Yes but no one can remember how to spell it, and it makes English speakers pronounce it with a “k” sound.
Also Keelung most definitely doesn’t look classy to me, I guess that romanisation must come from Taiwanese.
I think for purposes of consistency and clarity everything in Taiwan should be romanised into Hanyu pinyin, but unfortunately they will keep the traditional place names as exceptions.
Well… yes, the sj (as in sju or seven in English) is another neat trick we have to prevent people from learning the language, although it doesn’t seem like a huge problem for Chinese speakers to say it, but I have yet to meet a native English speaker that can pronounce it properly. My step brother in-law’s impersonation (he’s a Yank) of sju is doing a nasty throat sound, like when you’re trying to cough up flem and then a u sound…
I think every language has something quirky though, my biggest problem learning English was words ending in ths like months, as that sound doesn’t exist it Swedish. What I’ve found with Chinese, the few bits I’ve managed to pick up, is that I have to speak very softly and at the front of my mouth, with feels very unnatural for me, as I’m used to speak further back in my mouth. Anyone else had this problem?
An opinion piece from Yu Boquan advocating that both pinyin systems should continue to be used in parallel.
His main arguments:
Good riddance!
That is just madness. I support Taiwan’s right to design and choose its own romanization system without some ‘international’ system being foisted on it. But what we really need is one system used consistently. For better or for worse, that system is going to be Hanyu Pinyin.
Because when comparing Wade-Giles to Hanyu Pinyin, hs=x and sh=sh.
For me the real question is when they are going to get rid of Zhuyin Fuhao (bopomofo)?
If the general populace actually had a reason to know and use this system (Hanyu Pinyin), I dont think there would be nearly as much confusion.
Mind you, I see the logic in using a “Chinese-based” phonetic system to teach native learners Chinese, I just think that the phonetic system of Zhuyin Fuhao is so far removed from the learning of Chinese characters, that it doesn’t really matter (even though it is based on Rime tables and old Buddist methods of pronunciation). China seems to do ok with using Hanyu Pinyin for teaching its children the phonetics of Chinese, so couldn’t Taiwan as well?
Mind you, I am also a linguistic pragmatist, and I am pretty sure that Chinese characters could be done away with altogether, and replaced with an alphabet type system (or even use Zhuyin Fuhao!!). Especially in the modern world where Chinese has moved away from monosyllabic and disyllabic word into long multisyllablic words.
But “Five Thousand Years” of written history are hard to fight against.
Hmmm, but perhaps I believe none of this, or I have multiple personalities, and also love Chinese characters and language … which is actually true.
Just a rant. Ignore or respond at your own risk.
Noel
[quote=“Noel”]For me the real question is when they are going to get rid of Zhuyin Fuhao (bopomofo)?
If the general populace actually had a reason to know and use this system (Hanyu Pinyin), I don’t think there would be nearly as much confusion.
Mind you, I see the logic in using a “Chinese-based” phonetic system to teach native learners Chinese, I just think that the phonetic system of Zhuyin Fuhao is so far removed from the learning of Chinese characters, that it doesn’t really matter (even though it is based on Rime tables and old Buddist methods of pronunciation). China seems to do ok with using Hanyu Pinyin for teaching its children the phonetics of Chinese, so couldn’t Taiwan as well?
Mind you, I am also a linguistic pragmatist, and [color=#FF0000]I am pretty sure that Chinese characters could be done away with altogether[/color], and replaced with an alphabet type system (or even use Zhuyin Fuhao!!). Especially in the modern world where Chinese has moved away from monosyllabic and disyllabic word into long multisyllablic words.
But “Five Thousand Years” of written history are hard to fight against.
Hmmm, but perhaps I believe none of this, or I have multiple personalities, and also love Chinese characters and language … which is actually true.
Just a rant. Ignore or respond at your own risk.
Noel[/quote]
What heresy is this??!!
I would agree that Hanyu Pinyin is a good system for non language learning foreigners merely in a Chinese speaking country for business or pleasure. But I’ve found that Zhuyin has been much more helpful (and makes more sense, to me, at least) in learning pronounciation and new characters.
I’ve also seen how using pinyin as opposed to zhuyin to teach pronounciation has lead English speaking foreigners to pronounce words with a …pronounced…accent. i.e. Tainan pronouncing the nan part as “a” in can. The same with all other “an” (ㄢ), not to mention other pronounciation problems that arise merely from associating romanised letters with English pronounciation.
And when you say “An”…what do you mean? 安? 諳? 鞍? 氨? 侒? 媕? Sure, there are things like context, but in writing this may not always be clear… Besides which, Chinese characters are beautiful and unique (traditional ones, not the abominations they use in China).
Eg: Wo qu xuexiao shuijiao chi shuijiao.
As opposed to:
我去學校睡覺吃水餃
And this abomination:
我去学校睡觉吃水饺
But hey, to each his own…
The alleged superiority of Zhuyin fuhao is Taiwanese Chinese teacher propaganda. There plenty of foreigners out there speaking excellent Chinese with no accent who started out with Hanyu pinyin.
Written Chinese has been an abomination ever since people started moving away from 文言文 to 白話. I mean, seriously, what sort of uncivilized barbarian writes Chinese with the same words that they speak? The difference between baihua in Traditional Chinese and in simplified Chinese is the difference between dog shit and pig shit.
Damn you, Lu Xun and Hu Shi!!!
