Wade–Giles

Wade–Giles
Script type romanization
CreatorThomas Wade and Herbert Giles
Created19th century
LanguagesMandarin Chinese
ISO 15924
ISO 15924BCP 47 variant subtag: wadegile
 This article contains phonetic transcriptions in the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA). For an introductory guide on IPA symbols, see Help:IPA. For the distinction between [ ], / / and ⟨ ⟩, see IPA § Brackets and transcription delimiters.
Map of the Taiwan Strait, featuring names using Wade–Giles in Taiwan versus those using pinyin in mainland China

Wade–Giles is a romanization system for the Mandarin Chinese language and the second most common transcription after Pinyin. Based on the Beijing dialect, Wade–Giles was developed from a system produced by Thomas Francis Wade during the mid-19th century, and was given completed form with Herbert Giles's A Chinese–English Dictionary (1892). It became the system of transcription familiar in the English-speaking world for most of the 20th century. It still sees majority usage for names in Taiwan, and has retained a "significant role" in international sinology.

In mainland China, Wade–Giles has been mostly replaced by Hanyu Pinyin, 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. In Taiwan, however, the romanized name for most locations, persons and other proper nouns is still based on the Wade–Giles derived romanized form, for example Kaohsiung, the Matsu Islands and Chiang Ching-kuo.

British library cataloguings adopted Pinyin in 1966, and Wade–Giles began to decline in the 1970s with the gradual acceptance of Pinyin by most nations by 1979 and by the ISO in 1982. It saw continued English publication as late as A.C. Graham's Disputers of the Tao (1989) and Livia Kohn's Lao-tzu and the Tao-te-Ching (1998), and in re-publications such as of Feng Youlan. The Cambridge History of China (2016) continues to use Wade–Giles in conformity with earlier editions.

History

Before the late 19th century, romanization was commonly based on the Nanjing dialect, as a prestigious form of speech at the time dating back to the early 1600s. Wade–Giles was developed by Thomas Francis Wade, a British ambassador in China and a scholar of Chinese who was the first professor of Chinese at the University of Cambridge. Wade published Yü-yen Tzŭ-erh Chi (語言自邇集; 语言自迩集) in 1867, the first textbook on the Beijing dialect of Mandarin in English, which became the basis for the system later known as Wade–Giles. The system was designed to transcribe Chinese terms for Chinese specialists, and was further refined in 1892 in A Chinese–English Dictionary by Herbert Giles, a British diplomat in China, and his son Lionel Giles, a curator at the British Museum.

In the west, Wade–Giles saw early competition with Yale romanization from World War II to the late 1970s, with field manuals reworked into college textbooks.

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). In 2009, under Ma Ying-jeou's Kuomintang-led government, Taiwan officially adopted Pinyin, and the English romanizations on a number of street signs in cities with Kuomintang mayors were switched over to conform to this. However, a majority of Taiwanese people, both resident and overseas, still spell romanized Chinese words and transcribe their legal names using 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 Hanyu Pinyin.

Initials

Labial Dental/AlveolarRetroflex Alveolo-palatalVelar
Nasal m [m]
ㄇ m		n [n]
ㄋ n
PlosiveUnaspirated p [p]
ㄅ b		 t [t]
ㄉ d		 k [k]
ㄍ g
Aspirated pʻ [pʰ]
ㄆ p		 tʻ [tʰ]
ㄊ t		 kʻ [kʰ]
ㄎ k
AffricateUnaspirated ts [ts]
ㄗ z		 ch [ʈʂ]
ㄓ zh		 ch [tɕ]
ㄐ j
Aspirated tsʻ [tsʰ]
ㄘ c		 chʻ [ʈʂʰ]
ㄔ ch		 chʻ [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~ʐ]
ㄖ r

