What was Dao or Tao?

Answer 1

The Chinese character 道 is written in the pinyin rominization system as "dao." This system was adopted by the PRC in 1958 and is becoming increasingly the standard worldwide. An earlier standard was the Wade-Giles system in which the same character was written "tao." However, in this system an initial "t" is pronounced as a "d" unless it is followed by an apostrophe, which would indicates that the sound is aspirated and should be pronounced as a "t". In other words, the "dao" and "tao" are actually pronounced the same way: "dow".