Woops - a touch of unintended elitism. Sorry about that.
台灣拼音 = 一國三制
Taiwan pinyin = yi guo san zhi
Taiwan pinyin = one country three systems
(More than three, actually.)
漢語拼音最通用
Hanyu pinyin zui tongyong
Hanyu pinyin is the most generally applicable
(Sounds awful in English, but, though I say so myself, it is pretty neat in Chinese.)
天下只有一個 biaozhun
Tianxia zhi you yi ge biaozhun
There is only one world standard.
Here are some ideas, though not really in petition form yet.
Suggestions for the romanization of street and road signs
Romanization should not be treated like a trot for characters or as some kind of mere decoration but as a separate writing system with its own rules. These rules, based on long-established conventions in Western writing systems, already exist and do not need to be reinvented. Rules by themselves, however, are not enough. Care and consistency must receive the highest attention.
Here is a list of things not to do.
[ol][li]No InTerCaPiTalIZaTion[/li]
[li]No ALLCAPS[/li]
[li]No unnecessary hyphens[/li]
[li]No unnecessary spaces[/li]
[li]No forced justification to make the width of a romanized line match the width of a line of characters[/li]
[li]No Chinese punctuation in romanized text[/li]
[li]No omission of required apostrophes[/li]
[li]No printing or distribution of romanized material that has not been examined by a competent copy editor[/li]
[li]No vertical text[/li]
[li]No “nicknumbering” systems[/li]
[li]No translation of street names into English[/li]
[li]No half measures[/li]
[li]No ugly typography[/li]
[li]No exceptions (except for “Taipei”)[/li][/ol]
[quote=“cranky laowai”]
Here is a list of things not to do.
[ol][li]No InTerCaPiTalIZaTion[/li]
[li]No ALLCAPS[/li]
[li]No unnecessary hyphens[/li]
[li]No unnecessary spaces[/li]
[li]No forced justification to make the width of a romanized line match the width of a line of characters[/li]
[li]No Chinese punctuation in romanized text[/li]
[li]No omission of required apostrophes[/li]
[li]No printing or distribution of romanized material that has not been examined by a competent copy editor[/li]
[li]No vertical text[/li]
[li]No “nicknumbering” systems[/li]
[li]No translation of street names into English[/li]
[li]No half measures[/li]
[li]No ugly typography[/li]
[li]No exceptions (except for “Taipei”)[/li][/ol][/quote]
Cranky, I’m glad you’re not my Dad. I never would have gotten the car.
Cranky, that list is pretty complete, my comments:
1 & 2: I don’t think capitalization is addressed in Hanyu Pinyin, because it was never intended to write complete sentences, but only to transcribe individual words in dictionaries and textbooks. Are we supposed to capitalize the first letter of a sentence and all proper nouns? (or all nouns like in German? :? ) This is a big can of worms, but if we’re limiting the discussion to road signs, I think we can add a point saying “Capitalize only the first letter of the street name.”
6: What do you mean by “Chinese punctuation”? Tone marks? Periods that look like little circles? Hopefully this is not an issue within the scope of street signs.
7: It’s helpful to mention the relevant examples, Ren’ai and Chang’an roads in Taipei.
8: Having a validation process is probably the most important point. ‘Copy editor’ makes sense if we’re talking about maps and brochures, otherwise we should specify ‘the authority responsible for validating romanization’, probably a department of the Institute of Transportation.
12 & 13: Important points but need elaboration, or maybe they’re not needed.
14: This probably deserves a complete list of entrenched historical spellings, Taipei, Taichung, Kaohsiung, Kinmen and so on.
thanks!
Ah yes, is the conference this Friday still on? If the topic is billboards, what can we expect from it? Not sure how romanization applies to billboards, are we talking about advertisements, government-issue public announcements, shop signs, theater marquees, or what?
PS: I changed my mind about point 14 above. I think that if we are to embrace Tongyong, ALL geographic names, including Taipei, Taichung, Kaohsiung, Kinmen, should be modified, and should be written as Taibei, Taijhong, Gaosyong, Jinmen, respectively. I’m being serious … do you see a smiley?
And just for the record, all that Pinyin stuff in parantheses is being inserted by forumosa. I don’t mind this after Wade-Giles, but perhaps it shouldn’t be done after Tongyong.
Who said?
One point where I disagree with Cranky is making an exception for Taibei. I can’t see any reason for that. In fact it is my impression that the placenames Kaohsiung (Gaoxiong) and Keelung (Jilong) are at least as well known (“entrenched”) abroad as Taipei (Taibei) because of their importance in shipping. I have also heard Taiwanese people complain that “Taipei” read in English doesn’t sound like it does in Chinese, so why not change it?
