quote[quote]You can ask Cranky Laowai of romanization.com if it is true if tongyong is being refined and changing.[/quote]If you’re looking for support for your cause, Hobart, you’re asking the wrong guy, you know. You are correct that tongyong has changed several times. I can’t understand, however, how that is supposed to be a recommendation. Quite the contrary. This also raises the simple question: Just what is tongyong?
How can it possibly be a standard when it keeps changing? How can it be used as a standard when it might change again? How can a “standard” that doesn’t really exist be advocated year after year? Already Taipei and Kaohsiung, among other places, have loads of street signs based on being sold (different) now-obsolete versions of tongyong. This situation is not only stupid and confusing (to say the least), it will be very expensive and a lot of mafan to correct. People trusted tongyong, but were given a crock of shit. I don’t see how that has changed. Why trust tongyong now?
A standard that is not standardized is not a standard.
Changing, yes. Being refined? Nonsense.
I would be interested in knowing which pronunciation of Taiwanese words Tongyong uses. Anyone can tell you that the pronunciation of Taiwanese in Pingdong and Jilong is completely different. Which version will be adopted as the standard, and why?
And again, what about the romanization of the aboriginal languages? Is Tongyong better than the romanization methods that had previously been devised? In every case? How do the aboriginals themselves feel about the issue? Does this mean that the new Tongyong generation will no longer be able to use the previous literature that had been translated into aboriginal languages, such as educational materials, religious texts, etc.? Do the older generation who were literate in their own language now become less literate because all new materials will be using a new romanization system?
Lastly, if a phonetic system uses the same letters to make different sounds, is it still considered to be one phonetic system, or many? It seems to me, from reading the Taiwan News explanation that they are actually promoting Tongyong Pinyin (Mandarin), and Tongyong Pinyin (Hakka) and Tongyong Pinyin (Hokklo/Taiwanese), and Tongyong Pinyin (Ami), etc, each with their own phonetic mapping scheme. If the letters don’t map out consistently, it would seem that Tongyong Pinyin isn’t the one-size-fits-all romanization system that it claims to be. Guess that sort of turns 通用 拼音 (Tong1yong4 Pinyin) into 痛用 拼音 (Tong4yong4 Pinyin), doesn’t it…
通用 拼音 = common use romanization
痛用 拼音 = painful-to-use romanization
quote:
Originally posted by Hobart: ...what you said in point three is is an uninformed attempt at finding some justification for your selfish desire to have HanYu PinYin used in Taiwan for your own convienence despitet he political implications, which by the way, you would be totally unnaffected by, as you could simply quit your English teaching job and run back to your home country waving your passport in front of you as rush to the airport. It is no wonder you do not care so much about Taiwan China politics.
This is an interesting point, as I personally have always been under the impression that it’s easier for foreigners, with their passports and their eagerness for a ‘cause’, to openly support a formal declaration of independence by Taiwan, for the very reason Hobart states, i.e., they would be out of here at the first sign of any attack by mainland China. However, I’ve never seen this argument used the other way around. I’d like to ask Hobart if he thinks that Taiwan utilizing Hanyu Pinyin will result in a mainland Chinese attack? If so, why?
As long as we’re getting personal, I’d also like ask Hobart what he personally would do in such an event. Perhaps this is more suitable for another thread, though.
As for me, my name is still on an army reserve list somewhere, and will be for another decade or more. I have one passport and it says ROC. By the way, I support Hanyu Pinyin.
quote:
Originally posted by Bu Lai En: Hobart,
Who says this is just about street signs. The government is planing on using this for EVERYTHING. Taiwan News has (stupidly) changed already.
Even if it was just street signs, it’s no better. You simply can’t pronounce a street sign properly unless you’ve learnt the system (wahtever system it is) and know about tones etc anyway, so make it Pinyin which most students know anyway.
Sure I want pinyin becuase it’s more convenient - more convenient for EVERYBODY THAT WOULD BE USING IT.
a. My point about students not coming to Taiwan is valid because in all liklihood (unless Universities succeeded in resisting) they would change it. b. I don’t know what makes you think Tongyong is supposed to be only for street signs. It’s designed to be used for everything. c. I even think it might be planned to use it to replace bopomo in schools, although I haven’t been able to find comfirmation of this.