But seriously, Feiren’s right about HP. The vast majority of foreigners in the world who have jaw-droppingly fluent Chinese all live in the mainland and have only ever used Hanyu Pinyin. If you’re saying “an” with an American English short a, it’s most certainly not HP’s fault, you just need to start getting instruction from a native speaker.
It seems that the same tired old arguments keep being brought up every time the romanisation issue is in the news. The Zhuyin Fuhao is better than Hanyu Pinyin myth unfortunately gets perpetuated. The worst thing is that this myth is oft repeated by Chinese language teachers or advanced students of Mandarin. They really should know better.
While the official adoption of Hanyu Pinyin is welcome news, I fear that the end result will be Hanyu Pinyin with Taiwanese characteristics. i.e. intercapitalisation, incorrect use of apostrophes and plenty of mistakes.
And failure to use proper tone marks.
I did ask about the marks, and was met with expressions of panic and shock.
The old school will hang on to WG as long as no one forces to do other wise. Hence Ilan remains… I l a n.
And if you think you have heard everything, you haven’t heard the arguments about using pinyin at all…
(can’t repeat them here, though, you know, work stuff).
Feiren wrote “On the other hand, anyone who doesn’t see that this is part of the new government’s highly ideological policy of rolling back all symbols of Taiwanese sovereignty is deluding themselves. This was not done to ‘internationalize’ or convenience foreigners. It was done to Sinify. Be careful what you ask for.”
Never mind the fact Feiren consistently expounds deep green sympathies, of course.
Fact: it was done mainly via an acceptance of the lobbying position contained of the white papers presented to the government by the various chambers of commerce; these included the European Chamber, Amcham, Australian Chamber, NZ, Japanese Chamber among others. All presented strong arguments in favour Pinyin in the interests of internationalization. Practically the entire international community. Sorry Feiren, this is one conspiracy theory which you’ll have to drop.
A totally different alphabet, in this case Zhuyin, on average reduces L1 interference when reading phonetically. However, the downside is that it requires one to spend effort in learning the new alphabet, which can be spent instead trying to separate the sounds of the two languages using the same L1 alphabet.
Since different people learn differently, some will find one method preferable over the other.
The fact that some has managed to acquire native-like pronunciation in a new language does not invalidate the potential benefits of a different alphabet.
Romanization reform in Taiwan has generally been a series of embarrasing, expensive failures. But I’m hoping that this time, with some help from the foreign community and those who actually know something about Hanyu Pinyin, the government’s romanization switch won’t be another complete SNAFU. (Yes, I know: wishful thinking.)
Earlier this year, when the Chen administration was still in power and Tongyong Pinyin was official, I wrote up a critique of proposed guidelines for writing Taiwan place names.
I’ve been working on revising these recommendations to the government in the light of the current situation and would be interested in getting input on this from Forumosans. Comments can be left here or in the relevant thread on my site. Thanks.
Cranky, most of your suggestions are practical and technical and makes perfect sense. However, I disagree with much of section five, especially the recommendation that “[i]deally, no Chinese characters would be used with some of these names” when talking about Aborigines names. As Mandarin is the only official language and used by the vast overwhelming majority of the population, of course Chinese characters should be used with these names.
Mandarin is not the only official language. Given that the Roman alphabet is now taught from elementary school on and that aboriginal languages are taught using it, why should we use Chinese characters to represent aboriginal names? In any event, the right to use non-Han script for aboriginal names on official documents is protected by law.
yeah, why shuld aboringinals be forced to write in Chinese characters if their name doesn’t fit into Chinese phonemes? that is discrimintaion, but then we should expect that from KMT.
and as an aside, what is so wrong with intercapitalisation of placenames like ZhongXiao? it’s done all the time with Chinese city names on many chinese city maps i see GuangZhou, etc. (or is it just that these are fake maps, printed in China). and It’s done in English, as in New York, for example. and there is no difference in the Chinese characters between, say, New Town and Newtown.
No, aboriginals shouldn’t have to be forced to write in Chinese characters. I fully support multilingual signs on maps and roads. Having characters alongside local languages on government produced maps and road signs isn’t discrimination. It’s a service to the public.
Because it doesn’t conform to the standards of Hanyu Pinyin. If you’re going to implement a system, it’s best you implement it correctly and consistently. Non-conformance to Hanyu Pinyin is pretty common in China as well; hence, GuangZhou instead of Guangzhou that you’ll see on some maps.
No, aboriginals shouldn’t have to be forced to write in Chinese characters. I fully support multilingual signs on maps and roads. Having characters alongside local languages on government produced maps and road signs isn’t discrimination. It’s a service to the public.[/quote]
I agree with sjcma. Though Aborigines shouldn’t be forced to use Chinese characters themselves, local Chinese should also be given the courtesy of being able to read, say, road signs or maps. Imagine if, in the US, the road signs for Cherokee, North Carolina, were only written as follows (hope this shows up in your browser):
ᎠᏂᏴᏫᏯ
It wouldn’t be very convenient for the majority.
As for city names, I believe that Taipei, Kaohsiung and a few other major ones should keep their long-standing spellings, as I oppose in general efforts around the world to change city names (such as Bombay to Mumbai or Rangoon to Yangon). It would be like the Germans insisting that English speakers use München instead of Munich, or Italians ordering us not to say Rome, but instead use Roma.
Hell, I’d even support the restoration of Kaohsiung’s name to the old name Takow.