Two points of contention re Cranky’s point no. 11: Roosevelt Rd. or Luosifu Rd. and Citizens’ Boulevard or Shimin Boulevard? I would say leave these two in English.
Not a big fan of exceptions, but Roosevelt will probably stick. Citizens’ Boulevard sounds horrible, so I’m in favor of Shimin, or Shihmin in Tongyong. Similarly, Xizang St (Sizang in Tongyong), not Tibet St. The purpose of romanization is not to translate but to help with pronounciation, otherwise we’ll start seeing Big Peace Park and Sweet Water River.
People have used to Beijing instead of Peking, and lots of other names have successfully had their names changed, Maybe people took to them because they are better than the old spellings ?
[quote]Not a big fan of exceptions, but Roosevelt will probably stick.[/quote]That one was the other way around, that was mangled (can’t really call it transliterate) from English to Chinese, Does anyone else think the chinese sounds too similar to “Lucifer” ?
[quote]Citizens’ Boulevard[/quote]Civil Boulevard surely ? Does sound horrible though, but then don’t all chinese road names translated into English ?
Like I said, no translations. But since “Roosevelt” isn’t a translation, it should stay as is. (Actually, what I’d really like is to rename the street “FDR Road” and not use any hanzi for that name, other than lu for road.)
But “Civic Boulevard”? “Tibet Road”? No, they’re not useful.
As for Taipei/Taibei, I’d prefer Taibei. But in this one case – and in this one case only – I don’t think it’s worth the effort.
Right now the guidelines call for keeping county names in the old, wrong Wade-Giles and changing most city names. Thus, Pingdong City in Ping[color=#000040]t[/color]ung County, Yilan City in I[color=#000040]l[/color]an County, Sin[color=#000040]j[/color]hu City in Hsinchu County, etc. That’s the kind of thing that has to be stamped out. Such inconsistencies shouldn’t be allowed. And “Kee[color=#000040]l[/color]ung” is a real pet peeve of mine.
A few other random notes:
(3) pinyin.info/readings/texts/hyphens.html
(6) None of that ugly, oversized punctuation from the Chinese font set when using romanized text.
(7) Ren’ai, Chang’an, Bo’ai, Su’ao, Da’an, Lin’an
That’s all that come to mind offhand. Feel free to add to the list if you think of more.
(12) No more of this “Ho[color=#000040]p[/color]ing Hospital” crap, or “Chung[color=#000040]-[/color]shan Middle School,” etc. If the government controls it, the government’s signs leading to it should be in proper romanization. Focus first on those names that are the same in Hanyu and Tongyong.
Keelung and Kaohsiung “at least as well-known” as Taipei? Meaning, that they may be even better known? I doubt that. That’s like saying Pusan is at least as well-known as Seoul, or Osaka at least as well-known as Tokyo.
[quote]If the government controls it, the government’s signs leading to it should be in proper romanization.[/quote] LOL 
:shock: 
Just for the record, I agree w/ Juba that there’s nothing special about Taipei. The point is not to argue which cities are more or less recognised internationally, but to be consistent. Peking was quite well known too, but we can all agree now that the name change was beneficial. So, either stick with the ugly old WG names, or change’m all: Taibei, Taijhong, Gaosyong, Jilong, Jiayi, Sinjhu, Jinmen, Mazu, Lyu Dao. (recognise where you live?)
Sorry to be repetitive, I’m trying to get my hands, eyes and brain used to seeing Tongyong. Yes it’s weird but it’s still better than the current mess.
Oops. Well, in that case, perhaps Shimin would be better, after all.
Then you and I very nearly agree about that.
We do all seem to be in agreement about Roosevelt Road.
Just a question for Cranky, Juba and the other experts (apologies if it has been discussed before).
Do you think it would be better to write Zhongshan Bei Lu on the signs instead of Zhongshan North Road?
[quote=“wix”]Just a question for Cranky, Juba and the other experts (apologies if it has been discussed before).
Do you think it would be better to write Zhongshan Bei Lu on the signs instead of Zhongshan North Road?[/quote]
That is the way it’s done on the mainland, isn’t it? There is a difference, though. On the mainland, most people under 40 or so can read Hanyu pinyin. It’s something your average person in the street can understand, because it is used in schools instead of zhuyin fuhao. I guess some country people who are semi-literate in characters would refer to the pinyin on signs. Also, something many people might not realise - there are ethnic minority people in China who may know no Chinese at all, especially those from Xinjiang and Tibet. In Beijing I met a lady from Xinjiang who did not know a single word of Chinese - not even “ni hao.” When they come to the big city, they may need to read the pinyin to find their way around. In other words, on the mainland, the pinyin on road signs is for local consumption as well as for foreigners. This is different from Taiwan, where 98% of the people are Han and there are fewer illiterate or semi-literate people. So the Latin script on road signs here in Taiwan is really for the benefit of foreigners, and I think most foreigners would prefer to see English (Road., Street…) rather than pinyin (Lu, Jie…)
Actually I would tend to favour using pinyin, but I am sure I would be outvoted and it’s no big deal.
