I sent a letter to the TT advocating HYPY some weeks ago which to the best of my knowledge was not published.
Originally posted by Mykul:
quote[quote]It seems that most foreigners who support Hanyu Pinyin have either (A) studied Chinese in China or (B) studied Chinese in Taiwan using Hanyu Pinyin, not bopomofo. [/quote] Or studied Chinese almost anywhere else in the world. Or not even studied Chinese at all. Hanyu is the international standard. Bopomofo has nothing to do with romanization.quote[quote]I don't buy the argument that Hanyu is easier for foreigners. [/quote] Easier than what? Learning to read Chinese characters or speak Mandarin?quote[quote]Why are "sh" sounds represented by "xi"? [/quote] They're not. ㄒ is represented by x, not xi. "Sh" as you put it, is a different sound: ㄕ (which is represented as "sh" in every romanization system I can think of offhand).Different sounds, different letters. Not such a difficult concept, really.
One of the problems with tongyong is that it, however, does not adhere to this basic principle. Instead, sometimes it uses s to mean ㄙ (s), while other times the same letter s is supposed to represent a different sound: ㄒ (x).
Similarly, tongyong uses c to mean different sounds. C is often listed as one of the “difficult” letters – but not as often by the tongyong supporters, because they sometimes use it the same way as hanyu pinyin as ㄘ (c). But then other times tongyong uses the same letter for a completely different sound: ㄑ (q). Talk about confusing!
quote[quote]Someone completly unfamiliar with Chinese seeing "Xiamen" in print for the first time almost invariably doesn't know how to pronounce it. ... But will someone fresh off the boat be able to pronounce "XinSheng" to a cab driver if they don't know to replace the "x" with a "sh"?[/quote] [i]All[/i] romanization systems must be learned to be used properly. That includes tongyong just as much as hanyu. I believe the x is actually an advantage, because it tends to halt random guessing and prompt someone to find out how to say it properly, whereas the tongyong "sin" (for "xin") would give the FOB crowd the completely wrong impression.
Exactly. Anyone FOB expecting to speak intelligible Mandarin without having made any prior research into pronunciation is living in cloud cuckoo land. The point is to produce a consistent system which can be referred back to a reference sheet of how “xi” etc is pronounced. There is no point in trying to find a sound in English (which English ?, what about a Russian speaker) which is like the “x” in “xue”. You just have to find out. Most learners end up saying “shway”.
Dan> Nah. Instead I will star in today [2002.7.21]'s Taiwan Ribao
I made a mistake. I meant 2002.7.12. I tried to edit it but it said
i was not logged in even though i logged in. Therefore my only choice is, to
also star on that day too.
Myk> But will someone fresh off the boat be able to pronounce “XinSheng” to
Myk> a cab driver if they don’t know to replace the “x” with a “sh”?
Well they better get an education. Being that Chinese is the #1
populous language in the world, one would think they would spend the
30 seconds to read up on how to deal with letters they might not be
used to in their minority language. It’s in chapter 1 of their
tourist guide.
I think instead of writing letters to the Taipei Times, it would be much better to write letters directly to the “Mandarin Promotion Council” (國語推行委員) which is at the Ministry of Education. Only the members of the “Mandarin Promotion Coucil” have the power to make the decision of which romanization system to use.
The e-mail address of the Mandarin Promotion Council is: mandr@mail.moe.gov.tw
Mark
quote:
Originally posted by Mykul: Why are "sh" sounds represented by "xi"? Someone completly unfamiliar with Chinese seeing "Xiamen" in print for the first time almost invariably doesn't know how to pronounce it.
Why do the Portuguese represent “sh” sounds with an X? Have they been taken over by the commie Chinese or something? Do you realise this bizarre Beijing-inspired spelling is being used not only in Portugal, but Brazil, Angola, Mozambique, Guinea Bissau, Cape Verde, Sao Tome e Prinicipe, East Timor, Goa and Macau as well? At this rate, China will soon take over the whole world with its evil Hanyu pinyin. And while we are on the subject of X - why is “xylophone” spelled with an X, not a Z? I just don’t get it. Is it some kind of Trojan horse for the coming pinyin invasion?
quote:
Originally posted by Juba:Do you realise this bizarre Beijing-inspired spelling is being used not only in Portugal, but Brazil, Angola, Mozambique, Guinea Bissau, Sao Tome e Prinicipe and East Timor as well?