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

Finals

Coda
∅/i//u//n//ŋ//ɻ/
Medial ∅ ih/ŭ
[ɨ]
ㄭ -i		ê/o
[ɤ]
ㄜ e		a
[a]
ㄚ a		 ei
[ei]
ㄟ ei		ai
[ai]
ㄞ ai		 ou
[ou]
ㄡ ou		ao
[au]
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
/j/ i
[i]
ㄧ i		ieh
[je]
ㄧㄝ ie		ia
[ja]
ㄧㄚ ia		 iu
[jou]
ㄧㄡ iu		iao
[jau]
ㄧㄠ iao		 in
[in]
ㄧㄣ in		ien
[jɛn]
ㄧㄢ ian		 iung
[jʊŋ]
ㄩㄥ iong		ing
[iŋ]
ㄧㄥ ing		iang
[jaŋ]
ㄧㄤ iang
/w/ u
[u]
ㄨ u		o/uo
[wo]
ㄛ/ㄨㄛ o/uo		ua
[wa]
ㄨㄚ ua		ui/uei
[wei]
ㄨㄟ ui		uai
[wai]
ㄨㄞ uai		 un
[wən]
ㄨㄣ un		uan
[wan]
ㄨㄢ uan		 uang
[waŋ]
ㄨㄤ uang
/ɥ/ ü
[y]
ㄩ ü		üeh
[ɥe]
ㄩㄝ üe		 ün
[yn]
ㄩㄣ ün		üan
[ɥɛn]
ㄩㄢ üan

Wade–Giles writes -uei after kʻ and k, otherwise -ui: kʻuei, kuei, hui, shui, chʻui.

It writes [-ɤ] as -o after kʻ, k and h, otherwise as -ê: kʻo, ko, ho, shê, chʻê. When [ɤ] forms a syllable on its own, it is written ê or o depending on the character.

Wade–Giles writes [-wo] as -uo after kʻ, k, h and sh, otherwise as -o: kʻuo, kuo, huo, shuo, bo, tso. After chʻ, it is written chʻo or chʻuo depending on the character.

For -ih and -ŭ, see below.

Giles's A Chinese–English Dictionary also includes the finals -io (in yo, chio, chʻio, hsio, lio and nio) and -üo (in chüo, chʻüo, hsüo, lüo and nüo), both of which are pronounced -üeh in modern Standard Chinese: yüeh, chüeh, chʻüeh, hsüeh, lüeh and nüeh.

Syllables that begin with a medial

Coda
∅/i//u//n//ŋ/
Medial /j/ i/yi
[i]
ㄧ yi		yeh
[je]
ㄧㄝ ye		ya
[ja]
ㄧㄚ ya		 yai
[jai]
ㄧㄞ yai		 yu
[jou]
ㄧㄡ you		yao
[jau]
ㄧㄠ yao		 yin
[in]
ㄧㄣ yin		yen
[jɛn]
ㄧㄢ yan		 yung
[jʊŋ]
ㄩㄥ yong		ying
[iŋ]
ㄧㄥ ying		yang
[jaŋ]
ㄧㄤ yang
/w/ wu
[u]
ㄨ wu		wo
[wo]
ㄨㄛ wo		wa
[wa]
ㄨㄚ wa		 wei
[wei]
ㄨㄟ wei		wai
[wai]
ㄨㄞ wai		 wên
[wən]
ㄨㄣ wen		wan
[wan]
ㄨㄢ wan		 wêng
[wəŋ]
ㄨㄥ weng		wang
[waŋ]
ㄨㄤ wang
/ɥ/ yü
[y]
ㄩ yu		yüeh
[ɥe]
ㄩㄝ yue		 yün
[yn]
ㄩㄣ yun		yüan
[ɥɛn]
ㄩㄢ yuan

Wade–Giles writes the syllable [i] 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 used the spiritus asper (ʽ or ʻ), borrowed from the polytonic orthography of the Ancient Greek language. Herbert Giles and others used a left (opening) curved single quotation mark (‘) for the same purpose. A third group used a plain apostrophe ('). The backtick, and visually similar characters, are sometimes seen in electronic documents using the system.

