Hanyu Pinyin Battle Lost?

[cranky_laowai]

@Sir Donald Bradman

Isn’t it silly to have the MRT station on the corner of Zhongxiao and Xinsheng called j.u.ng.s.i.ao. / s.i.n.s.e.n.g (or howevere they spell it)?

It is indeed. A high-ranking Taipei City Government official recently told me that the MRT changeover to hanyu pinyin is going to happen “very soon.” My main worry – I like to worry about such things – is that the changeover is going to be assigned to people who don’t know what they are doing and are likely to screw it up. (Witness my recent complaint about topsy-turvy maps in the MRT.) Which brings us to …

[quote]… bus romanisation.

Actually I’ve figured out their new system, which I shall call zhuyinified pinyin.

They take the zhuyin, and convert it, symbol by symbol to pinyin.
So what should be zhong, becomes zhueng, because they’re taking the zhuyin (bopomofo) symbols (any way to type these?) equivalent to ‘zh’, ‘wu/u’ and ‘ong’ and using a little chart to convert that to zhueng. Same for dueng and others. [/quote]
You must be right. Good catch. And the source charts they’re working from are almost certainly wrong in other ways, too. (After all, the charts the Ministry of Foreign Affairs uses for Wade-Giles guidelines for passports are completely wrong.) The more things change, the more they stay the same…

[Big_Fluffy_Matthew]

Good points there Cranky, I was only thinking about separate sylables. And thinking about it, what I suggested would only save about 5 minutes in learning time They’re only minor niggles in the best system devised so far. At the end of day, I wouldn’t want anything other than pinyin, and I wouldn’t want to change it.

[Feiren]

You Hanyu Pinyin lovers will be displeased to learn that the post office’s search engine now translates to Tongyong Pinyin.See post.gov.tw/post/internet/f_ … ?ID=190103 Taipei City is doing residents a disservice by insisting on switching to Hanyu Pinyin while the rest of the country is going over to Tongyong. The romanization wars will end next year when Chen is reelected.

[cranky_laowai]

@Feiren

You Hanyu Pinyin lovers will be displeased to learn that the post office’s search engine now translates to Tongyong Pinyin.

With mistakes, I note. And how much dedication is there to tongyong when the postal system identifies itself as the “Chunghwa Post Co.,” rather than as the “Jhonghua Post Co.”?

[quote]Taipei City is doing residents a disservice by insisting on switching to Hanyu Pinyin while the rest of the country is going over to Tongyong. [/quote]The central government is doing residents a disservice by insisting on switching to tongyong pinyin while the rest of the world has gone over to hanyu.

[quote]The romanization wars will end next year when Chen is reelected.[/quote]No election will change the fact that tongyong is a system whose hype exceeds its ability. No election will change the fact that tongyong just isn’t very good at all the things it was promised it would be able to do. No election will change the fact that the international system is hanyu pinyin.

Any delay in implementation of hanyu pinyin is just time wasted and money down the drain.

[Juba]

@Feiren

The romanization wars will end next year when Chen is reelected.

Hahahahahahahahaha!

I would love to make a bet with you on (A) A-Bian’s chances of getting reelected and (B) the chances of romanisation in Taiwan being finally standardised as anything other than Hanyu pinyin.

[Feiren]

@cranky laowai

With mistakes, I note. And how much dedication is there to tongyong when the postal system identifies itself as the “Chunghwa (Zhonghua) Post Co.,” rather than as the “Jhonghua Post Co.”?

What mistakes? I wouldn’t be surprised though. As I’ve argued before, if romanization (either system) is not taught in the schools, we will always have this problem.

[quote]The central government is doing residents a disservice by insisting on switching to tongyong pinyin while the rest of the world has gone over to hanyu.
[/quote]

As argued before, no country in East Asia has allowed a foreign romanization system. Why should Taiwan? Korea is changing its romanization system-see president.go.kr/warp/en/kore … ge/revise/
I doubt Korea consulted any international standards when doing so.

