An attempt at Taiyu transcription

Language Taiwanese and Hakka Corner
#1

I took notes for myself on the pronunciation in this classic song, based largely off Hanyu Pinyin, and figured why not share with the world. For the record, I think there’s nothing wrong with Tailo transcription, but it’s not intuitive to me and I wanted a version where I can read along with the song.

Bixiong ei ximjing / Dimdang ei kabo / Mbenkiong lai likuy
Muabak ei kotiong / Muabak ei tongko / Mm-wan lai liwlong
Wa qinqiõ haipêlong / Wu ki ya wu lo
Lan gimlit na hunkuy / Hoxi zai xionghong

Aiwan ei lihnxing / Kamkiet ei Wnmia / Bik lan lai hunkuy
Jit kuan ei ximseng / Jit kuan ei koco / Xialang lai teiliong
Wa suydiê haipêlong / Pudim zai li ximlai
Wa yaya tei dantai / Dan li lai tuan-ĩ

Chorus:
Duaxiã giê / Mm guan ga li lai hunkuy
Duaxiã giê / Wa ai gohiong wa ai li
Na hunkuy / Yiging mmzai hoxi holit jia ei tang / Ga li lai xionghong

Some notes: a vowel with a tilde (~) represents nasalization. ê is the sound represented by zhuyin ㄜ. Because the “iu” in HYPY is actually [joʊ] (“liu” is read as [ljoʊ]), I have transcribed the Taiyu sound [ju] with “iw.” The same philosophy goes for Taiyu [wɪ], as “ui” in HYPY is [weɪ], so I have it here as “uy.” The sound [un] is transcribed as “wn” because such a phoneme doesn’t exist in HYPY.

#2

For most part it would be easy for me to sing the song by looking at your transcription.

Not sure about giê, though. Why not gio?

Also, why not likui, instead of likuy?

Oops, I missed your notes…

#3

Another one to add to my collection. At last count I was nearing 100 different transcriptions of Taiwanese when I was researching the subject. I’ll get a paper out of it one day.

I’m not one to advocate the generation of yet more systems (I use POJ, and can tolerate the fudged compromise of Tai-lo), but your spelling is pretty intuitive for someone with a knowledge of Hanyu Pinyin. Just a couple of things strike me (can’t watch the video at the moment, so this is just based on your text) - “lihnxing” - what sound does the “ih” represent? Any reason that couldn’t just be “i”? Why “mm” for POJ/TL “m”? Also, the purists would disapprove of your “wa” rendering, but from what I hear “goa/gua” is on its way out of the language. I like your elimination of the dashes from POJ/TL - they really annoy me as unnecessary (and indeed I see quite a few writers omit them altogether).

Have you thought about how you’d approach tones? Not necessary if the text is an aide-memoire for karaoke, but for other uses tone notation would be crucial. With your diacritics for nasalisation and the HYPY ê, would you go “double diacritic” like Vietnamese Quốc ngữ or opt for tone numbering? Perhaps some sort of tone contour graph (though that might move far from your original HYPY inspiration).

One system you might like to check out is the PRC version of HYPY designed for Min Nan. I have a dictionary and a textbook which use the system. Some of their choices are quite different from yours, and make an interesting contrast.