What is Wade-Giles?
Q: What is Wade-Giles?
A: Wade–Giles is a Romanization system for the Chinese language that was developed by Thomas Wade in the mid-19th century and fully developed in Herbert Giles's 1892 Chinese-English dictionary.
Q: When did it replace other romanization systems?
A: It replaced the Nanjing-based romanization systems that was common until the late 19th century.
Q: How is it used today?
A: Today, Wade–Giles has been largely replaced by Pinyin, but it still remains in use in Taiwan (Republic of China).
Q: What feature does Wade–Giles have to mark aspirated consonants?
A: In Wade–Giles, an apostrophe is used to mark aspirated consonants or breathy consonants.
Q: Why does Chinese not have voiced stop consonants, fricatives, or affricates like English?
A: Chinese only distinguishes between aspirated and unaspirated sounds, so there are no voiced stop consonants, fricatives, or affricates like English.
Q: What happens when people who do not know the Wade-Giles spelling read words with an apostrophe?
A: People who do not understand the apostrophe often ignore it when reading or copying down Chinese words which can lead to them saying words incorrectly such as Tao, tai chi and kung fu. This type of incorrect spelling is called bastardized Wade-Giles.
