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.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
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,Gilkes, S. (1998). Bibliographic control of Chinese material in the United Kingdom. Chinese Librarianship: An International Electronic Journal, (6) https://scispace.com/journals/chinese-librarianship-an-international-electronic-journal-5l2htt3v https://www.white-clouds.com/iclc/cliej/cl6gilkes.htm https://bl.libguides.com/reference-services/asian-and-african-studies/introduction/printed-books-and-serials https://bl.iro.bl.uk/concern/generic_works/f92e2aed-8186-466a-9c9e-b4c5cb9a2bd4?locale=en 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.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. 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),Graham 1989. p. X (preface), Michael LaFargue 1998 p.xiii and in re-publications such as of Feng Youlan. The Cambridge History of China (2016The Ch'ing Dynasty to 1800, Part 2 (edited by Peterson) April 2016. ISBN 978-0-521-24335-3.) 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.Chung, K. S. (2016). Wade–Giles Romanization system. In Sin-Wai, C. (Ed.), The Routledge Encyclopedia of the Chinese Language (pp. 795–815). Routledge. 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 () 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. (Web archive)
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.Citation (Chicago): Wiedenhof, Jeroen. 2004. "Purpose and effect in the transcription of Mandarin." Journal of Asian Pacific Communication 14 (1): 11–32. p.389
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),A Chinese–English Dictionary. together with the corresponding IPA phonetic symbol (in square brackets), and equivalent representations in Bopomofo and Hanyu Pinyin.
Initials LabialDental/AlveolarRetroflexAlveolo-palatalVelarNasal m [m]ㄇ m n [n]ㄋ n PlosiveUnaspiratedp [p]ㄅ bt [t]ㄉ d k [k]ㄍ gAspiratedpʻ [pʰ]ㄆ ptʻ [tʰ]ㄊ t kʻ [kʰ]ㄎ kAffricateUnaspirated ts [ts]ㄗ zch [ʈʂ]ㄓ zhch [tɕ]ㄐ jAspirated tsʻ [tsʰ]ㄘ cchʻ [ʈʂʰ]ㄔ chchʻ [tɕʰ]ㄑ qFricative f [f]ㄈ fs [s]ㄙ ssh [ʂ]ㄕ shhs [ɕ]ㄒ xh [x]ㄏ hLiquid l [l]ㄌ l j [ɻ~ʐ]ㄖ r
Instead of ts, ts and s, Wade–Giles writes tz, tz and ss before ŭ (see below).
Finals Coda∅Medial∅ih/ŭ[ɨ]ㄭ -iê/o[ɤ]ㄜ ea[a]ㄚ aei[ei]ㄟ eiai[ai]ㄞ aiou[ou]ㄡ ouao[au]ㄠ aoên[ən]ㄣ enan[an]ㄢ anung[ʊŋ]ㄨㄥ ongêng[əŋ]ㄥ engang[aŋ]ㄤ angêrh[aɚ̯]ㄦ eri[i]ㄧ iieh[je]ㄧㄝ ieia[ja]ㄧㄚ ia iu[jou]ㄧㄡ iuiao[jau]ㄧㄠ iaoin[in]ㄧㄣ inien[jɛn]ㄧㄢ ianiung[jʊŋ]ㄩㄥ ionging[iŋ]ㄧㄥ ingiang[jaŋ]ㄧㄤ iangu[u]ㄨ uo/uo[wo]ㄛ/ㄨㄛ o/uoua[wa]ㄨㄚ uaui/uei[wei]ㄨㄟ uiuai[wai]ㄨㄞ uai un[wən]ㄨㄣ unuan[wan]ㄨㄢ uan uang[waŋ]ㄨㄤ uangü[y]ㄩ üüeh[ɥe]ㄩㄝ üe ün[yn]ㄩㄣ ünüan[ɥɛn]ㄩㄢ üan
Wade–Giles writes -uei after k and k, otherwise -ui: kuei, kuei, hui, shui, chui.
It writes as -o after k, k and h, otherwise as -ê: ko, ko, ho, shê, chê. When forms a syllable on its own, it is written ê or o depending on the character.
Wade–Giles writes as -uo after k, k, h and sh, otherwise as -o: kuo, kuo, huo, shuo, bo, tso. After ch, it is written cho or chuo depending on the character.
For -ih and -ŭ, see below.
