
Punctuation
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 invariably use the plain apostrophe ('). Apostrophes are completely ignored in Taiwanese passports, hence their absence in
overseas Chinese 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.
Comparison with pinyin
- Wade–Giles chose the French-like j to represent a Northerner's pronunciation of what now is represented as r in Pinyin.
- Ü always has a 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.
Comparison chart
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.
Influences
Chinese Postal Map Romanization is based on Wade–Giles, but incorporating a number of exceptions that override the systematic rules.
See also