Hmmmm…Angola and Mozambique. Wow. China’s really influencing the world’s “movers and shakers”! Personally I’d love it if the Chinese could learn to make a decent copy of Mateus.
O’Brian is trying his hand at sarcasm here. I guess he missed the World Cup final.
Population of Brazil: 170 million (2000 census)
Total Portuguese-speaking population in the world: Approx. 220 million
Source:
The Portuguese Language Around the World
Population of Taiwan: Approx. 22 million
quote:
Originally posted by Juba: O'Brien is trying his hand at sarcasm here. I guess he missed the World Cup final.
Sorry, I’d much rather watch the Brazilian women on the beaches of Rio than a bunch of men wearing shorts running around bouncing balls on their heads.
http://avs.bigbuttbrazil.com/pa/brazilbikinis/index1.php
Different strokes for differnt folks, nicht war?
[img]images/smiles/icon_biggrin.gif[/img]
I note that Bri’s letter was printed in Monday’s edition of the Taipei Times, along with anther anti-Tonyong letter. The second mention’s Tsai Chih-hao’s analysis of the “85 percent” myth.
Yeah, they actually printed it. The other letter was very good too. Is Joe Varadi (the author) an Oriented regular? Sounds like he knew what he was talking about anyway.
He mentioned a figure of 50% incompatibility at the word level. I wonder how this is derived. I was doing some calculations and figured that if this 85% figure is true (which I hear that it might not be) then this just applies to initials and finals right? Then your average 2-syllable word would have a (85%*85%*85%*85% for initial, final, initial, final) 52% incompatibility and your average 6 syllable name goes down to about 38%!!! This is ignoring the further variable of how Tongyong handles the medials (pinyin i, u, and u with dots on) and the nasals (ang, en etc) which I don’t know about.
Bri
I’d just like to check here - Is it still the case that the tongyongists have not got a scheme for using their pinyin to spell Hakka and Hokkien/“Taiwanese” - not to mention all those Aboriginal languages they claim to cover? I have seen the Hanyu pinyin-based spelling system for Hokkien that is used at Xiamen university. If there is a Hanyu pinyin based spelling scheme for Hokkien, but no tonyong one, then Hanyu pinyin is more tongyong than tongyong is, and more bentu, too.
(Jargon decoder: tongyong = universal, bentu = local or native)
quote:
Originally posted by Bu Lai En: He mentioned a figure of 50% incompatibility at the word level. I wonder how this is derived.
The writer was citing Chih-Hao Tsai’s excellent research work. Hao has posted occasional messages here. I highly recommend his website. Hao writes:
quote[quote]Similarities between tongyong pinyin and hanyu pinyin at the syllable level and the word level were investigated. Both type-based and token- based similarity statistics were calculated. It was found that at the syllable level, 19.47% of the 406 syllable types had different spellings, and 27.49% of the 83,434,515 syllable tokens had different spellings. At the word level, 48.84% of the 111,415 word types had different spellings, and 38.27% of the 51,119,108 word tokens had different spellings. The findings indicate that hanyu pinyin and tongyong pinyin are not as similar as proponents of tongyong pinyin have claimed. Since the pinyin orthography, either hanyu pinyin or tongyong pinyin, is word based, similarity between the two systems at the word level is a very suitable index of compatibility. Obviously, there is no reason to say that hanyu pinyin and tongyong pinyin are compatible. Tongyong pinyin should not be adopted as Taiwan's national standard unless internationalization is considered of no importance.[/quote] The details are available in the rest of the article: [url=http://www.geocities.com/hao520/research/papers/pinyin-comparison.htm]www.geocities.com/hao520/research/papers/pinyin-comparison.htm[/url]The page is also available in Chinese. www.geocities.com/hao520/research/papers/pinyin-comparison-big5.htm
Please pass these URLs on to others.