As for the romanisation of Taiwanese names, you’re right in thinking most people use the romanisation on their passports. But do you know how they get this? They tell the person at the travel agency and that peson writes it down based on their (often pretty loose) understanding of Wade-Giles (or maybe some other system. Actually the applicant could write down their own version if they wanted to, in pinyin or whatever.
I would be pretty seriously affected by it actually, as my fiancee, her family and many of my good friends don’t have a bolthole (unlike most of the high-level politicians who stridently advocate independence).
I care a hell of a lot about Taiwan Politics, which is why I don’t want Taiwan doing something stupid like this and isolating itself further from the community.
Well you can think what you like about Tongyong, but you should take back your personal attacks.
Bri
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The Taiwan News is an English newspaper. They write in English, I don’t think it will be much affected by using TongYong.
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What things are they currently using romanization for? Street signs, what else? The English daily news papers use romanization. Anything else? This truely is mostly about street signs.
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It is not convienent for people that have never studied HanYu Pinyin before. Those people could care less, they just want what is the easiest for them while they are here in Taiwan.
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a. Chinese language schools for foreigners would change from using what? Bopomofo and Hanyu Pinyin? They aren’t going to change. They will continue to use bopomofo and Hanyu Pinyin. b. Ok so what are they using romanization for now? Mostly street signs. This country uses Chinese characters not romanization. Romanizations are used for street signs and news papers. c. It won’t replace bopomofo. Are you crazy? BoPomofo is for Chinese anyway, romanization is for the FOB waiguoren.
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Are you so silly that you think that travel agents are now giving out passports? Maybe you are thinking about the spelling of names on plane tickets, but as I said the romanized version of the Taiwanese persons name must match what was given to them by the government on their passport. I do not think they will change the names of people, lest one Mr. Chang senior and Mr. Zhang Junior have different last names according to the romanization and it would too ma fan to have everyone in Taiwan change their romanized names to Tongyong. Again, as I said this about street signs.
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May we infer from this that your fiance, her family and many of your good friends, unlike those high-level politicians you refer to, advocate Unification with China?
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Isolate from what community? The community of the PRC? I don’t really think anyone else gives a damn whether Taiwan uses Tongyong or Hanyu pinyin, besides the pro-China camp.
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I still think that you do not fully comprehend the subtleties of Taiwanese/Chinese politics, or you and fiance and her family and your friends understand fully politics between China and Taiwan and you choose to be Pro-China Unificationists. Perhaps if this is true then I will take back what I said, as I accused you wrongly of being selfish and ignorant of the less obvious political struggles going on between Taiwan and China.
quote:
Originally posted by Poagao:
I’d like to ask Hobart if he thinks that Taiwan utilizing Hanyu Pinyin will result in a mainland Chinese attack? If so, why?
As long as we’re getting personal, I’d also like ask Hobart what he personally would do in such an event. Perhaps this is more suitable for another thread, though.
As for me, my name is still on an army reserve list somewhere, and will be for another decade or more. I have one passport and it says ROC. By the way, I support Hanyu Pinyin.
It is more subtle than this. It not so much about Taiwan aggravating the PRC as it is about how the uninformed perceive Taiwan. China has a louder voice on the world stage and many ignorant people truely misunderstand and think that Taiwan is a part of the PRC. The PRC will use this as more justification that Taiwan is a part of China. That is enough to oppose the use of Hanyu Pinyin in Taiwan, a free and separate country.
I would most likely be out of here on the first plane as well. So does that mean that the PRO-China camp won’t be? Or they are so afraid of the PRC that they must cower and bend to the whims of the PRC or the other extreme that even perhaps they will welcome their brothers from their old home of China?
Since we are getting personal, may I ask if your are a Pro-China unificationist wai sheng ren? Also, may I ask why your English is so good? TAS? USA Educated? Did you learn Chinese with HanYu Pinyin too? Just curious, please do not read too much into my questions and wait for my response to your answers before you guess what I am getting at.
Originally posted by Hobart:
quote[quote]Just curious, please do not read too much into my questions and wait for my response to your answers before you guess what I am getting at.[/quote]If you have something to say, say it. Stop playing games. But try to keep it on topic, which is not “who loves Taiwan the most” or some other such thing.
In this case it is very politicized issue. Perhaps overly politicized. You have the DPP supporting Tongyong and Ma, Lien and Soong supporting Hanyu pinyin.
I just wanted to understand more.
Actually, I would love for Taiwan to use Hanyu pinyin, it would make things easier for me and others. I like Hanyu pinyin very much.