No election will change the fact that tongyong is a system whose hype exceeds its ability. No election will change the fact that tongyong just isn’t very good at all the things it was promised it would be able to do. No election will change the fact that the international system is hanyu pinyin.

Even if you are correct that hanyu is better, it simply does not matter. This has always been a political decision. It’s a political decision for the Taipei City Government, and it’s a political decision for the central government. What’s more, it should be a political decision since what it is in fact about the independence/unification issue and not at all about conveniencing foreigners.

[Feiren]

I would love to make a bet with you on (A) A-Bian’s chances of getting reelected and (B) the chances of romanisation in Taiwan being finally standardised as anything other than Hanyu pinyin.

You’re on for both bets. Chen will be reelected because Lien and Soong cannot and will not state their position on unification clearly. This is the core politcial issue in national elections. People are disappointed with Chen’s performance, but they trust him on this one.

Chen dominates the South where half the voters live (news to most Taipei residents) and will win enough votes in the north to carry the election. It’s tough to beat an incumbent in a presidential system.

Other reasons for Chen’s reelection are that everyone knows that the KMT and PFP will fight for the next four years if their ticket wins. Look at the mess in Hualien right now. Also, the KMT-PFP is not only complacent, but also inexperienced at running or winning modern elections. Look at how Chen is pummleing them on referendum issue right now.Best of all China will almost certainly rise to the bait and bully Taiwan over the referendums thus sealing Chen’s victory.

The romanization bet is contingent on the first bet though. Obviously if the KMT-PFP wins, they are going to switch everything over to hanyu pinyin.

[Juba]

@Feiren

As argued before, no country in East Asia has allowed a foreign romanization system.

Is that supposed to be a “fact?” Why don’t you try presenting arguments instead of making things up on the spur of the moment? Most romanisation systems were designed by missionaries and most missionaries are foreigners. Later adaptations like Hanyu pinyin and your scarecely relevant Korean system are still based on the missionary systems. A, B and C are foreign. They come from Rome, hence the word romanisation, get it?

@Feiren

Korea is changing its romanization system-see president.go.kr/warp/en/Kore … ge/revise/ I doubt Korea consulted any international standards when doing so.

What grounds do you have for doubting it?

(Meet you over in the presidential election thread to decide how much you are going to pay me when A-Bian loses the election.)

[Feiren]

East Asian governments reserve the right to institute which romanizations they will use, Consistently, they have chosen to replace old de facto missionary standards with their own official ones. They did it in Japan, they’re doing it in Korea, and they may do it here in Taiwan. Control over official orthography is a symbol of political legitimacy. This is one of the reason China instituted simplified characters and why Taiwan insists on the traditional forms.These two issues are very closely related.

See this article on Korean romanization:

hankooki.com/kt_culture/2000 … 846110.htm

It suggests that many of the same controversies were aired in the debate over Korean romanization. Note especially the “cultural autonomy” argument and the charges that the system was devised by Korean language experts.

[Sir_Donald_Bradman]

What’s more, it should be a political decision since what it is in fact about the independence/unification issue and not at all about conveniencing foreigners.

It’s got nothing to do with the independence/unification issue (but if you want to bring it up, anyone who supports independence should obviously support the use of Hanyu pinyin). Maybe we should have joined a different WTO than China as well.

Hope you’re right about Chen getting reelected, but I don’t think it’ll happen. I also doubt that a Soong/Lian dominated government woudl do anything abotu the romanisation mess either. Why should they?

Brian

[cranky_laowai]

[quote=“Feiren”][quote=“cranky laowai”]
With mistakes, I note. And how much dedication is there to tongyong when the postal system identifies itself as the “Chunghwa (Zhonghua) (Zhonghua) Post Co.,” rather than as the “Jhonghua Post Co.”?
[/quote]What mistakes? [/quote]
Capitalization and spacing errors, mainly. But there should not be any mistakes in government guidelines for how to do things right. That really shouldn’t be too much to ask.

As I’ve argued before, if romanization (either system) is not taught in the schools, we will always have this problem.

