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Pinyin, more formally called '''Hanyu Pinyin''' (), is the most common variant of Standard Mandarin Romanization system in use. ''Hanyu'' means the Chinese Language , ''pin'' means "spell" and ''yin'' means "sound". It is also known as '''''scheme of the Chinese phonetic alphabet''''' (). Pinyin uses the Latin Alphabet to represent sounds in Standard Mandarin. The way these letters represent sounds in Standard Mandarin differs from other languages that use the Roman alphabet. For example, the sounds indicated in pinyin by ''b'' and ''g'' correspond more closely to the sounds indicated by ''p'' and ''k'' in some Western uses of the Latin script, e.g., French. Other letters, like ''j'', ''q'', ''x'' or ''zh'', indicate sounds that do not correspond to any exact sound in English. Some of the transcriptions in pinyin, such as the ''ang'' ending, do not correspond to English pronunciations either. This means that people who have not studied Chinese or the pinyin system are likely to severely mispronounce some words if they attempt to pronounce pinyin according to their own language spellings. HISTORY Hanyu Pinyin was approved in 1958 and adopted in 1979 by the government in the , the Library Of Congress , the American Library Association , and many other international institutions. It has also become a useful tool for Entering Chinese Language Text Into Computers . PRONUNCIATION The primary purpose of pinyin in Chinese School s is to teach Standard Mandarin Pronunciation . For those Chinese who speak Standard Mandarin at home, pinyin is used to help children associate characters with spoken words which they already know; however, for the many Chinese who do not use Standard Mandarin at home, pinyin is used to teach them the Standard Mandarin pronunciation of words when they learn them in Elementary School . Pinyin Vowels are pronounced similarly to vowels in Romance Languages , and most Consonants are similar to English . A pitfall for English-speaking novices is, however, the unusual pronunciation of ''x'', ''q'', ''c'', ''zh'', and ''z'' (and sometimes ''-i'') and the unvoiced pronunciation of ''d'', ''b'', ''g'', and ''j''. More information on the pronunciation of all pinyin letters in terms of English approximations is given further below. The pronunciation of Chinese is generally given in terms of Initials and Finals , which represent the ''segmental phonemic'' portion of the language. Initials are initial consonants, while finals are all possible combinations of Medials ( Semivowel s coming before the vowel), the Nucleus vowel, and Coda (final vowel or consonant). For a complete table of all pinyin syllables, see Pinyin Table . Initials In each cell below, the first line indicates IPA , the second indicates pinyin. 1 may phonetically be (a Voiced Retroflex Fricative ). This pronunciation varies among different speakers, and is not two different phonemes. 2 the letter "w" may be considered as an initial or a final, and may be pronounced as or 3 the letter "y" may be considered as an initial or a final, and may be pronounced as or Conventional order (excluding ''w'' and ''y''), derived from the Zhuyin system, is: Finals In each cell below, the first line indicates IPA, the second indicates pinyin for a standalone (no-initial) form, and the third indicates pinyin for a combination with an initial. Other than finals modified by an -r, which are omitted, the following is an exhaustive table of all possible finals. 1 The only syllable-final consonants in standard Mandarin are -n and -ng, and -r which is attached as a grammatical suffix. Chinese syllables ending with any other consonant is either from a non-Mandarin language (southern Chinese languages such as Cantonese, or minority languages of China), or it indicates the use of a non-pinyin Romanization system (where final consonants may be used to indicate tones). 1 /ər/ (而, 二, etc.) is written as ''er''. For other finals formed by the suffix -r, pinyin does not use special orthography; one simply appends -r to the final that it is added to, without regard for any sound changes that may take place along the way. For information on sound changes related to final -r, please see Standard Mandarin . 