But if Taiwan wants to have some individuality and spell things differently for the foreigners, or if their attempt is to make it easier for foreigners (who haven’t studied HanYu Pinyin before) to read street signs, or perhaps later streets with the Taiwanese pronouciation, then why not? Individual nations want to be different and individual. Taiwan cannot standup. This would be a minor victory for them to say they were different. If it helps the uniformed to consider Taiwan a separate country then this is a positive thing. Don’t you like how you can tell if someone is from Malaysia, Hong Kong, China, Indonesia or Taiwan by the way they romanize the same Chinese surname?
You know students will continue to use Hanyu pinyin.
However, their does needs to be only one standard in Taiwan and I think that TongYong is not perfect yet and needs to be fixed so it is even more accessible to the layman.
quote:
Originally posted by Hobart:
The PRC will use this as more justification that Taiwan is a part of China. That is enough to oppose the use of Hanyu Pinyin in Taiwan, a free and separate country.
I would most likely be out of here on the first plane as well.
Since we are getting personal, may I ask if your are a Pro-China unificationist wai sheng ren? Also, may I ask why your English is so good? TAS? USA Educated? Did you learn Chinese with HanYu Pinyin too? Just curious, please do not read too much into my questions and wait for my response to your answers before you guess what I am getting at.
I wonder if it is wise to compromise Taiwan’s interests with a non-standard “standard” just to show up Beijing. I saw we put Taiwan’s interests first without regard for what Beijing thinks in this case and go with the international standard.
I don’t want to get too personal here and waste everyone’s time, but since my website is public already and I’ve been asked, I suppose it isn’t that big a deal: I am from the US originally but emmigrated to Taiwan almost 15 years ago, being adopted by a Taiwanese family, serving in the military and losing my US citizenship in the process. I went to college here but I’ve studied both here and abroad. I read Chinese and don’t personally need romanization, but I know many systems including Hanyu, Wade-Giles and Zhuyinfuhao.
I don’t think immediate reunification is advisable, but I think it will likely happen eventually and in many ways is already happening. I do think declaring independence would do Taiwan more harm than good, but I don’t think the situation here is as black-and-white as many foreigners like to make it out to be.
It’s annoying that every book on learning Chinese I buy seems to have a different way of romanizing, but I find Pinyin is easiest to use. Oh, and I could care less about The Taiwan New’s opinion.
Re: Taiwan News. I agree with Poapao that they are basically in the toilet and need to be flushed. This is the same paper that put Beijing winning the Olympics on page 3, and instead had a full-page cover story on head transplants (with diagrams). Pathetic - the average elementary school student would have better news judgement than this.
Hobart,
I sometimes doubt if you actually read what I write. Just to make a few things clear:
quote:
2. What things are they currently using romanization for? Street signs, what else? The English daily news papers use romanization. Anything else? This truely is mostly about street signs.
Everything: Textbooks, dictionaries, Chinese words in English papers, English books, English magazines, subtitles on movies, English maps, peoples names, whenever you write something in English but include a Chinese name. This isn’t just about streetsigns. It’s suppposed to be a standard system for everything.
quote[quote] Are you crazy? BoPomofo is for Chinese anyway, romanization is for the FOB waiguoren [/quote]I’m not sure but some things I’ve read, like this from the Taiwan News article:
“Other reasons to adopt a Taiwan-based romanization is that starting September, all Taiwan children in elementary school will be required to learn their mother tongues. If Taiwan adopts the Hanyu Pinyin, which is the standard romanization system of China, there might be internal problems when emotionally identifying the romanization system with native languages” - whatever that means, seem to suggest that they are considering using it to replace bopomoquote[quote] 5. Are you so silly that you think that travel agents are now giving out passports? [/quote]Don’t go calling people silly unless you know what your’re talking about otherwise you’re the silly one. Have you ever applied for a passport in Taiwan. I have, helping my girlfriend. Obviously the travel agent doesn’t issue them, but they apply for it for you, so it is at their office you apply for it. Silly
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6. May we infer from this that your fiance, her family and many of your good friends, unlike those high-level politicians you refer to, advocate Unification with China?I don’t know how you possibly infer that. My point was that if Taiwan is attacked I will be affected through my connections to people here. I never suggested that they are pro-unification (although some are). P
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7. Isolate from what community? The community of the PRC? I don't really think anyone else gives a damn whether Taiwan uses Tongyong or Hanyu pinyin, besides the pro-China camp.I’m sorry. I meant to write ‘international community’. In particular I mean the students of Chinese and other foreigners who use pinyin.
