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Wade-Giles (), sometimes abbreviated '''Wade''', is a Romanization (phonetic notation and Transliteration ) system 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 1912 . It was the main system of transliteration in the English-speaking world for most of the 20th Century , replacing the Nanjing -based romanization systems that had been common until late in the 19th Century . It was mostly replaced by Pinyin system today but its use can still be seen in Taiwan . HISTORY The Wade-Giles system was designed to transliterate 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 has used Wade-Giles for decades as the De Facto standard, co-existing with several official but obscure Romanization s in succession, namely, Gwoyeu Romatzyh ( 1928 ), MPS II ( 1986 ), and Tongyong Pinyin ( 2000 ). Taiwanese placenames in international use have still been virtually all in Wade-Giles. Many Taiwanese American s and Taiwanese Canadians also have their Chinese names written in Wade-Giles, while consistently ignoring some Punctuation . 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 an about-turn in government policy reversed the requirement to register people's Chinese names in Pinyin. Wade-Giles spellings for Taiwanese placenames and words long accepted in English usage are still used interchangeably in English language texts in both countries, however. The famous past Chinese men Confucius and Mencius , who became known of in Europe early, are usually known in these Latin ized forms. ONE SYMBOL-MULTIPLE SOUNDS A common complaint about the Wade-Giles system is the representation of the unaspirated-aspirated 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.'' 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:
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''.
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 (空韻):
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 What is actually pronounced as ''-uo'' is virtually always written as ''-o'' in Wade-Giles, except ''shuo'' and the three syllables of ''kuo'', ''k PUNCTUATION In addition to the Apostrophe s used for distinguishing the Multiple Sounds Of A Single Latin Symbol , Wade-Giles uses Hyphen s to separate all Syllable s 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 total absence in overseas Chinese's 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 Taiwan ese origin write their Given Name s 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 Number s to indicate Tone , and official Pinyin uses diacritics. The tone marks are ignored except in Textbook s. OTHER DIFFERENCES WITH PINYIN
INFLUENCES Postal System Pinyin is based on Wade-Giles, but incorporating a number of exceptions that override the systematic rules. SEE ALSO
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