About feng shui terms spelling. Pinyin and Wade-Giles Chinese Romanization
Much has been written about feng shui in English. Feng shui pronounced fung schway.
Many thousands of websites and books about feng shui . Often you might be confused why feng shui terms spell differently in some books.
How to spell correctly Chi or qi, Pa-k'ua or Bagua, Lo p'an or Loupan? It happens because Chinese and English languages are so deferent. Here is a key.
Pinyin system of Romanization, that uses Roman or Latin alphabet to spell Chinese words. Pinyin was accepted as international standard in 1979.
It was developed by Chinese sinologists in mid-twentieth century.
Wade-Giles system of transliteration was developed by two British sinologists (a person who studies Chinese culture, customs, language, and the like).
Their names are Sir Francis Wade (1818-1895) and Herbert Allen Giles (1845-1935).
Here's Wade-Gales and Pinyin equivalent of some words.
Wade-Giles | Pinyin | Meaning |
Ch'i Lo p'an Pa-k'ua Kua Ch'ien Tui Li Chen Sun K'an Ken K'un I Ching | Qi Loupan Bagua Gua Qian Dui Li Zhen Xun Kan Gen Kun Yijing | Life's breath Chinese compass Eight trigrams Natal trigrams number Northwestern trigram Western trigram Southern trigram Eastern trigram Southeastern trigram Northern trigram Northeastern trigram Southwestern trigram Book of Changes |
Hanyu Pinyin Wenzi (the alphabet of Chinese phonetic combinations) is a system of romanization that uses the Roman or Latin alphabet to spell Chinese words.
Based on the Peking dialect of Mandarin Chinese, Pinyin was developed by the Chinese after the advent of communism in 1949.
In 1979, it became the international standard and is used in all forms of printed material, television, Braille for blind, and finger spelling for the deaf.
Wade- Gales is an older system of transliteration first developed by a Cambridge University sinologist, Sir Thomas Francis Wade (1818-1895)
and improved upon and popularized by another British sinologist, Herbert Allen Giles (1845-1935)
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