Examples using the spiritus asper: p, pʻ, t, tʻ, k, kʻ, ch, chʻ. The use of this character 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-like character to indicate aspiration. (This is similar to the obsolete IPA convention before the revisions of the 1970s). The convention of an apostrophe-like character 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 spiritus asper, 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 (which are 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 apostrophe-like characters, the four sounds represented in Hanyu Pinyin by j, q, zh, and ch often all become ch, including in many proper names. However, if the apostrophe-like characters are kept, the system reveals a symmetry that leaves no overlap:

Vowels and final symbols

Syllabic consonants

Like Yale and Mandarin Phonetic Symbols II, Wade–Giles renders the two types of syllabic consonant (simplified Chinese: 空韵; traditional Chinese: 空韻; Wade–Giles: kʻung1-yün4; Hanyu Pinyin: kōngyùn) differently:

  • -ŭ is used after the sibilants written in this position (and this position only) as tz, tzʻ and ss (Pinyin z, c and s).
  • -ih is used after the retroflex ch, chʻ, sh, and j (Pinyin zh, ch, sh, and r).

These finals are both written as -ih in Tongyong Pinyin, as -i in Hanyu Pinyin (hence distinguishable only by the initial from [i] as in li), and as -y in Gwoyeu Romatzyh and Simplified Wade. They are typically omitted in Bopomofo.

IPA ʈ͡ʂɻ̩ʈ͡ʂʰɻ̩ʂɻ̩ɻɻ̩t͡sɹ̩t͡sʰɹ̩sɹ̩
Yale jrchrshrrdztszsz
MPS II jrchrshrrtztszsz
Wade–Giles chihchʻihshihjihtzŭtzʻŭssŭ
Tongyong Pinyin jhihchihshihrihzihcihsih
Hanyu Pinyin zhichishirizicisi
Gwoyeu Romatzyh jychyshyrytzytsysy
Simplified Wade chychhyshyrytsytshysy
Bopomofo ㄓㄔㄕㄖㄗㄘㄙ

Vowel o

Final o in Wade–Giles has two pronunciations in modern Peking dialect: [wo] and [ɤ].

What is pronounced in vernacular Peking dialect as a close-mid back unrounded vowel [ɤ] is written usually as ê, but sometimes as o, depending on historical pronunciation (at the time Wade–Giles was developed). Specifically, after velar initials k, kʻ and h (and a historical ng, which had been dropped by the time Wade–Giles was developed), o is used; for example, "哥" is ko1 (Pinyin gē) and "刻" is kʻo4 (Pinyin kè). In Peking dialect, o after velars (and what used to be ng) have shifted to [ɤ], thus they are written as ge, ke, he and e in Pinyin. When [ɤ] forms a syllable on its own, Wade–Giles writes ê or o depending on the character. In all other circumstances, it writes ê.

What is pronounced in Peking dialect as [wo] is usually written as o in Wade–Giles, except for wo, shuo (e.g. "說" shuo1) and the three syllables of kuo, kʻuo, and huo (as in 過, 霍, etc.), which contrast with ko, kʻo, and ho that correspond to Pinyin ge, ke, and he. This is because characters like 羅, 多, etc. (Wade–Giles: lo2, to1; Pinyin: luó, duō) did not originally carry the medial [w]. Peking dialect does not have phonemic contrast between o and -uo/wo (except in interjections when used alone) and a medial [w] is usually inserted in front of -o to form [wo].

IPA pwopʰwomwofwotwotʰwonwolwokɤkʰɤxɤʈ͡ʂwoʈ͡ʂʰwoʐwot͡swot͡sʰwoswoɤwo
Wade–Giles popʻomofototʻonolokokʻohochochʻojotsotsʻosoo/êwo
Zhuyin ㄅㄛㄆㄛㄇㄛㄈㄛㄉㄨㄛㄊㄨㄛㄋㄨㄛㄌㄨㄛㄍㄜㄎㄜㄏㄜㄓㄨㄛㄔㄨㄛㄖㄨㄛㄗㄨㄛㄘㄨㄛㄙㄨㄛㄜㄨㄛ
Pinyin bopomofoduotuonuoluogekehezhuochuoruozuocuosuoewo

Zhuyin and Pinyin write [wo] as ㄛ -o after ㄅ b, ㄆ p, ㄇ m and ㄈ f, and as ㄨㄛ -uo after all other initials.

Tones

Tones are indicated in Wade–Giles using superscript numbers (1–4) placed after the syllable. 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 chʻien4.

