(Redirected from Wade-giles)
'Wade-Giles' (), sometimes abbreviated 'Wade', is a
Romanization system (phonetic notation and
transcription) 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.
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.
[1] 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 It has mostly been replaced by the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 today, but remains in use in the
Republic of China (
Taiwan).
Transcription, not transliteration
Although frequently improperly called "transliteration", Wade-Giles' system is a
transcription of Chinese. There can be no
transliteration of Chinese script into any phonetic script, like the
Latin (or
English)
alphabet. Any system of
romanization of Chinese renders the
sounds (pronunciation) and not the
ideographic characters (written form).
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.
[2]
The Wade-Giles system was designed to transcribe 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 place names are still being virtually written in Wade-Giles, and many
Chinese Americans and
Canadians also write their Chinese names in Wade-Giles.
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 a reversal of government policy changed the requirement to register people's Chinese names in Pinyin. 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
One symbol-multiple sounds
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-oē) 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.'' Another approach, adopted in the
Legge and
Simplified Wade systems, is to add the letter ''h'' instead of an apostrophe to indicate aspiration (this is similar to the superscript
h used in
IPA).
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''.
One sound-multiple symbols
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-''.
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 ''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.
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 always 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.
Other differences 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 (as in 玉 "jade") always has a
diaresis above, while Pinyin only employs it in the cases of ''nü'' and ''lü'', while leaving it out in ''-ue'', ''ju-'', ''qu-'', ''xu-'', ''-uan'' and ''yu-'' as a simplification because
u cannot otherwise appear in those positions.
★ 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''. 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''.
Comparison chart
Influences
Chinese Postal Map Romanization is based on Wade-Giles, but incorporating a number of exceptions that override the systematic rules.
See also
★
Simplified Wade
★
Cyrillization of Chinese from Wade-Giles
★
Daoism-Taoism Romanization issue
★
Legge romanization
References
1. World History; Perspectives on the Past, , Larry S., Krieger, D.C. Heath and Company, 1997,
2. Chinese Language Transliteration Systems -- Wade-Giles (Web archive)
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 conversion table (See
Zhuyin)
★
Pinyin → Wade-Giles → Zhuyin conversion table
★
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 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
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