Maybe we foreigners should wait to the height
of the coming mayorial campaign and then hold
a media event thanking mayor Ma for Hanyu Pinyin road signs.
Also perhaps we should pin down whoever his
oppenet is about what exactly is his road sign
policy.
We could say “even those of us who support
Taiwan independence support mayor Ma on this”.
I’ll hold a counter-press conference if you do. And I’m only half-joking.
Dan, sounds like a great idea. I don’t care about all the political bickering and ‘significance’ about it… I’m just glad it looks like someone decided to do something after 5 years of senseless debate.
And to think they actually are using the international standard… wow… I’m so proud…
Why? Please elaborate. :s
Please don’t - you’ll just lose credibility. I still remember the rolled eyes and barely suppressed groans when you pulled that one at the meeting at Taipei City Hall with the various foreign representatives of multinationals and foreign governments. No matter how we feel about it, nobody wants to hear our political views. We have a little bit more leeway with language issues, let’s not blow the opportunity.
Also, if you are concerned about building credibility and making Ma and Hanyu Pinyin look good to the rest of Taiwan, shouldn’t you dress a little bit more ~ahem~ formally than you did last time? That’s just good manners. Taiwanese tend to not take too seriously those with an unkempt appearance. 
Have you been in the Shrlin District recently? I saw a lot of road signs there with wierd spellings.
quote[quote](Maoman) Why? Please elaborate. [/quote]Because I think that Danny’s press conference would be used as evidence that all foreigners in Taiwan support pinyin. I don’t support it, and I know other foreigners who don’t either.
quote[quote] (LittleIron)And to think they actually are using the international standard [/quote]I don’t think that Pinyin is an international standard. International standards are usually devised by groups of international experts for things like weights, measures, and information exchange. Hanyu pinyin was not developed this way, and therefore it is not an “international standard.”
International standards for things like languages are rare precisely because of their social, cultural, and political significance. Unicode, which is an international standard, has had problems especially in East Asia because governments do not want to give up the power to define written languages nationally.
Besides, Hanyu Pinyin is not all that standardized anyway. When the Library of Congress adopted Hanyu Pinyin, it modified the Chinese government’s standard by parsing all syllables as words. ‘Zhong guo’ not ‘Zhongguo.’ So what should it be, ‘Taibei’ or ‘Tai Bei’? Which is the “international standard”?
Originally posted by Feiren:
quote[quote]I don't think that Pinyin is an international standard. International standards are usually devised by groups of international experts for things like weights, measures, and information exchange. Hanyu pinyin was not developed this way, and therefore it is not an "international standard." [/quote]It is not the origin of a system that matters in determining an international standard.
You mention weights and measures. Let’s look at the metric system.
The basics were knocked out by some French scientists back in the 18th century. Did those scientists ask for representatives from China, Bali, Norway, etc. when developing the system? No. And yet all of those places – and pretty much every other place on earth except for the United States – have adopted the metric system (SI) as the international standard. (Actually, even the U.S. authorities recognize the metric system as the international standard and are slowly moving toward it in many areas. But that’s off topic.)
Yes, scientists from different countries later gathered to refine the metric system – but only because that was necessary. “If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.” Hanyu pinyin isn’t broken and doesn’t need fixing, and so hasn’t been in need of international tinkering. It has been accepted as the international standard because it already works – and works well.
quote[quote]Besides, Hanyu Pinyin is not all that standardized anyway. When the Library of Congress adopted Hanyu Pinyin, it modified the Chinese government's standard by parsing all syllables as words. 'Zhong guo' not 'Zhongguo.' So what should it be, 'Taibei' or 'Tai Bei'?[/quote]This is incorrect. Under the Library of Congress guidelines, proper nouns are written solid: Zhongguo, not Zhong Guo; and Taibei, not Tai Bei. The decision to parse the syllables separately in most words was a practical decision, based upon the needs of different systems to communicate with each other. Besides, the isolation of syllables does not affect the pronunciation of those syllables and thus has nothing to do with hanyu pinyin vs. other systems.
Anyway, it doesn’t make much sense for you to bring in the Library of Congress when you’re asserting hanyu pinyin isn’t the international standard. The LOC adopted hanyu pinyin precisely because that is the international standard.
