Wade–Giles

Uncommon card · No. 96526

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...

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