2 "ü" is written as "u" after j, q, x, or y. 3 "uo" is written as "o" after b, p, m, or f. 4 It is pronounced when it follows an initial, and pinyin reflects this difference. In addition, ''ê'' is used to represent certain Interjection s. RULES GIVEN IN TERMS OF ENGLISH PRONUNCIATION All rules given here in terms of English pronunciation are approximate, as several of these sounds do not correspond directly to sounds in English. Pronunciation of initials Pronunciation of finals The following is an exhaustive list of all finals in Standard Mandarin . Those ending with a final -r are listed at the end. To find a given final: #Remove the initial consonant. For zh-, ch-, sh-, both letters should be removed, they are single consonants spelt with two letters. #Although y- and w- are consonants nevertheless they may be considered as part of finals and do not remove those. ##Syllables beginning with y- and w- may be considered as standalone forms of finals "i, u, ü" and finals beginning with "i-, u-, ü-". #If a syllable begins with j-, q-, x-, or y-, and the final is -u or starts with -u-, then change -u or -u- to -ü or -ü-. ORTHOGRAPHY Letters Pinyin differs from other romanizations in several aspects, such as the following:
Most of the above are used to avoid ambiguity when writing words of more than one syllable in pinyin. For example uenian is written as ''wenyan'' because it is not clear which syllables make up ''uenian''; ''uen-ian'', ''uen-i-an'' and ''u-en-i-an'' are all possible combinations whereas ''wenyan'' is unambiguous because ''we'', ''nya'', etc. do not exist in pinyin. A summary of possible pinyin syllables (not including tones), can be reviewed at: Pinyin Table Capitalization & word formation Although Chinese characters represent single syllables, Mandarin Chinese is a Polysyllabic language. Spacing in Hanyu Pinyin is based on whole words, not single syllables. However, there are often ambiguities in partitioning a word. Orthographic rules were put into effect in 1988 by the National Educational Commission (国家教育委员会) and the National Language Commission (国家语言文字工作委员会). #General ##Single meaning: Words with a single meaning, which are usually set up of two characters (sometimes one, seldom three), are written together and not capitalized: rén; péngyou, qiǎokèlì (person; friend; chocolate) ##Combined meaning (2 characters): Same goes for words combined of two words to one meaning: hǎifēng; wèndá, quánguó (sea breeze; Q&A; 'pan-national') ##Combined meaning (4 or more characters): Words with four or more characters having one meaning are split up with their original meaning if possible: wúfèng gāngguǎn; huánjìng bǎohù guīhuà (seamless steel-tube; environmental protection planning) #Duplicated words (AA and ABAB) ##AA: Duplicated characters (AA) are written together: rénrén; kànkàn; niánnián (everybody; to have a look; annual) ##ABAB: two characters duplicated (ABAB) are written separated: yánjiū yánjiū; xuěbái xuěbái (try again; snow-white) ##AABB: A hyphen is used with the schema AABB: láilái-wǎngwǎng; qiānqiān-wànwàn(go back and forth; numerous) #Nouns (míngcí): Nouns are written in one: zhuōzi, mùtou (table, wood) ##Even if accompanied by a prefix and suffix: fùbùzhǎng (vice minister), chéngwùyuán (conductor), háizimen (children) ##Word of position are separated: mén wài (outdoor), hé li (in the river), huǒchē shàngmian (on the train), Huáng Hé yǐnán (south of the Yellow River) ###Exceptions are words traditionally connected: tiānshang (at the sky), dìxia (on the floor), kōngzhōng (in the air), hǎiwài (overseas) ##Chinese names are separated from the given name which will be written as one: Lǐ Huá, Wáng Jiàngguó, Zhāng Sān. ###Titles following the name are separated and are not capitalized: Wáng bùzhǎng (Minister Wang), Lǐ xiānsheng (Mr. Li), Tián zhǔrèn (Director Tian), Zhào tóngzhì (Comrade Zhao). ###The forms of address, Lǎo, Xiǎo, Dà and A, are capitalized: Xiǎo Liú (Young Mr. Liu), Dà Lǐ (Great Li), A Sān (Ah San), Lǎo Qián (Senior Qian), Wú Lǎo (Senior Wu) ####Exceptions are: Kǒngzǐ (Master Confucius), Bāogōng (Judge Bao), Xīshī (historical person), Mèngchángjūn (historical person) ##Geographical names of China:: Běijīng Shì (City of Beijing), Héběi Shěng (Province of Hebei), Yālù Jiāng (Yalu River), Tài Shān (Mt. Taishan), Dòngtíng Hú (Lake Donting), Táiwān Hǎixiá (Taiwan strait) ##Non-Chinese names translated back from Chinese will be written by their original writing: Marx, Einstein, London, Tokyo #Verbs: Verbs and their suffixes (-zhe, -le and -guo) are written as one: kànzhe/kànle/kànguo (to see/saw/seen), jìngxíngzhe (to implement). ''Le'' as it appears in the end of a sentence is separated though: Huǒchē dào le (The train arrived). ##Verbs and their objects are separated: kàn xìn (read a letter), chī yú (eat fish), kāi wánxiào (to be kidding). ##If verbs and their complements are each monosyllabic, they are written together, if not, separated: gǎohuài ("to make broken"), dǎsǐ (hit to death), huàwéi ("to become damp"), zhěnglǐ hǎo (to straighten out), gǎixiě wéi (rewrite a screenplay) #Adjectives (xíngróngcí): A monosyllabic adjective and its reduplication are written as one: mēngmēnglìang (dim), lìangtāngtāng (shining bright) ##Complements of size or degree (as xiē, yīxiē, diǎnr, yīdiǎnr) are written separated: dà xiē (a little bigger), kuài yīdiānr (a bit faster) #Pronouns (dàicí) ##The plural suffix -men directly follows up: wǒmen (we), tāmen (they) ##The demonstrative pronoun zhè (this), nà (that) and the question pronoun nǎ (which) are separated: zhè rén (this person), nà cì huìyì (that meeting), nǎ zhāng bàozhǐ (which newspaper) ###Exceptions are: nàli (there), zhèbian (over here), zhège (this piece), zhème (so), zhèmeyàng (that way)... and similar ones. ##Words like gè/měi (every, each), mǒu (any), běn (that), gāi (that), wǒ (mine, our), are separated from the measure words following them: gè guó (every nation), gè gè (everyone), měi nián (every year), mǒu gōngchǎng (a certain factory), wǒ xiào (our school). #Numerals and measure words (shùcí hé liàngcí) #Functional words #Proverbs #Capitalization #Separation in the end of a text row TONES The pinyin system also incorporates Suprasegmental Grapheme s to represent the four Tones Of Mandarin . Each tone is indicated by a diacritical mark above a non-medial Vowel . Many books printed in China mix fonts, with vowels and tone marks rendered in a different font than the surrounding text, tending to give such pinyin texts a typographically ungainly appearance. This style, most likely rooted in early technical limitations, has led many to believe that pinyin's rules call for this practice and also for the use of "" (with no curl over the top) rather than the standard style of the letter "a" found in most fonts. The official rules of Hanyu Pinyin, however, specify no such practice. Note that tone marks can also appear on consonants in certain vowelless exclamations. # The first tone (Flat or High Level Tone) is represented by a Macron (ˉ) added to the pinyin vowel: #: # The second tone (Rising or High-Rising Tone) is denoted by an Acute Accent (ˊ): #: # The third tone (Falling-Rising or Low Tone) is symbolized by a Caron /háček ( ˇ ). Note, it is officially not a Breve ( ˘ ), lacking a downward Angle , although this misuse is somewhat common on the Internet. #: # The fourth tone (Falling or High-Falling Tone) is represented by a Grave Accent (ˋ): #: # The fifth or neutral tone (Neutral Tone) is represented by a normal vowel without any accent mark: #: :(In some cases, this is also written with a dot before the syllable; for example, ·ma.) These tone marks normally are only used in Mandarin textbooks or in foreign learning texts, but they are essential for correct pronunciation of Mandarin syllables, as exemplified by the following classic example of five characters whose pronunciations differ only in their tones: Traditional characters: Simplified characters: The words are "mother", "hemp", "horse", "admonish" and a question particle, respectively. Numbers in place of tone marks Since most computer fonts do not contain the macron or caron accents, a common convention is to add a digit representing the tone to the end of individual syllables. For example, "tóng" (tong with the rising tone) is written "tong2". The number used for each tone is as the order listed above (except the "fifth tone", which, in addition to being numbered 5, is also sometimes not numbered or numbered zero, as in ''ma0'' (吗/嗎, an Interrogative marker). Rules for placing the tone mark The rules for determining on which vowel the tone mark appears are as follows: # If there is more than one vowel and the first vowel is ''i'', ''u'', or ''ü'', then the tone mark appears on the second vowel. # In all other cases, the tone mark appears on the first vowel. (''y'' and ''w'' are not considered vowels for these rules.) The reasoning behind these rules is in the case of Diphthong s and Triphthong s, ''i'', ''u'', and ''ü'' (and their orthographic