Maybe we should just invite Ma Yingjiu and You Xikun to the next Oriented Happy Hour. We could corner them and threaten to sing Karaoke if they don’t answer all of our questions.
Ma was actually touring our offices the other day. I said hi but I don’t think he was interested in not speaking English with an apparent foreigner.
I had this nice response all in mind, and then a poster goes and uses logic to settle the whole issue…
It is true that there are foreigners in Taiwan that don’t support hanyu pinyin, but I think we can arrange this gathering when both of them are busy.
I stand corrected on the issue of geographic names. However, my broader point remains valid: the parsing of Hanyu Pinyin is not standardized.
What the Library of Congress actually says about Hanyu Pinyin is:
quote[quote]In order to provide better service to library users, the Library of Congress is moving to adopt the pinyin system of romanization of Chinese. That system has already been the standard for the United States Government for more than two decades; it is also the standard used by the United Nations and most of the world's media. [/quote] See [URL=http://www.loc.gov/catdir/pinyin/romcover.html]LC Romanization Guidelines[/URLWhile the implication is certainly that Hanyu Pinyin is an international standard, they avoid saying so outright.
The origin of a standard does matter:
[QUOTE]How are ISO standards developed?
The national delegations of experts of a technical committee meet to discuss, debate and argue until they reach consensus on a draft agreement. This is then circulated to ISO’s membership as a whole for comment and balloting. Many members have public review procedures for making draft standards known and available to interested parties and to the general public. The ISO members then take account of any feedback they receive in formulating their position on the draft standard. Finally, if the voting is in favour, the document is published as an International Standard.[QUOTE]-ISO FAQ
I happen to think that the LC was correct to adopt Hanyu Pinyin because Hanyu Pinyin meets the needs of the Library’s users well.
What much of the foreign community fails to see in the Hanyu Pinyin issue in Taiwan is that foreigners will not be the primary users. The primary users will be the Taiwanese, who will use whatever pinyin system is adopted on addresses, passports, court documents, and the like.
Why are some of us so determined to impose the One True Pinyin on Taiwan? I know multiple forms of pinyin–Wade Giles, Hanyu Pinyin, the French sinological Pinyin (used in Needham), and the one James Legge used in his translations. All of them work well when applied consistently as will Tongyong.
Small markers of identity and difference are important to small countries with large neighbors. There is also a long historical tradition in East Asian countries that associates legitimacy and sovreignity with regimes have the power to dictate the form of the written language. Hundreds of thousands of school children would benefit if a system could be devised that would cover Hakka and Minnan (if you think Tongyong can’t do that, prove it to me with specific examples rather than just saying it can’t be done.)
All of these are good reasons to choose an alternative system to Hanyu Pinyin. However, if the Ministry of Education decides on Hanyu Pinyin, I’ll be perfectly happy. I rather suspect, however, that some of the other posters on this list will be outraged if Taiwan chooses Hanyu pinyin simply because this was the system that was used in the first few textbooks you used to study Chinese. Why the obsession? Is it related to our general disenfranchisement here in Taiwan?
I must say you make some good points Feiren.
However, I must still respectfully disagree. The main reason I’m for adopting Hanyu is because it is most widely used worldwide (not because I learned it first); I have a feeling it will become even more widespread and ingrained as China becomes both more open (ie more interaction with the rest of the world) and a more powerful player on the international scene.
Another more concrete advantage of hanyu pinyin over, say, Wades-Giles and the likes, is the lack of the apostrophe in words. These apostrophes were good ideas, and make sense… b’o and bo, and t’a and ta are pronounced almost the same, differing only in the amount of aspiration used. Makes sense, but when anybody (or more specifically, any country) decides the apostrophes are too much trouble to use, it screws up the entire system (not an inherent fault of the system, just humanity’s laziness at work).
Hanyu has not been standardized by an international organization, but I don’t believe it needs to be. It’s turned out to be more of a de facto standard (at least in my mind). In my experience, all of the foreigners who have learned a romanization system have all learned hanyu pinyin, so I’m making an assumption that this is the case for MOST foreigners.
I think we need to keep in mind the bigger issue being that THEY NEED TO ADOPT A SYSTEM. One system. I’m tired of not getting mail.
