Businesses That Use Tonal Spelling (Gwoyeu Luomaatzyh) 用拼調式羅馬拼音（國語羅馬字）拼商號

[Updated May 2, 2015]
Tonal Spelling (Gwoyeu Luomaatzyh) is still widely used for spelling business names in Taiwan. Here is a small selection of photos taken during a trip to Tainan and Kaohsiung a few years ago. Some romanized names are slightly misspelled, so these errors are corrected in the captions:

Sen Maw Rice Food: Tonal Spelling (Gwoyeu Luomaatzyh) 森茂碗粿拼調式羅馬拼音（國語羅馬字）

San Chyi, Perng Yuh, Ryh Shenq, Lian Hwa, Jing Hwa, Chyuan [Chyou]: Tonal Spelling (Gwoyeu Luomaatzyh) 三奇、芃諭、日盛、聯華、京華、全球：拼調式羅馬拼音（國語羅馬字）

A jewelry store and several tour bus names appear below:

Gwoyeu Tonal Spelling: 36 Dictionaries That Use it 六六大順：36本「國羅」字典

1986年教育部「修訂」原版「國語羅馬字」，用可棄式聲調符號（–ˊˇˋ）來代替天才語言學家趙元任精心設計的拼調法。

十五年後的 2001年一月筆者在台北市的兩家書店（和平東路師大書局和復興北路的三民書局）調查了市面上到底還有多少種繼續採用原版「國語羅馬字」的字、辭典。結果出乎意料之外，很輕鬆地發現三十一本，此後在住處附近的小書店裡又看到幾本。2001年「國羅」字典還是這麼多，可見許多出版社並沒有拋棄原版「國羅」，標調式羅馬拼音還是相當普遍。

In 1984, one year after Jaw Yuanrenn (Yuen Ren Chao趙元任) passed away, the Ministry of Education established a committee to replace a Chinese national treasure, Gwoyeu Luomaatzyh, the only official romanization that spells tones. In 1986, a throwaway tone mark system was adopted instead. Shortly thereafter, in order to appease a small group of angry local politicians, the MOE gave up on its own "improved" romanization and adopted a third spelling. A few years later, pinyin was adopted to satisfy yet another set of politicians. Sigh …

In 2001, after witnessing all this political squabbling, I decided to see if Gwoyeu Luomaatzyh (GR, National Romanization) was still alive. After browsing in three different bookstores, I was relieved to discover 36 different dictionaries that still used tonal spelling. Here are my results, including three short samples from a 37th dictionary, the Shinbian Gwoyeu Tsyrdean: 

Shinbian Gwoyeu Tsyrdean 新編國語辭典（世一版）

底下是三十六本字、辭典的全部書名和出版社。最後附上『新編國語辭典』的選例三則：
Below is a list of 36 dictionaries that use Gwoyeu Romatzyh (or Gwoyeu Luomaatzyh, National Romanization):

Hostess = Politician?? Consequences of Refusing to Mark Tones 拒絕標調的不良後果

[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:

In National Romanization

whatever sounds different to Chinese ears 

always looks different.

More background below: