[This is a revised version of a blog posting I made three years ago on my linguistics blog: http://cute-2011-linguistics.blogspot.com/2011/09/chinese-syllables-gwoyeu-romatzyh.html] Several years ago, a Taiwan English newspaper published a very puzzling story. The report said that the Ministry of Foreign Affairs had sent Chang Hsiaoyen to represent Taiwan at a meeting of Southeast Asian diplomats. This was VERY surprising because I know that Chang Hsiaoyen is a politically unsophisticated TV hostess. Why on earth would Taiwan's Ministry of Foreign Affairs send a TV star to an international government meeting? After thinking it over for a few minutes, I realized that missing tone marks were causing the problem. The MOFA must have sent 章孝嚴 (one of Chiang Ching-Kuo's sons) to the meeting, not 張小燕 (the TV hostess).
The Wade-Giles spelling of both names is exactly the same. Leaving out the tone mark is foolish. Using Hanyu Pinyin would create exactly the same ambiguity (Zhang Xiaoyan = Zhang Xiaoyan). Only National Romanization (Gwoyeu Luomaatzyh/Romatzyh) can clearly and unequivocally render Chinese names correctly (Jang Sheauyann [the talk show hostess] ≠ Jang Shiawyan [the politician].
Man in the street style romanization is ambiguous because it dispenses with messy numbers and hard to print tone marks:
If foreigners are willing to take the trouble to add numbers or other diacritics, Both Wade-Giles and Hanyu Pinyin are quite clear and unambiguous:
(A) Wade-Giles romanization, devised in the 19th century by two British diplomats, uses numbers to show tones. Some spellings, such as "J" for the retroflex initial and "Ü," reflect European orthography.
(B) Hanyu Pinyin, a romanization officially adopted in 1958 uses optional diacritics to show tones. Hanyu Pinyin was influenced by Sin Wenz, a toneless romanization which was devised with the help of Russian sinologists and adopted in 1931 at a meeting in Vladivostok, USSR. Sin Wenz was used by speakers of various northern dialects in China until 1958.
Scholarly romanization uses finicky numbers, accents, umlauts and aspiration marks, unlike National Romanization, which can be typed on a plain keyboard or spelled out over the telephone adding any extra symbols.
(C) National Romanization (Gwoyeu Luomaatzyh/Romatzyh), promulgated in 1928, was devised exclusively by Chinese linguists for use by all Chinese people, a standard for the entire country. The most important principle is that:
More background below:
(B) Hanyu Pinyin, a romanization officially adopted in 1958 uses optional diacritics to show tones. Hanyu Pinyin was influenced by Sin Wenz, a toneless romanization which was devised with the help of Russian sinologists and adopted in 1931 at a meeting in Vladivostok, USSR. Sin Wenz was used by speakers of various northern dialects in China until 1958.
Scholarly romanization uses finicky numbers, accents, umlauts and aspiration marks, unlike National Romanization, which can be typed on a plain keyboard or spelled out over the telephone adding any extra symbols.
(C) National Romanization (Gwoyeu Luomaatzyh/Romatzyh), promulgated in 1928, was devised exclusively by Chinese linguists for use by all Chinese people, a standard for the entire country. The most important principle is that:
In National Romanization
whatever sounds different to Chinese ears
always looks different.
More background below:
Syllables in Mandarin Chinese (國語 in Taiwan，普通話 in the rest of China) are traditionally split into two parts: initial and final (聲母 + 韻母). Finals can be subdivided into medial (initial glide), main vowel, final consonant/glide and tone:
initial
|
final
| |||
initial
|
medial (v)
|
V+[C] [v]
|
Tone
| |
聲母
|
介音
|
韻尾
|
聲調
| |
蔣
|
ㄐ
|
ㄧ
|
ㄤ
|
ˇ
|
C = consonant (= con [with] + son [sound] + ant)
V = vowel, v = glide (semi-vowel)
屈 ﹦ㄑ + ㄩ
Ch + iu = Chiu (Qu1)
徐 ﹦ㄒ + ㄩ + ˊ
Sh + yu = Shyu (Xu2)
許﹦ㄒ + ㄩ + ˇ
Sh + eu = Sheu (Xu3)
Notice how GR (Gwoyeu Romatzyh / Gwoyeu Luomaatzyh 國語羅馬字) very cleverly shows 1st, 2nd and 3rd tone ㄩ (iu)
by changing the 1st letter of the medial: iu, yu, eu. The second half
of each letter shape matches the tone mark! Most Chinese people and foreign students of Chinese have trouble
understanding why GR is superior to other romanizations. One key is to understand how syllables are put together, Chinese phonology (聲韻學/音系學).
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