Originally posted by Feiren:
quote[quote]My broader point remains valid: the parsing of Hanyu Pinyin is not standardized.[/quote]This is irrelevant to the subject at hand. The question of the parsing of Chinese isn’t specifically a matter of Hanyu Pinyin but rather a matter of the romanization of Chinese in general. It is a complicated matter.
quote:
What the Library of Congress actually says about Hanyu Pinyin is: ...[url=http://www.loc.gov/catdir/pinyin/romcover.html]LC Romanization Guidelines[/url]While the implication is certainly that Hanyu Pinyin is an international standard, they avoid saying so outright.
You’re really grasping at straws if you think the exact phrase “international standard” must appear.
quote[quote]The origin of a standard does matter[/quote]Oh, so you were referring to the ISO in determining international standards? Well, guess what: The ISO standard for Chinese is Hanyu Pinyin.
quote[quote]I happen to think that the LC was correct to adopt Hanyu Pinyin because Hanyu Pinyin meets the needs of the Library's users well.[/quote]I am encouraged that you agree.
I will address the rest of your points later.
quote:
Originally posted by LittleIron: Hanyu has not been standardized by an international organization...
Does the United Nations count as an international organization?
quote:
Originally posted by Feiren:What much of the foreign community fails to see in the Hanyu Pinyin issue in Taiwan is that foreigners will not be the primary users. The primary users will be the Taiwanese, who will use whatever pinyin system is adopted on addresses, passports, court documents, and the like.
Small markers of identity and difference are important to small countries with large neighbors. There is also a long historical tradition in East Asian countries that associates legitimacy and sovreignity with regimes have the power to dictate the form of the written language. [/QB]
Although certainly more Taiwanese would use whatever romanization system is decreed, they’ll still use it primarilly in situations where they might be dealing with foreigners. As far as I know, it’s not going to replace bopomofo as the primary phonetic system in the schools. I’m not sure the fact that people might have it on their namecards or passports makes them “users.” My US passport has French in it, but that doesn’t mean I’m a “user” of French or would have any idea what it meant if the English wasn’t right above it.
While it’s no doubt true that small markers of difference are important to small countries, I would guess that only about 5% of Taiwanese care about which romanization system is used. If it was really important to most people, there would have been a system long ago and we wouldn’t be having this discussion. (I don’t read the Chinese paper regularly. Out of curiousity, does this make the headlines in them at all, or does it only make the Taipei Times?)
As markers of difference go, surely it’s more significant that Taiwan stuck to traditional characters. Although a lot of the characters are the same, there’s a lot of people here who would have trouble reading a book printed in the PRC and even more people in the PRC who would have trouble with a book written here. Characters after all are what people actually use in their daily lives.
OK, I’m back. (I see that Grizzly has beaten me to a few points. But it took a little while to type out this tome, so I’ll go ahead and include my take on them anyway.)
quote[quote]What much of the foreign community fails to see in the Hanyu Pinyin issue in Taiwan is that foreigners will not be the primary users. The primary users will be the Taiwanese, who will use whatever pinyin system is adopted on addresses, passports, court documents, and the like. [/quote]I disagree. Would you say that the primary users of romanization systems in Taiwan now are Taiwanese and not foreigners? Most locals do not know any romanization system whatsoever. Their “use” of it is generally limited to looking up once how to spell their names in an often-inaccurate source – or perhaps letting a travel agent make up something for them - in advance of acquiring a passport. They then innocently reproduce this the rest of their lives. Perhaps they look on a badly made map for a street name when they need to write something a foreigner needs to read.
The romanization of Mandarin is – unless people are talking about getting rid of characters altogether – for those who do not read Chinese characters and those who do not speak Mandarin. That means foreigners. Without foreigners, there is no need for the romanization of Mandarin.
quote[quote]Why are some of us so determined to impose the One True Pinyin on Taiwan? [/quote] I would ask why some are so determined to avoid using the international standard for Mandarin. And "impose" is a mighty strong word, don't you think? Most locals I've spoken about the subject with have no problem whatsoever with Taiwan adopting Hanyu Pinyin. What imposition? Hanyu Pinyin needn't be required on the passports of those who prefer something else. After all, almost no one used gwoyeu romatzyh when it was the official system or uses MPS II now.quote[quote]I know multiple forms of pinyin--Wade Giles, Hanyu Pinyin, the French sinological Pinyin (used in Needham), and the one James Legge used in his translations. All of them work well when applied consistently as will Tongyong. [/quote]Just because things can work doesn’t mean they will. The ROC’s official system for half a century was gwoyeu romatzyh, which has the useful quality of incorporating tones into the spelling. But it’s a real pain in the ass to learn and wouldn’t work as a popular system. Consistency alone isn’t enough. There’s already an international standard that is well known and well supported. Tongyong, on the other hand, has basically nothing backing it.