I’ve never been able to understand this obsession with romanization. Anyone who uses it is going to pronounce everything wrong whether you say xao or shao, bei or pei or anything else, for that matter. I say just pick one, and stick with it. Doesn’t really matter how incorrect it is. The people who are going to actually learn how to speak Chinese are hopefully gonna learn how to speak correctly, anyway. And if you’re using romanization to learn Chinese, I think you’re making a mistake. Your pre-conception of what the letters are supposed to sound like is just going to confuse you. I’d learn Bo Po Mo Fo if I were you. (Or is it Be Pe Me Fe?) It’s a hell of a lot easier associating new sounds with new characters than trying to change the sounds assigned to characters you grew up using a certain way.
quote:
Originally posted by Mo' Joe: I've never been able to understand this obsession with romanization.
When your friends send you letters from abroad, do they write the address in bo po mo fo? No, I didn’t think so. Now just try to imagine yourself in the place of the post office workers trying to work out where in hell to deliver letters with addresses written in seven varieties of spelling and then some.
I think instead of writing letters to the Taipei Times, it would be
much better to write letters directly to the “Mandarin Promotion
Council”
What a concept. Write a letter to them. Please stop. “I’m coughing
up coke all over my terminal” as they say. By the way, their terms
expired.
Why don’t, why don’t, why don’t you fellas show up at the next Li
Yingyuan for mayor rally, with placards “No tongyong pinyin, Go hanyu
pinyin”.
Only the members of the “Mandarin Promotion Coucil” have the power to
make the decision of which romanization system to use.
http://tw.news.yahoo.com/2002/07/13/polity/ctnews/3376335.html
says they never mattered all along.
P.S. "On December 15, 1809, Mr. William Lambert presented to the House
of Representatives … “since the calculation of longitude from the
meridian of a foreign nation implied a “degrading” “dependence”…”
http://www.usm.maine.edu/~maps/edney/vaughan.html
< Hanyu pinyin was invented by the North Koreans to for making labels
< for anthrax containers.
No, it was invented by TROTSKY for teaching the proletariat COMMUNIST CUISINE.
quote:
Originally posted by Dan Jacobson: Why don't, why don't, why don't you fellas show up at the next Li Yingyuan for mayor rally, with placards "No tongyong pinyin, Go hanyu pinyin".
Hmm…I might just do that. Meanwhile, Dan, could you pop down to Gaoxiong and have a word with your mate Frank Xie Changting. Since you were rooting for him when he was running for vice-president, he might lend you an ear while you try to win him round from his current pro-tongyong position. You could try a different approach like defending Taiwanese Church spelling from being supplanted by the mainland-influenced made-for-Mandarin tongyong system.
Is it still the case that the tongyongists have not got a scheme for
using their pinyin to spell Hakka and Hokkien/“Taiwanese”
The Hakka one they approved last week while the main hakka board
member Luo Zhaojin was out of the country and thus unable to bring the
other lackeys to their senses.
The Taiwanese plan they can’t pass because of infighting.
所以「通」不到哪裡去
not to mention all those Aboriginal languages they claim to cover?
they gave up on molesting them. note there is some “language
equality” law in the works, with no respect for us of course.
P.S. my professional opinion on how to deal with the language board:
change the channel, snore.
I have seen the Hanyu pinyin-based spelling system for Hokkien that is
used at Xiamen university. If there is a Hanyu pinyin based spelling
scheme for Hokkien, but no tonyong one, then Hanyu pinyin is more
tongyong than tongyong is…
My 1997 scheme [on my website] is more humane then Xiamen
university’s. Indeed, if you want to look bad, use Xiamen
university’s. By the way, I’m not pushing my plan anymore. Actually,
best yet is to appoint Yu Boquan as the Minnanyu pinyin chieftain, and
let them infight. But Yu knows the real stakes are on the guoyu
street signs.
By the way, does anybody feel that this whole topic is not fit for
grown ups like us? I’m like 41 years old already.
Naw, wait, here’s me bitching out Education Minister Huang on the
radio call-in show
http://tw.news.yahoo.com/2002/07/14/leisure/udn/3377962.html
I want to go on TV and ambush those tongyong fraudsters with a challenge to instantly spell some Hokkien/Taiwanese sentences - preferably ones with lots of nasal endings - those ones the Xiamen pinyin deals with by putting an N in front of the vowel - and a couple of aboriginal ones. The trouble is my Hokkien is minimal, so I would have to learn the sentences off by heart beforehand.
Dan - Do you know the Hakka association that has an office next to Minquan MRT station? They are doing Hakka mother tongue classes and they seem to have some kind of pinyin up and running. What system is that?
TIMMY!
FB