Tone Sample text

(s; t; lit)

 Hanyu Pinyin Wade–Giles
1. high 妈; 媽; 'mom' mā ma1
2. rising 麻; 麻; 'hemp' má ma2
3. low (dipping) 马; 馬; 'horse' mǎ ma3
4. falling 骂; 罵; 'scold' mà ma4
5. neutral 吗; 嗎; (interrogative) ma ma
  1. ↑ See neutral tone for more.

Punctuation

Wade–Giles uses hyphens to separate all syllables within a word (whereas Pinyin separates syllables only in specially defined cases, using hyphens or closing (right) single quotation marks as appropriate).

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 apostrophe-like characters, hyphens, and capitalization is frequently not observed in place names and personal names. For example, the majority of overseas Taiwanese people write their given names like "Tai Lun" or "Tai-Lun", whereas the Wade–Giles is actually "Tai-lun". (See also Chinese names.)

Comparison with other systems

Pinyin

Chart

Vowels a, e, o
IPA a ɔ ɛ ɤ ai ei au ou an ən aŋ əŋ ʊŋ aɹ
Pinyin aoêeaieiaoouanenangengonger
Tongyong Pinyin
Wade–Giles ehê/oênêngungêrh
Bopomofo ㄚㄛㄝㄜㄞㄟㄠㄡㄢㄣㄤㄥㄨㄥㄦ
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 yiyeyouyanyinyingyongwuwo/oweiwenwengyuyueyuanyun
Tongyong Pinyin wunwong
Wade–Giles i/yiyehyuyenyungwênwêngyüyüehyüanyün
Bopomofo ㄧㄧㄝㄧㄡㄧㄢㄧㄣㄧㄥㄩㄥㄨㄨㄛ/ㄛㄨㄟㄨㄣㄨㄥㄩㄩㄝㄩㄢㄩㄣ
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 bpmfengdiuduiduntenülügekehe
Tongyong Pinyin fongdioudueinyulyu
Wade–Giles ppʻfêngtiutuituntʻênülükokʻoho
Bopomofo ㄅㄆㄇㄈㄥㄉㄧㄡㄉㄨㄟㄉㄨㄣㄊㄜㄋㄩㄌㄩㄍㄜㄎㄜㄏㄜ
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 tsʰwo tsʰɨ sɤ swo sɨ
Pinyin jianjiongqinxuanzhezhichechisheshirerizezuozicecuocisesuosi
Tongyong Pinyin jyongcinsyuanjhejhihchihshihrihzihcihsih
Wade–Giles chienchiungchʻinhsüanchêchihchʻêchʻihshêshihjêjihtsêtsotzŭtsʻêtsʻotzʻŭsêsossŭ
Bopomofo ㄐㄧㄢㄐㄩㄥㄑㄧㄣㄒㄩㄢㄓㄜㄓㄔㄜㄔㄕㄜㄕㄖㄜㄖㄗㄜㄗㄨㄛㄗㄘㄜㄘㄨㄛㄘㄙㄜㄙㄨㄛㄙ
example 件囧秦宣哲之扯赤社是惹日仄左字策撮次色索斯
Tones
IPA ma˥ ma˧˥ ma˨˩˦ ma˥˩ ma
Pinyin māmámǎmàma
Tongyong Pinyin mamå
Wade–Giles ma1ma2ma3ma4ma
Bopomofo ㄇㄚㄇㄚˊㄇㄚˇㄇㄚˋ˙ㄇㄚ
example (Chinese characters) 媽麻馬罵嗎

Note: In Hanyu Pinyin, the so-called neutral tone is written leaving the syllable with no diacritic mark at all. In Tongyong Pinyin, a ring is written over the vowel.

Adaptations

There are several adaptations of Wade–Giles.

Mathews

The romanization system used in the 1943 edition of Mathews' Chinese–English Dictionary differs from Wade–Giles in the following ways:

Shadick

In Harold Shadick's A First Course in Literary Chinese, the following modifications are made to Wade–Giles:

The Chinese phrase 文言文入門 (Wên2-yen2 wên2 ju4-mên2) would thus be romanized as Wén-yén wén jù-mén.