It should be taught, yes. But it’s not going to be in the near future. The popular understanding of tongyong is wrong. It is Taiwan’s official romanization system for Mandarin and Hakka – that’s all. Not for Taiwanese. Not for the languages of Taiwan’s tribes. Mandarin is being taught with zhuyin fuhao (bopomofo), not tongyong. That leaves tongyong for Hakka, which isn’t going to touch many people.

I think the biggest problem is not whether it’s taught in schools (because that wouldn’t have much effect for more than a decade, when those students would enter the working world). The problem is that the government itself has fostered a chabuduo attitude toward the problem. When the government itself doesn’t bother to do things right – and probably doesn’t even know how to do things right – then it’s hardly surprising when society at large doesn’t go to an extra effort to see that romanization is correct.

As argued before, no country in East Asia has allowed a foreign romanization system.

Lions and tigers and foreigners, oh my! Allowing a foreign romanization system? That’s nonsense.

What do you think quoc ngu is? Foreigners invented the romanization system for Vietnamese. Lo and behold, not only has it been popularly and officially embraced in Vietnam but has supplanted characters there altogether.

What’s more, it should be a political decision since what it is in fact about the independence/unification issue and not at all about conveniencing foreigners.

I most vehemently disagree that this should be or should even be seen as a political decision, though it has certainly been cast as one.

Anyway, the ROC has had three official romanization systems: Gwoyeu Romatzyh, MPS2, and now Tongyong Pinyin. If the decision is all about independence/unificiation and has nothing to do with foreigners, I suppose someone could argue for a change from GR (invented by a Chinese linguist in, oh no, the pre-Taiwan Republic of China) to MPS2 (made in Taiwan). But then why change from the indigenous MPS2 to tongyong? And will we have to change from tongyong to something else later?

And keep in mind that mind that even if something is a “political” decision, that doesn’t mean it’s not a stupid decision.

[cranky_laowai]

@Sir Donald Bradman

I also doubt that a Soong/Lian dominated government woudl do anything about the romanisation mess either. Why should they?

Alas, this is probably correct. They had half a century to get it right but didn’t.

[cranky_laowai]

I’ve been looking at the government’s “standards” for tongyong (though the real standards have yet to be written!).

It looks like county names will stay in bastardized Wade-Giles but names of lower-level places will be put in tongyong. Thus, Hualian City in Hualien County, Yilan City in Ilan County, Jiayi City in Chia-I [sic] County. Jilong will remain “Keelung” (ugh!). What a mess.

I’ve spotted some other inconsistencies, problems and errors. And then there’s the fact that different ministries seem to have different versions of the guidelines. I’ll try to find out which are the real ones.

If they’re going to do this, they should do it right. But the word for the government’s approach is, predictably, “SNAFU.”

[Lord_Lucan]

@cranky laowai

[quote=“somebody”]As argued before, no country in East Asia has allowed a foreign romanization system.

Lions and tigers and foreigners, oh my! Allowing a foreign romanization system? That’s nonsense.

What do you think quoc ngu is? Foreigners invented the romanization system for Vietnamese. Lo and behold, not only has it been popularly and officially embraced in Vietnam but has supplanted characters there altogether. [/quote]

I’m pretty sure the Malay language is romanised using a foreign alphabet (the English alphabet) and any Malay I saw in Malaysia was all written in Roman characters.

[cranky_laowai]

I ran the new tongyong place names through my new compatibility checker, which revealed that, as I expected, about half (45 percent) of the names on the list are different in hanyu and tongyong.

The exact figure might be a little different, because I haven’t gone through the original closely yet for mistakes in the tongyong, of which I’ve seen more than one already.

[Juba]

@hexuan

I’m pretty sure the Malay language is romanised using a foreign alphabet (the English alphabet)

Ouch! What is the “English alphabet?” Any romanisation, by definition, uses the Latin alphabet.