quote[quote]Small markers of identity and difference are important to small countries with large neighbors. [/quote]By using something other than Hanyu Pinyin for Mandarin, Taiwan would be differentiating itself not from China but from the rest of the world.
If I may quote myself here:
quote:
[i]The "differentness" Taiwan would achieve by adopting tongyong pinyin would be no more beneficial than, for example, deciding that stoplights on the island will not be red, yellow, and green like the system used in China (and almost everywhere else), but blue, orange, and pink. No matter how many blue-orange-pink supporters cry "See how wonderfully unique we are!" the rest of the world will still look on this as a ridiculous change from the standard. [/i]Using tongyong pinyin would be no more useful an expression of national identity than requiring people to wear their underwear on the outside of their clothing. Difference for its own sake would make Taiwan look petty and ridiculous. Taiwan does not benefit from looking petty or ridiculous.
If Taiwan can’t distinguish itself through its democracy and culture, some romanization system by a local “scholar” just ain’t gonna do the trick.
quote[quote]There is also a long historical tradition in East Asian countries that associates legitimacy and sovreignity with regimes have the power to dictate the form of the written language. [/quote]Maybe that’s why Taiwan has the worst sovereignty problem in the region: It has never managed to spell anything right.
quote[quote]Hundreds of thousands of school children would benefit if a system could be devised that would cover Hakka and Minnan (if you think Tongyong can't do that, prove it to me with specific examples rather than just saying it can't be done.) [/quote]I’m not in the mood to do other people’s homework tonight. You show me the comparison charts for the Tongyong schemes of Hakka and Minnan and Mandarin. And don’t forget to add in the schemes for all the languages of Taiwan’s tribes as well, because Tongyong has been touted as a one-fits-all system. If you’re advocating the system, show it to us. But you might have a hard time finding information.
Why is Tongyong, this supposed godsend of internationalization and supreme sovereignty, such a secret? People who want to know about Hanyu Pinyin can find clear information quickly and easily in dictionaries and on websites and in textbooks and in phrasebooks and in travel guides and on and on and on. But Tongyong? Or are you advocating a system without knowing much of anything about it?
quote[quote] I rather suspect, however, that some of the other posters on this list will be outraged if Taiwan chooses Hanyu pinyin simply because this was the system that was used in the first few textbooks you used to study Chinese. [/quote]Huh? What are you talking about?
Not that it matters, but Wade-Giles, not Hanyu Pinyin, was the first romanization system I learned way back when.
quote[quote]Why the obsession? Is it related to our general disenfranchisement here in Taiwan? [/quote]Obsession? Certainly I care more about this than most people, otherwise I wouldn’t have bothered with the website. I think what bothers me most about tongyong is that its creators have been intellectually dishonest in its promotion.
Originally posted by Dan Jacobson: We could say “even those of us who
support Taiwan independence support mayor Ma on this”. Please don’t -
you’ll just lose credibility. I still remember the rolled eyes and
barely suppressed groans when you pulled that one at the meeting at
Taipei City Hall with the various foreign representatives of
multinationals and foreign governments. No matter how we feel about
it, nobody wants to hear our political views. We have a little bit
more leeway with language issues, let’s not blow the opportunity.
OK, but I’m often branded as a unificationist for favoring hanyu
pinyin. If I just smile and change the subject, that means they are
right. So I say “see, the US is independent of England but still can
use English”. But then they say that it is spelled differently bla
bla bla.
