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Simplified Wade is a modification of the Wade-Giles
Wade-Giles

Wade-Giles , sometimes abbreviated Wade, is a Romanization system for the Mandarin Chinese language used in Beijing. It developed from a system produced by Thomas Francis Wade in the mid-19th century, and reached settled form with Herbert Giles' Chinese language-English language dictionary of 1892....
 romanization
Romanization

In linguistics, romanization is the representation of a written word or spoken speech with the Latin alphabet, or a system for doing so, where the original word or language uses a different writing system ....
 system for writing Mandarin Chinese. It was devised by the Swedish linguist
Linguistics

Linguistics is the science study of natural language. Linguistics encompasses a number of sub-fields. An important topical division is between the study of language structure and the study of Meaning ....
 Olov Bertil Anderson, who first published the system in 1970. Simplified Wade uses tonal spelling: in other words it modifies the letters in a syllable in order to indicate tone
Standard Mandarin

Standard Mandarin, or Standard Chinese, is the official modern Spoken Chinese used in People's Republic of China and Republic of China, and is one of the four official languages of Languages of Singapore....
 differences. It is one of only two Chinese romanization systems that indicate tones in such a way (the other being Gwoyeu Romatzyh
Gwoyeu Romatzyh

Gwoyeu Romatzyh , abbreviated GR, is a system for writing Standard Mandarin in the Latin alphabet. The system was conceived by Yuen Ren Chao and developed by a group of linguistics including Chao and Lin Yutang from 1925 to 1926....
).






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Simplified Wade is a modification of the Wade-Giles
Wade-Giles

Wade-Giles , sometimes abbreviated Wade, is a Romanization system for the Mandarin Chinese language used in Beijing. It developed from a system produced by Thomas Francis Wade in the mid-19th century, and reached settled form with Herbert Giles' Chinese language-English language dictionary of 1892....
 romanization
Romanization

In linguistics, romanization is the representation of a written word or spoken speech with the Latin alphabet, or a system for doing so, where the original word or language uses a different writing system ....
 system for writing Mandarin Chinese. It was devised by the Swedish linguist
Linguistics

Linguistics is the science study of natural language. Linguistics encompasses a number of sub-fields. An important topical division is between the study of language structure and the study of Meaning ....
 Olov Bertil Anderson, who first published the system in 1970. Simplified Wade uses tonal spelling: in other words it modifies the letters in a syllable in order to indicate tone
Standard Mandarin

Standard Mandarin, or Standard Chinese, is the official modern Spoken Chinese used in People's Republic of China and Republic of China, and is one of the four official languages of Languages of Singapore....
 differences. It is one of only two Chinese romanization systems that indicate tones in such a way (the other being Gwoyeu Romatzyh
Gwoyeu Romatzyh

Gwoyeu Romatzyh , abbreviated GR, is a system for writing Standard Mandarin in the Latin alphabet. The system was conceived by Yuen Ren Chao and developed by a group of linguistics including Chao and Lin Yutang from 1925 to 1926....
). All other systems utilize diacritic
Diacritic

A diacritic is a small sign added to a letter to alter pronunciation or to distinguish between similar words. The term derives from the Greek language d?a???t???? ....
s or numbers to indicate tone.

Spelling conventions


One of the important changes that Anderson made to Wade-Giles to was to replace the apostrophe following aspirated consonants
Aspiration

Aspiration may refer to:*Aspiration , the release of a strong burst of air after some obstruents*Engine aspiration method:**Naturally-aspirated engine, an internal combustion engine that relies on atmospheric pressure for air intake...
 with an . This modification, previously used in the Legge romanization
Legge romanization

Legge romanization is a transcription system for Mandarin Chinese, used by the prolific 19th century sinologist James Legge. It was replaced by the Wade-Giles system, which itself has been mostly supplanted by Pinyin....
, was also adopted by Joseph Needham
Joseph Needham

Noel Joseph Terence Montgomery Needham, Companion of Honour, Fellow of the Royal Society, Fellow of the British Academy , also known as Li Yuese , was a British academic and sinologist known for his research and writing on the history of Science and technology in China....
 in his Science and Civilisation in China series. The table below illustrates the spelling difference.

Wade-
Giles		Simplified
Wade		Modern
Pinyin
Pinyin

Pinyin, more formally Hanyu pinyin, is the most commonly used Romanization system for Standard Mandarin. Hanyu is the Chinese Language, and pinyin means "phonetics", or more literally, "spelling sound" or "spelled sound"....
IPA
form
t'thtt?
p'phpp?
k'khkk?
ch'chhq/cht??/t??


The indication of tones in Simplified Wade is done by adding letters to the end of the syllable. The table below gives an example.
First
tone		Second
tone		Third
tone		Fourth
tone
mamavmaxmaz


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