quote[quote] 8. I still think that you do not fully comprehend the subtleties of Taiwanese/Chinese politics, or you and fiance and her family and your friends understand fully politics between China and Taiwan and you choose to be Pro-China Unificationists [/quote]No I don’t fully comprehend it. I don’t think you do either, but I’ve got a pretty good grasp, and in my heart I support independence or a favourable, eventual, non-communist reunification if this is the will of the people, but I realise that trying to do this now is just too dangerous. I know full well that China will say Taiwan adopting pinyin ‘proves’ Taiwan is part of China, but as you consider yourself a bit of an expert on the matter, I am sure you realise that they do this all the time over such petty things that it’s not going to make a scrap of difference. I also realise that pro-unificationists are supporting pinyin and pro-independecers are supporting Tongyong. This is just ridiculous. The two camps would split over anything they could put a cross-strait relations spin on. It proves nothing.
Bri
Some notes on passports:
What Bu Lai En said about travel agencies is correct. Very few Taiwanese – and this includes the well-educated – know how to spell their names correctly in either Wade-Giles or MPS II. A lot of it is guesswork; and that guesswork is often done by people at travel agencies. (One giveaway that someone doesn’t know what he’s doing is the use of “hwa” for “hua.”)
As I noted earlier in another thread http://oriented.org/cgi-bin/ultimatebb.cgi?ubb=get_topic&f=12&t=000028&p=3
quote[quote]Taiwan has changed its official system before, and no such changes to passports &c. were enforced. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs, which handles passports, is fairly [i]suibian[/i] about spelling. Right now, people are supposed to use MPS II, but something that more or less looks like MPS II will pass.[/quote]I wasn’t making that up. It’s the truth. Actually, “more or less looks like MPS II” is probably giving the MOFA too much credit for checking. Or perhaps it’s not enough credit for flexibility. But people really ought to understand the rules before they are allowed to (unknowingly) break them.
What, you may ask, is MPS II? It’s been Taiwan’s official romanization system for the past 15 years. Never heard of it? Well, it’s not used much.
Here’s a link to a Wade-Giles - MPS2 comparison chart on my site. It’s the same chart that the Ministry of Foreign Affairs advises people to check when they’re applying for passports, except I corrected the spelling of Wade-Giles and improved the file in other ways. www.romanization.com/tongyong/mps2.html
Just today I’ve added a lot of new things to my site, so have another look, please. (Yes, I know some of the train stations are out of order. I’ll try to fix that tomorrow.)
Cranky laowai,
Can you also put on your website a link to the official post office site or post office romanization. It changes from time to time to and I want to make sure that they have proper spellings of my address for international deliverys. I assume however that it is different in many areas.
Hobart
Yikes! I just did a little research on the internet, and I found out that the Mr. Liang Rong-Mao who responded to my letter to the editor of over a month ago is in fact Taiwan’s newly installed head of the Bureau of Investigation, Taiwan’s version of the FBI! He said that he is the President of the Association of Taiwan Languages, but when I entered his name in characters into Taiwan’s Yahoo, I got all kinds of hits!
In his letter to the editor, Mr. Liang said:
Of all the people to cross swords with! The Bureau of Investigation! Ai-yo! Ai-yo!
~I’m leavin’ on a jet plane, don’t know when I’ll be back again…~
Seems like Liang’s beef should be with the editor of the Taiwan News, since it was he who requested readers’ opinions in the first place.
Anyway, since when has expressing an opinion been equated with trying to change anything?
And why on earth would anyone express an opinion that they DIDN’T believe to be correct?
I thought we were living in a democracy.
Ask anyone who has worked at the Taiwan News…Liang is practically the editor. Has been for a long time. He writes the opinion page and some other stuff.
The only reason the Taiwan News ‘posed’ that ‘question’ to the general public(or the 0.043% of the general public that reads their paper) was to publicize the issue and promote their ‘solution’, i.e. Tongyong. It’s all a not-so-clever little game, a fake dialogue like those commercials with someone telling someone else to use Bufferin for their headache. I’m surprised they thought anyone with half a brain would fall for it, but that’s the new Taiwan News for you…treating people in Taiwan like idiots.
Maoman is so funny!