Also, if you are concerned about building credibility and making Ma
and Hanyu Pinyin look good to the rest of Taiwan, shouldn’t you dress
a little bit more ~ahem~ formally than you did last time? That’s just
good manners. Taiwanese tend to not take too seriously those with an
unkempt appearance.
http://jidanni.org/lang/pinyin/images/19990407twrb.jpg nice white
shirt, http://jidanni.org/lang/pinyin/images/20001013tv.jpg nice plaid
[faded vertical along buttons???]. Nice red in this shot with Lo
Fuzhu’s son:
http://jidanni.org/lang/pinyin/images/19990406dan_luomingcai.jpg
Anyway, Hartzell is more kempt
http://jidanni.org/lang/pinyin/images/20001012lhb.jpg however he is
liable to make embarrassing pinyin mistakes. Anyway, mom bought me a
new pair of sneakers, however she said they were not to be used for
going to Taibei for silly endless arguments.
quote: I know multiple forms of pinyin–Wade Giles, Hanyu Pinyin, the
French sinological Pinyin (used in Needham), and the one James Legge
used in his translations. All of them work well when applied
consistently as will Tongyong.
How can the word consistently be put in the same sentence as the word
Tongyong?
http://jidanni.org/lang/pinyin/images/19980718shifu_rd.jpg is a
picture of Yu Boquan, Mr. Tongyong, all thumbs up about this sign he
just had hung. I am all thumbs up too because it also happens to
match hanyu pinyin.
Now Mr. Yu wants to change his sign along with the spelling of 1/3 of
the streets of Taibei from what he hung last time. This sign he wants
to change to Shihfu instead of Shifu. He is not forthcoming about
this. E.g. his fellow commission members don’t know that what he hung
last time, “ZhongSiao” is now no good and must be rehung with
JhongSiao. And so on for 1/3 of the signs in his system. On the job
training. Great.
quote:Small markers of identity and difference are important to small
countries with large neighbors.
quote: There is also a long historical tradition in East Asian
countries that associates legitimacy and sovreignity with regimes have
the power to dictate the form of the written language.
isn’t it the “emperor’s new clothes” to argue about the spelling of
Nanjing, Beiping, Tianjin, Xuzhou, etc. etc. roads without instead
first removing the China worship in the place name? Me? Content:
whatever you like, but use the international spelling standard for
whatever characters appear.
If Taiwan can’t distinguish itself through its democracy and culture,
some romanization system by a local “scholar” just ain’t gonna do the
trick.
Yu Boquan is a particularly sorry one. For each language he
offers[d?] several plans, that way you are certain to find one you
like. “Vote for me and I will make the minimum wage $1.23, $3.21, or
$2.31!” what does that mean?
quote: Hundreds of thousands of school children would benefit if a
system could be devised that would cover Hakka and Minnan (if you
think Tongyong can’t do that, prove it to me with specific examples
rather than just saying it can’t be done.)I’m not in the mood to do other people’s homework tonight. You show me
the comparison charts for the Tongyong schemes of Hakka and Minnan and
Mandarin. And don’t forget to add in the schemes for all the languages
of Taiwan’s tribes as well, because Tongyong has been touted as a
one-fits-all system. If you’re advocating the system, show it to
us. But you might have a hard time finding information.
why can [several of Tongyong’s many Minnan schemes, which they never
reached a conclusion on] borrow Hakka’s V while at the same time not
allowing any borrowing by Mandarin? Why are the rules so strict about
Mandarin and then the R freely used elsewhere even though it sounds
different? And if it’s OK to sound different than why Tongyong in
the first place. Why is “China Pinyin”'s ZH so bad when C is OK, and
ZH was OK as can be seen by him hanging “ZhongSiao” Rd.
Anyway it is embarrassing that a fellow foreigner [linux dude, infact]
has been taken in by the billuious arguments of the Tongyong camp,
without first checking the facts to see if it is indeed Tongyong after
all.
You see, not everything Green is good. For instance, with Peng
Mingmin, last presidential candidate, one never hears about any
inconsistentcies. However, as you can see on my website, Yu Boquan is
loaded with them.
Anyways, Tongyong is an oxymoron… with only so many alphabets and so
many sounds, you just can’t do it. That’s what the International
Phonetic Alphabet is for. However the IPA is not for road signs.
quote:Why the obsession? Is it related to our general
disenfranchisement here in Taiwan?
No sh*t, good luck trying to get even one foreign representative at
the ministry of Education meetings where these things are decided.
How would we know what is good for us anyway. In contrast, Mayor Ma
seems to listen. Go ask the Civil Affairs chief, Lin Zhengxiu. At
first they were apprehensive about hanyu pinyin too, until we all told
him over and over that’s what we want. There, that rules out a
unification plot by the Taibei city gov’t.