Giles's A Chinese–English Dictionary also includes the finals -io (in yo, chio, chio, hsio, lio and nio) and -üo (in chüo, chüo, hsüo, lüo and nüo), both of which are pronounced -üeh in modern Standard Chinese: yüeh, chüeh, chüeh, hsüeh, lüeh and nüeh.
Syllables that begin with a medial Coda∅Mediali/yi[i]ㄧ yiyeh[je]ㄧㄝ yeya[ja]ㄧㄚ ya yai[jai]ㄧㄞ yaiyu[jou]ㄧㄡ youyao[jau]ㄧㄠ yaoyin[in]ㄧㄣ yinyen[jɛn]ㄧㄢ yanyung[jʊŋ]ㄩㄥ yongying[iŋ]ㄧㄥ yingyang[jaŋ]ㄧㄤ yangwu[u]ㄨ wuwo[wo]ㄨㄛ wowa[wa]ㄨㄚ wawei[wei]ㄨㄟ weiwai[wai]ㄨㄞ wai wên[wən]ㄨㄣ wenwan[wan]ㄨㄢ wan wêng[wəŋ]ㄨㄥ wengwang[waŋ]ㄨㄤ wangyü[y]ㄩ yuyüeh[ɥe]ㄩㄝ yue yün[yn]ㄩㄣ yunyüan[ɥɛn]ㄩㄢ yuan
Wade–Giles writes the syllable 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 ( or ), 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, p, t, t, k, k, ch, ch. 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 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 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: The non-retroflex ch (Pinyin j) and ch (Pinyin q) are always before either ü or i, but never ih. The retroflex ch (Pinyin zh) and ch (Pinyin ch) are always before ih, a, ê, e, o, or u.
Vowels and final symbols Syllabic consonants Like Yale and Mandarin Phonetic Symbols II, Wade–Giles renders the two types of syllabic consonant (; Wade–Giles: kung1-yün4; Hanyu Pinyin: kōngyùn) differently: -ŭ is used after the sibilants written in this position (and this position only) as tz, tz and ss (Pinyin z, c and s). -ih is used after the retroflex ch, ch, 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 as in li), and as -y in Gwoyeu Romatzyh and Simplified Wade. They are typically omitted in Bopomofo. IPAʈ͡ʂɻ̩ʈ͡ʂʰɻ̩ʂɻ̩ɻɻ̩t͡sɹ̩t͡sʰɹ̩sɹ̩YalejrchrshrrdztszszMPS IIjrchrshrrtztszszWade–GileschihchʻihshihjihtzŭtzʻŭssŭTongyong PinyinjhihchihshihrihzihcihsihHanyu PinyinzhichishirizicisiGwoyeu RomatzyhjychyshyrytzytsysySimplified WadechychhyshyrytsytshysyBopomofoㄓㄔㄕㄖㄗㄘㄙ
Vowel o Final o in Wade–Giles has two pronunciations in modern Peking dialect: and .
What is pronounced in vernacular Peking dialect as a close-mid back unrounded vowel 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, k 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 ko4A Chinese–English Dictionary, p. 761. (Pinyin kè). In Peking dialect, o after velars (and what used to be ng) have shifted to , thus they are written as ge, ke, he and e in Pinyin. When 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 is usually written as o in Wade–Giles, except for wo, shuo (e.g. "說" shuo1) and the three syllables of kuo, kuo, and huo (as in 過, 霍, etc.), which contrast with ko, ko, 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 . Peking dialect does not have phonemic contrast between o and -uo/wo (except in interjections when used alone) and a medial is usually inserted in front of -o to form . IPAWade–Gilespopʻomofototʻonolokokʻohochochʻojotsotsʻosoo/êwoZhuyinㄅㄛㄆㄛㄇㄛㄈㄛㄉㄨㄛㄊㄨㄛㄋㄨㄛㄌㄨㄛㄍㄜㄎㄜㄏㄜㄓㄨㄛㄔㄨㄛㄖㄨㄛㄗㄨㄛㄘㄨㄛㄙㄨㄛㄜㄨㄛPinyinbopomofoduotuonuoluogekehezhuochuoruozuocuosuoewo
Zhuyin and Pinyin write as ㄛ -o after ㄅ b, ㄆ p, ㄇ m and ㄈ f, and as ㄨㄛ -uo after all other initials.
Tones