Anderson

This adaptation of Wade–Giles by Olov Anderson has several distinctive features, most notably the use of tonal spelling and the replacement of apostrophes with the letter ⟨h⟩. For example, the aspirated consonants pʻ, tʻ and kʻ become ph, th and kh. Tones are marked by appending the silent letters ⟨v⟩, ⟨x⟩ and ⟨z⟩ to a syllable. Additionally, ŭ is written as y, and circumflexes and -h are dropped in the final position.

Table

Examples of Wade–Giles derived English language terminology:

See also

References

  1. ↑ "Language Subtag Registry". IANA. Retrieved 13 March 2024.
  2. ↑ Citation (Chicago): Wiedenhof, Jeroen. 2004. "Purpose and effect in the transcription of Mandarin." Journal of Asian Pacific Communication 14 (1): 11–32. p. 389, 391
  3. ↑ Gilkes, S. (1998). Bibliographic control of Chinese material in the United Kingdom. Chinese Librarianship: An International Electronic Journal, (6)
  4. ↑ Citation (Chicago): Wiedenhof, Jeroen. 2004. "Purpose and effect in the transcription of Mandarin." Journal of Asian Pacific Communication 14 (1): 11–32. p.390
    • Chung, K. S. (2016). Wade–Giles Romanization system. In Sin-Wai, C. (Ed.), The Routledge Encyclopedia of the Chinese Language (pp. 795–815). Routledge.
    • Arsenault, Clement. "Pinyin romanization for OPAC retrieval--is everyone being served?" Information Technology and Libraries, vol. 21, no. 2, June 2002, pp. 45+. Gale Academic OneFile, link.gale.com/apps/doc/A87917105/AONE?u=anon~99236a78&sid=googleScholar&xid=5c4fe49d. Accessed 14 June 2026.
  5. ↑ Graham 1989. p. X (preface), Michael LaFargue 1998 p.xiii
  6. ↑ Youlan Feng (1997) [1948]. A Short History of Chinese Philosophy. ISBN 978-0-684-83634-8.
  7. ↑ The Ch'ing Dynasty to 1800, Part 2 (edited by Peterson) April 2016. ISBN 978-0-521-24335-3.
  8. ↑ Chung, K. S. (2016). Wade–Giles Romanization system. In Sin-Wai, C. (Ed.), The Routledge Encyclopedia of the Chinese Language (pp. 795–815). Routledge.
  9. ↑ Wade, Thomas Francis (1867). Yü-yen Tzŭ-erh Chi: A Progressive Course Designed to Assist the Student of Colloquial Chinese, As Spoken in the Capital and the Metropolitan Department (in Chinese). London: Trübner.
  10. ↑ Kaske, Elisabeth (2008). The Politics of Language in Chinese Education: 1895–1919. Brill. p. 68. ISBN 978-9-004-16367-6.
  11. ↑ Giles, Lionel (1910). Sun Tzu on the Art of War. London: Luzac & Co. Title page.
  12. ↑ "Chinese Language Transliteration Systems – Wade–Giles". UCLA film and television archive. Archived from the original on 28 January 2007. Retrieved 4 August 2007. (Web archive)
  13. ↑ Citation (Chicago): Wiedenhof, Jeroen. 2004. "Purpose and effect in the transcription of Mandarin." Journal of Asian Pacific Communication 14 (1): 11–32. p.389
  14. ↑ Shih, Hsiu-Chuan (18 September 2008). "Hanyu Pinyin to be standard system in 2009".
  15. ↑ "綠委：台灣使用漢語拼音　成為中國一部分" [DPP legislator: Taiwan to use Hanyu Pinyin; incorporation into China]. China Review News (in Chinese). 17 June 2011.
  16. ↑ "Wade-Giles romanization | Pinyin, Mandarin & Romanization | Britannica". Encyclopedia Britannica. Archived from the original on 2 January 2026. Retrieved 13 March 2026.
  17. ↑ A Chinese–English Dictionary.
  18. ↑ A Chinese–English Dictionary, p. 761.
  19. ↑ Mathews' Chinese–English Dictionary.
  20. ↑ Shadick, Harold (1968). A First Course in Literary Chinese. Cornell University Press. p. 159. ISBN 0801498376.

Bibliography

Further reading