There is such a heavy weight of “experience” and “expertise” on this board for pinyinisation that, it almost superfluous to add any more opinions of my own… That’s how I feel…
Mr Hobart is the only forumite who is still evidently in favour of adopting TongYongPinYin because the govt says so in the name of politics.
I have a question for Mr Hobart:
Apart from Mandarin do you speak say… Taiwanese/Hokkien etc…? Or any of the lesser known dialects which TongYong is meant to encompass?
I am just wondering whether you have had any experience at all learning/reading the Taiwanese dialect using TongYong Pinyin as a tool? And if so what was the reaction from native speakers around you? Did they think your pronunciation was correct, understandable etc…?
Or is it too early a question to ask at this stage because TongYong has not been implemented officially yet and books will be printed in TongYong only after another review and so on?
Does anyone know what form of pinyin is used to teach/learn Taiwanese(hokkien/MinNam Hua etc…)?
I quoted Bu:
[quote]If the Taiwanese government wants to do something nationalistic on the language learning front, why not develop a standard romanisation system for Taiwanese (and please it’s not possible that Tongyong can cover more than one language) and a standard Chinese character set for the Taiwanese words that are not covered by Mandarin characters. That would be of huge benefit to foreign students and Tawianese alike.
Bri (Bu Lai En)[/quote]
I think this is an excellent suggestion. Nothing beats fortifying one’s political identity than reviving the “Taiwanese” dialect.
That is why Chen Shuibian speaks Taiwanese when he wants to touch people’s hearts during convention.
A lot of mc’s on TV adulterate their GuoYu with Taiwanese to “reach” the older generations or reaffirm family ties.
I think Southern China or the region around the Pearl River Delta and Hong Kong is different from other areas of China like Shanghai and further north because the Cantonese dialect (YueYu) spoken here gives it a unique and colourful flavor. Some sounds are so different it is impossible to be encompassed in the same system as Hanyu Pinyin.
At another time I will share the experience of using Pinyin to learn the Cantonese dialect. Cantonese too has many “approved” pinyinisation systems and most are rarely used or effective …like MPII !?
I know 20 years a long time - but 20 years ago every place name in Hong Kong had an official “english” spelling that was, as far as I could tell, used universally. True it may not have been the most modern romanisation. At the time one local paper was debating whether to use “Beijing” or continue using “Peking” as the name of the PRC capital.
I guess things have “improved” with the help of a few scholars.
new to this issue, but is there or was there ever any kind of ronanization system a la japanese ssystem. Like “watashi wa anata go oishi desu ka.” Could Chinese be written is such a simple abc style?
Romanisation, by definition, means using the roman letters (ie ‘english’ abc). So the answer is yes, of course. Most systems of ‘phoneticisation’ (using phonetic symbols to represent a non-phonetic alphabet) of the Chinese language use ABCs. The only exception I know of is bopomofo - a bit like Japanese hiragana and katakana. The problem with romanisation is that Chinese has sounds that English doesn’t so it’s hard (probably impossible) to pick English letters to match those sounds that are intuitive to use without running out of letters to use.
Bri
Well just a short note here for this week:
It would seem our Mr Hobart has shyed away from these boards or at least this particular topic.
An interesting news article came up today about people in China spelling their names or naming themselves like famous and important people (overseas Chinese ); ie stars like Coco Lee, Chow Yun Fat, etc.
Apparently in China there is a tradition when making up passports or important identity documents to use the Hanyu Pinyin equivalent as the English surname. Well this was true until recently.
So you might have a mainlander (movie star) who calls himself Jet Li because his surname is really Li in Hanyu Pinyin or pronounce this way. [Li as in the plum tree]
Many other people with this same character would also adopt the hanyu Pinyin spelling.
So the whole world is standardise.
But not anymore says the newspaper article, after the popularity of stars like coco lee in China and various other hongkong movie stars who when making up their English “equivalents” rarely ever used Hanyu Pinyin.
The Lee in “CoCo Lee” is actually Li in proper Hanyu Pinyin spelling. And as a result if she was born in China she might have been CoCO Li. Many of her fans with their previous Li surname have decided to drop the Hanyu Pinyin spelling to follow their idol and spell their surname as “Lee” instead.
Also the surname of Chow Yun Fat, another famous movie star from HK would have been called/spelled Zhou Yuan Fa in China strictly following pinyin rules. But apparently people with the Zhou surname in China are now starting to break the rule and name themselves like the Hong Kong movie star and adopt C-h-o-w spelling as their English equivalent.
Talk about getting things standardised!!!