What is "wade-giles"

n. A system, formerly extremely popular, for transcribing the Beijing dialect of spoken Chinese into the Latin alphabet.

Wade–Giles , sometimes abbreviated Wade, is a romanization system for Mandarin Chinese. It developed from a system produced by Thomas Wade, during the mid-19th century, and was given completed form with Herbert Giles's Chinese–English Dictionary of 1892.

Wade–Giles was the system of transcription in the English-speaking world for most of the 20th century, used in standard reference books and in English language books published before 1979. It replaced the Nanjing-based romanization systems that had been common until the late 19th century, such as the Postal romanization (still used in some place-names). In mainland China it has been entirely replaced by the pinyin system approved in 1958. Outside mainland China, it has mostly been replaced by pinyin, even though Taiwan still implements a multitude of romanization systems in daily life. Additionally, its usage can still be seen in the common English names of certain individuals and locations such as Chiang Ching-kuo.