Talk:Wade-Giles

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[edit] Origins

This page lacks both details and links about the previous romanization systems: the apostrophy would make much more sense by considering the attempts of romanization started with the very first contacts, including people like the Italian-origin, Spanish-ruled, Latin-speaking jesuit Matteo Ricci and friends. Comparing this to English by default sounds like a dangerous contemporary English-only culture biais.

Considering comtemporary Mandarine as the default language is also certainly true went looking at Wade and Giles goal, but it erases the fact that there were "standing on the shoulders" -- not of giants, but people who talked to and translated and learned from XVIIth century Chinese speakers.

A better "encyclopedic" approach might want to consider:

  • a short description, with example and a rapid time frame;
  • a full history of the system, starting with the first ever, and considering the main steps and debates;
  • an emphasis on Wade and Gile contribution, that is what thy changed to the system, what questions they faced, what were both side tranformations at that time;
  • a conclusion where the reproaches to Wade, Gile and they system would have they full meaning -- as these would be understandable with a historical and linguistic approach;
  • a full list of transcription, through a table, to make things clear: it is a coding for the Westerners issue (difficult because no language is stable) but not an actual Chinese language question (though with the importance of the latin alphabet, it became more than that).

Having a systematic "History led us there; because of that, this changed." approach would make "Confucius", "Tao" and "Qi" (to sumarize to the three most important words in Chinese) much more understandable. 84.5.34.215 00:55, 1 November 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Poor organization

This article should strive to describe first the essential principles behind the system. Instead you get a mixture of basic facts and criticism, as if the editors are saying, "Don't bother with reading this article about an obsolete system".

Example: Under history you get "...a general sense that the system is non-intuitive for non-specialists and not useful for teaching Chinese pronunciation". The same section ends with "The Hanyu Pinyin system is the official and most widely used system in the People's Republic of China", which does not help the reader understand Wade-Giles. The following section begins with "A common complaint about the Wade-Giles system...."

218.162.113.60 04:17, 14 September 2005 (UTC)

I agree with your criticism, but I will put it a different way: this article should be re-written from the point of view of an English speaking person who does not speak any dialect of chinese. The article should attempt as best it can to show some words and how to pronounce them and how they get transliterated. Right now the article is written for experts debating fine points and is completely useless to a person trying to learn some understandable lessons. Also, remove the chinese nationalism.

[edit] Cat fight

The following was removed and replaced with the lamest excuse.

The following is a strange blend of information, misinformation, and opinion. That's why I removed it. --BV

The Wade-Giles transliteration system blends /b/ with /p/, /d/ with /t/, /g/ with /k/. In the native Bopomofo notation, Bo and Po are two distinct sounds, in fact, they are the FIRST two sounds of the phonetic system. Right after Bo Po Mo Fo are De Te Na La, obviously D and T are distinct as the 5th and 6th of the pronounciation system. Then followed by Ge Ke He, again G and K sounds are distinct as the 9th and 10th sounds. Wade and Giles specifically dropped the FIRST sounds out of the FIRST three groups of the phonetic symbols, namely Bo, De and Ge. These sounds were significant enough to be placed first in the native phonetic system. Yet they were omitted in the Mandarin to western transliteration system. It is hard to explain their intention. Some theorized that they simply pulled a cruel practical joke on the Chinese language. What better way to make fun of a language than to remove the most important sounds? It is like removing ABC from the English alphabet.

I totally don't buy the excuse that the Mandarin BoPoMoFo were replaced with some P'oPoMoFo notation because some aspired and unaspired B and P sounds. To me, it just sound like the linguists were trying to make an excuse for Wade and Giles. It would be the biggest scandal if the joke was not covered up with some lame excuses. Given pinyin, everyone in the world now knows that B sounds closer to P' in representing the Bo sound in Mandarin regardless of the voicing and aspire argument.

I guess that's because you don't know what you're talking about. Perhaps you should learn something about phonetics? --BV

Despite the archane explanation that loaded with lingust jargons, P'o is no Bo, T'e is no De, K'e is no Ge to anyone who speaks native Mandarin.

Big fat duh. That's because those are the pinyin transliterations, which are more useful and accurate for non-linguists unfamiliar with the use of the apostrophe as an aspiration marker, and are tought to most people who speak native Mandarin, as well as most people who learn it as a second language. That's why Wade-Giles is being driven into well-deserved obscurity. --Brion VIBBER, Monday, April 1, 2002

I strongly believed the Wade-Giles system was intended as a joke or an insult, but no-one knew enough of both languages to get the joke at the time. Then it was accepted as a de facto standard for over hundred of years because there was no better alternative. Of course when Wade and Giles got their fame, they wouldn't be stupid enough to ruin their own names by explaining the cruel practical joke. It is a sad thing that much of the Western knowledge of China was recorded based on such a malice. Despite worldwide recognition of this transliteration system, it is piece of junk in my opinion.