[Comrade_Stalin]

@Juba

[quote=“hexuan”]I’m pretty sure the Malay language is romanised using a foreign alphabet (the English alphabet)

Ouch! What is the “English alphabet?” Any romanisation, by definition, uses the Latin alphabet.[/quote]

True, but who does the romanization? In Indonesia it was done by the Dutch while in Malaysia by the Brits. Thus you have many completely different spellings. Although in Indonesia they’re trying to get away from the Dutch. Just a couple of examples: Campuhan/Tjampuhan, Yogya/Jogja and Djakarta/Jakarta.

[speakpigeon]

cranky laowai wrote: “Yes, that’s one of the things
I really dislike about tongyong:
the way s is used for two completely different sounds.”

Well, Pinyin does that too, because it is not strictly a phonetic transcription. :shock:

Pinyin was designed as a script and most alphabetic scripts are not strictly phonetic transcriptions.

Beside something like Pinyin, the Chinese need a true phonetic transcription, i.e. one which is not
misleading, for learning purposes. And that needs not be alphabetic at all - something like BoPoMoFo would be better.

Students of Mandarin, foreigners, yes, but also the Chinese themselves, in particular non-Mandarin speaking
minorities, among them the Cantonese, who have to learn Mandarin more or less as a second language,
as well as the vast number of non-standard Mandarin speakers, would certainly be better off.

That makes a majority among the Chinese themselves.

The Taiwanese have their BoPoMoFo, but even that could be improved on.
So the Taiwanese would also benefit from a true Mainland phonetic alphabet, even if they may say no to it.

The Chinese could also use a different, quasi-alphabetic script to replace the Chinese characters, if one really wants that.

The script does not have to be strictly alphabetic, since the “English” alphabet is not really fit for the purpose, as indeed Pinyin shows all too clearly.
Most countries have their own alphabet, often derived from the Latin set, and I think that China could afford it’s own.

In terms of manufacturing keyboards they would certainly benefit from the economy of scale.
I don’t know if it’s really possible to replace the Chinese characters.

One is tempted to say yes, why not, but there is a high frequency of homophones in Chinese when tone is omitted. Well,
if you put back the tones, in a systematic way, as indeed Pinyin does, what you get is a constant solicitation for the reader,
which may not be necessary and even counter productive.

In English, but also in French, specific spelling to distinguish homophones is comparatively infrequent.
And diacritic marks are used to distinguish otherwise identical spelling.
In Mandarin, even if you only put the tone marks where needed, you still have a lot of them.

EB

[cranky_laowai]

@speakpigeon

Beside something like Pinyin, the Chinese need a true phonetic transcription, i.e. one which is not misleading, for learning purposes. And that needs not be alphabetic at all - something like BoPoMoFo would be better.

Just different. Not better.

[quote]I don’t know if it’s really possible to replace the Chinese characters.

One is tempted to say yes, why not, but there is a high frequency of homophones in Chinese when tone is omitted. Well,
if you put back the tones, in a systematic way, as indeed Pinyin does, what you get is a constant solicitation for the reader,
which may not be necessary and even counter productive.

In English, but also in French, specific spelling to distinguish homophones is comparatively infrequent.
And diacritic marks are used to distinguish otherwise identical spelling.
In Mandarin, even if you only put the tone marks where needed, you still have a lot of them. [/quote]

There aren’t so many. Really. You might want to have another look at “The Homonym Problem”.

But perhaps it would be easier for you to see for yourself in a real pinyin dictionary. The ABC Chinese-English Dictionary, for example, is laid out in true alphebetical form, not via characters in any way. All words that are spelled the same, even if they have different tones, are indicated, with an asterisk marking the most frequently seen version of the word. So it’s easy to spot “homophones” on the page. Flipping through the dictionary I see that most “homophones” differ in not only tones but parts of speech and area of meaning. Thus, even without tone marks, context would make it easy to tell almost all of them apart.

[speakpigeon]

Well if it’s to be phonetic, it’s better not to mix things up with any phonetic value that may already be associated with known alphabet, particularly the “English” alphabet. It’s a problem essentially for learners, but as I said, learners in China makes a lot of people.

EB