This is related to the above. What I saw being done was a survey of migrant workers at St. Christopher’s Church. What was done was to present the Filipinos with a list of street names in tongpin and hanpin and ask which they preferred. The tricky bit was that the tongpin was paired with English (e.g. Jhongshan North Road) and the hanpin was paired with pinyin (e.g. Zhongshan Bei Lu). I have little doubt that this was an intentional fraud on the part of of the tongyongists, i.e. that they anticipated that the migrants would prefer to see English instead of pinyin for the non-proper noun part of the street names, so that they could then use the result to “prove” that migrant workers preferred tongyong pinyin. Sneaky, huh?
[color=blue]**********
漢語拼音最通用
**********[/color]
That’s an excellent point. Now that I think about it, Zhongshan Bei Lu makes a helluva lot more sense. Would your taxi driver understand Zhongshan North Road? Cranky made a good point earlier that these half-assed translations are a way to compensate for romanization that is so chaotic as to be completely useless.
I think that any visitor to a foreign country has the brain capacity to learn how to say, north, south, east, west, street, park and garden in the local language. Part of the fun in traveling around Europe is learning words like Rue, Chemin, Jardin, Strasse, Via, Piazza and so on. Has any English speaker ever complained that the Rue de Champs Elysees should be labeled Champs Elysees Road?
Translations have their purpose, for example a sign pointing to landmarks such as train stations and monuments should really be bilingual, having characters, romanization and the English words. But for road signs, a consistent romanization should be enough.
Yes, I do, but more as a matter of principle than of practicality. (Actually, mangalica, I think almost all taxi drivers, at least in Taipei, would know “north road.” But I could be wrong.) A big problem when talking about romanization is that people tend to confuse it with English. Having “Dunhua North Road” certainly feeds that misunderstanding.
On the other hand, “north road” looks “more international,” which is something people in Taiwan say they want. It also encourages (however vaguely) the use of English, which I think is a good thing. I can see good points for both sides. So even though full romanization is the right way to go, it’s not a big deal for me, given how many other romanization-related matters are in urgent need of correction.
For those of you who weren’t there this morning, you didn’t miss much. The discussions focused on bilingual signage outside stores. This didn’t stop the rather scary Yu Bor-chuan from going off-topic for a very long while about his beloved Tongyong Pinyin. (I do agree with him, though, that Taiwan would be better off dropping zhuyin fuhao in favor of romanization. But that’s something for a different thread.)
Hartzell made some good points about the mess and lack of standards. His remarks received loud applause. Jia you!
I wasn’t going to say anything; but the chair called on me. So I stressed the need to have central departments in charge of disseminating the standards for romanization and English. Otherwise, people might not be able to find the information (no matter how good it might be), and there is an increased risk of different ministries giving out different information. I also suggested that focusing on the outside signs might be too limited, given how much English is often used (poorly) in stores. A standard list of common retail terms in English would be a good idea, I suggested.
I spoke afterward with someone involved in the romanization project about the published “standard” of allowing at least three different ways of writing street names (Nanjing, NanJing, Nan Jing). She assured me that that is not policy and that only “Nanjing” is sanctioned. This came as a great relief to me. But the government needs to do more to stamp out the other two, non-standard practices.
The Web site for the romanization material is www.bless.nat.gov.tw
Although it’s supposed to be a bilingual site, it isn’t.
I’m astonished that Yu remains at Academia Sinica, even as the low-level figure he is there. That kind of behaviour would normally get someone laughed out of the academy, or just plain fired. His practice of appropriating other romanization systems and relabeling them “Tongyong” is a similarly deceitful behaviour.
From what I hear, he doesn’t get much respect there; but stay he does.
I am new to this forum. I am an American who lives in Taichung, or is it Taijhong, or Taizhong, I am confused.
Although I support Taiwan’s independence, Taiwan really should adopt the Hanyu Pinyin system and use it for all of the signs. I have seen the same place spelt 3, 4 or more different ways. I usually just read the Chinese on the signs, but I know that isn’t an option for fellow foreigners who can’t read Chinese.
So, how did he end up being in charge of Romanization?