Remember this was done at a time when the westerners called Chinese people Ching Chong and other funny names.

Yes, I admit that I am strongly opinionated and I pay absolutely no respect to this Wade-Giles thing because I actually considered it an insult to all the Chinese people. Let's dig these two guys out of their grave and use pinyin! -- User:Kowloonese

Well said. You know that there's not an ounce of decency left in this world when "何" is regarded to as "ho". :D -Taoster

And I believe everybody also knows that "hs" sounds much more like the ㄒ sound (as in 西) than, of all things, "x"! Of course one had to understand the least bit about languages and phonetics to get Wade-Giles. If you knew French (I know I expect too much, but there are more Western languages than English...), anyways, if you knew French you would see that pinyin B is almost exactly the soft unaspirated P of, for example, "Paris".
And none of my (non Chinese) friends ever spoke 學期 as "ksue-kwi" when I gave them a Wade-Giles text.--Laca 15:11, 28 May 2004 (UTC)
All right, Traditional-Chinese guy, in Wade-Giles it's actually "hsyue2-chi1" (xué qī). And yes Taoster, it is a complete insult to Chinese. I wonder what they were thinking... (writing XinJiang as SinKiang, Beijing as Peiching, Guanzhou as Canton, etc., etc...) Note: And I'm not ethnic-Chinese at all...--Metawe (talk) 02:59, 6 February 2008 (UTC)

[edit] propose adding to 8 Influences

the influences section seems far too empty and doesnt perform the funtion the title implies... and yes i know the history tries to do this, but then again its not history so ppl need to change the history into sth on how it came to be popular among taiwan and outsiders, esp who were these two kids and where they got their jargon... but i dont rite well so i'd like it if this gets some feedback and/or gets added into the article....

This system has brought some infamous expressions like "Yangtze" and "Nanking" into common use among non-Chinese and some spellings for the last names of early Chinese emmigrants, but has fallen into mostly oblivion for good reason. It is generally recognized that the system makes no sense to non-linguistic doctorates and the very people who use Chinese get confused by this system that some (which is at least most people I know) have called an insult to both the European and Chinese languages.

and unlike previously stated in the article, wade isnt used widely in taiwan, its just that they made up sth more similar to wades than pinyin in defiance to the fact that they lost to the communists and poor ppl

1698 2005 October 31 21:21 (PST)


[edit] Empty Rime?

I can't find any explanation (other than the commercial clones of this very page) on the internet for "empty rime". Maybe it comes under some other name, but that would not be "empty rhyme" either. Put a page in Wikipedia, and link to it from the phrase on the Wade-Giles page, please. --Sobolewski 02:11, 29 April 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Wrong Phonetics

This wade-giles thing is just wrong phonetics. For example, the /zh/ sound in Pinyin should be pronounced /j/ not /ch/. Also the /j/ sound should be pronounced /z/ not /j/. The stupidity of the English inventor is just beyond people's immagination.

Ermm..... no. <zh> in pinyin is unvoiced and unaspirated, while <ch> is unvoiced and aspirated. Neither of them corresponds to the voiced /dZ/ sound that begins <jam> in English. In IPA, /j/ represents the first phoneme of <yes> in English, not <jam>. Also, there is no /z/ sound in standard Putonghua. <j> in Mandarin is a voiceless unaspirated alveolo-palatal affricate, while /z/ in English is a voiced alveolar fricative. The two sound quite different actually. -- ran (talk) 19:56, 28 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Need help on WG to pinyin mapping

I posted a question on Talk:Tien_Gow for over a year regarding some Chinese words. It was never answered. Can someone who knows Wade-Giles offer some help? Kowloonese 21:11, 3 August 2006 (UTC)

I can help you--Metawe (talk) 03:03, 6 February 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Transliteration corrected to transcription

Although frequently improperly called "transliteration", Wade-Giles' system is a transcription of Chinese, as there can be no transliteration of Chinese script into any phonetic script, like the Latin (or English) alphabet. Any system of romanization of Chinese renders the sounds (pronunciation) and not the characters (written form).

NoychoH 09:09, 3 August 2007 (UTC)