No, Yu isn’t a bad person. He just is like some of those idealists
“too busy with the campaign to worry about paying the bills or taking
out the trash or using other peoples’ land”…
Jeez man, get rid of the facial pubes! What a friggin’ mess! No wonder foreigners aren’t taken seriously here – we gots Jethro Tull’s Ian Anderson on our side.
Just hope you at least don’t wear his codpiece as well.
Little Iron, I agree with you 100% when you say:
quote[quote] It is true that there are foreigners in Taiwan that don't support hanyu pinyin, but I think we can arrange this gathering when both of them are busy [/quote]But I disagree completely when you say:
quote[quote] I must say you make some good points Feiren [/quote]Christ Feiren, you’re popping up arguing against Tongyong again. Why do you think everyone supports pinyin? Because we’re all arch-unificationists? It’s because anyone who supports Tongyong, either doesn’t understand what romanisation is about, or is just plain stupid. Either way, they should just get out of the debate. There shouldn’t even be a need for a debate.
Why do I think that you don’t understand it? Well here’s just one example:
quote:
Hundreds of thousands of school children would benefit if a system could be devised that would cover Hakka and Minnan (if you think Tongyong can't do that, prove it to me with specific examples rather than just saying it can't be done.)If you had any understanding of what a phonetic system is for, then it would be obvious. It’s for assigning certain symbols to certain signs. So a Tongyong ‘b’ equals a sound almost identical to the sound it makes when read in English (whereas a ‘c’ is totally different).
Now I know next to no Taiwanese (Minnan), but I don’t have to to make an example. Taiwanese has sounds that aren’t in Mandarin. That means you can’t use the same symbols to represent those sounds. So you either add extra symbols (I expect a good dozen or more on top of the 25 or 26 to cover Mandarin, then another few for Hakka and many many morie for aboriginal languages), or you just use the same symbol to represent two different sounds which totally defeats the purpose. Either way you end up with a facked up system.
No I don’t think that the above poster or other supporters of Hanyu Pinyin in this forum are arch-unificationists. However, Ma Yingjiu is, and I suspect strongly that his new-found enthusiasm for Hanyu Pinyin has more to do with keeping Taiwan in the bosom of the Motherland rather than conveniencing foreigners. And yes, I think a press conference would make him look good, which is very a good reason not to do it.
A romanization system should, well, romanize a written language that does not use latin characters. There is no need for each letter or groupd letters to correspond artifically to one sound. We use more or less the same letters to represent French and English sounds without to much confusion for those who speak both languages. By the same token, there is no reason we can’t use one set of symbols to represent Mandarin, Hakka, and Minnan. Of course, the symbols will represent different sounds and some extensions will have to be added for sounds like the liquid ‘b’ in Minnan that doesn’t exist in Mandarin.
I doubt very seriously that Tongyong or any other romanization scheme for a Sinitic language can be adapted to the Aboriginal languages in Taiwan.
RE: Parsing Chinese
Yes, this is a complicated problem. The issue is relevant, however, in the sense that I would like to know whose version of this “standard” Taiwan should adopt? The LC version or China’s version (where ci2 are to be written solid)? I’m simply observing that this supposedly universal standard has more than one version.
In my reading of the LC’s introduction, they are dancing around the issue of whether Hanyu Pinyin is an international standard. As you are probably aware, the decision to adopt Hanyu Pinyin was very controversial, and a certain amount of reading between the lines is justified for a statement that was crafted to smooth over differences of opinion.
Taiwan is not a member of the ISO, and ISO standards are largely for quality management anyway. The point is that most people feel that standards should be developed through a process something like the one that the ISO describes. Hanyu Pinyin has become the defacto standard simply because of China’s size.
Your examples of alternative traffic light systems and underwear worn outside are off the mark. Traffic lights are non-ideological. People don’t feel that the color of traffic lights has much to do with their identity. Language issues, however, are very different.
The success of any romanization scheme in Taiwan will depend on whether it is taught in the schools as it is (more or less) in China. Otherwise, Taiwanese will never use pinyin themselves correctly and we will continue to have the confusion that we see now on street signs and name cards. I’m not suggesting that it supplant Bopomofo by the way.
