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Among the drawbacks of the system are that pronunciation of certain consonants is only obvious to the initiated. In Wade-Giles, P is pronounced as the letter ''B''; P' is ''P''. Likewise K is pronounced ''J'' and K' is pronounced ''K'' Thus the place name transliterated at Peking was always intended be pronounced ''Be(i) Jing'' (as in the Pinyin ''Beijing'')rather than ''Pea-king''. These anomalies, and very many others, are not present in the Pinyin system which, for English-speakers at any rate, gives a much more accurate version of the Chinese words.
Among the drawbacks of the system are that pronunciation of certain consonants is only obvious to the initiated. In Wade-Giles, P is pronounced as the letter ''B''; P' is ''P''. Likewise K is pronounced ''J'' and K' is pronounced ''K'' Thus the place name transliterated at Peking was always intended be pronounced ''Be(i) Jing'' (as in the Pinyin ''Beijing'')rather than ''Pea-king''. These anomalies, and very many others, are not present in the Pinyin system which, for English-speakers at any rate, gives a much more accurate version of the Chinese words.
But some characteristics of Wade-Giles have notable advantages. A single letter is used as the basis for pairs of phonemes that differ only in aspiration. This more accurately representes how Chinese treats these pairs, from a phonological perspective (in terms of which vowels and consonants with which they can co-occur). Wade-Giles is more linguistically accurate than Pinyin, which uses different basic symbols for these phoneme pairs. In many cases, the orthography used by Wade-Giles for dipthongs is also more phonetically accurate than the pinyin alternative. Consequently, most linguists prefer to use Wade-Giles rather than Pinyin.
[[Category:China]]
[[Category:China]]
[[Category:Languages]]
[[Category:Languages]]