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 various 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, 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.
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
ko4 (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 . 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 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
chien4.
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==