equivalents ''y'' and ''w'' when there is no initial consonant) are considered Medial glides rather than part of the Syllable Nucleus in Chinese Phonology . The rules ensure that the tone mark always appears on the nucleus of a syllable. Another algorithm for determining the vowel on which the tone mark appears is as follows: # First, look for an "a" or an "e". If either vowel appears, it takes the tone mark. There are no possible pinyin syllables that contain both an "a" and an "e". # If there is no "a" or "e", look for an "ou". If "ou" appears, then the "o" takes the tone mark. # If none of the above cases hold, then the last vowel in the syllable takes the tone mark. THE CHARACTER "ü" An Umlaut is placed over the letter ''u'' when it occurs after the initials ''l'' and ''n'' in order to represent the sound {Link without Title} . This is necessary in order to distinguish the front high rounded vowel in ''lü'' (e.g. 驴/驢 donkey) from the back high rounded vowel in ''lu'' (e.g. 炉/爐 oven). Tonal markers are added on top of the umlaut, as in ''lǘ''. However, the ''ü'' is ''not'' used in other contexts where it represents a front high rounded vowel, namely after the letters ''j'', ''q'', ''x'' and ''y''. For example, the sound of the word 鱼/魚 (fish) is transcribed in pinyin simply as ''yú'', not as ''yǘ''. This practice is opposed to Wade-Giles , which always uses ''ü'', and Tongyong Pinyin , which always uses ''yu''. Whereas Wade-Giles needs to use the umlaut to distinguish between ''chü'' (pinyin ''ju'') and ''chu'' (pinyin ''zhu''), this ambiguity cannot arise with pinyin, so the more convenient form ''ju'' is used instead of ''jü''. Genuine ambiguities only happen with ''nu''/''nü'' and ''lu''/''lü'', which are then distinguished by an umlaut diacritic. Many fonts or output methods do not support an umlaut for ''ü'' or cannot place tone marks on top of ''ü''. Likewise, using ''ü'' in input methods is difficult because it is not present as a simple key on many keyboard layouts. For these reasons ''v'' is sometimes used instead by convention. Occasionally, ''uu'' (double ''u''), ''u:'' (''u'' followed by a colon) or ''U'' (capital ''u'') is used in its place. COMPARISON CHART PINYIN IN TAIWAN Taiwan has adopted Tongyong Pinyin on the national level since October 2002. Tongyong Pinyin is a modified version of Hanyu Pinyin. The adoption of Tongyong Pinyin has also resulted in political controversy. Much of the controversy centered on issues of national identity, with proponents of Chinese Reunification favoring the Hanyu Pinyin system which is used on the People's Republic of China, and proponents of Taiwanese independence favoring the use of Tongyong Pinyin. Localities with governments controlled by the Kuomintang , most notably Taipei City , have overridden the 2002 administrative order and converted to Hanyu Pinyin (although with a slightly different capitalization convention than the Mainland). As a result, the use of romanization on signage in Taiwan is inconsistent, with many places using Tongyong Pinyin but some using Hanyu Pinyin, and still others not yet having had the resources to replace older Wade-Giles or MPS2 signage. This has resulted in the odd situation in Taipei City in which inconsistent pinyin are shown in freeway directions, with freeway signs, which are under the control of the national government, using one pinyin, but surface street signs, which are under the control of the city government, using the other. Primary education continues to teach pronunciation using the Zhuyin system in Taiwan. Although the ROC government has stated the desire to use romanization rather than Zhuyin in education, the lack of agreement on which form of pinyin to use and the huge logistical challenge of teacher training has stalled these efforts. OTHER LANGUAGES Pinyin-like systems have been devised for other variants of Chinese. Guangdong Romanization is a set of romanizations devised by the government of Guangdong province for Cantonese , Teochew , Hakka ( Moiyen Dialect ), and Hainanese . All of these are designed to use Latin letters in a similar way to pinyin. In addition, in accordance to the ''Regulation of Phonetic Transcription in Hanyu Pinyin Letters of Place Names in Minority Nationality Languages'' (少数民族语地名汉语拼音字母音译转写法) promulgated in 1976, place names in non-Chinese languages like Mongol , Uyghur , and Tibetan are also officially transcribed using pinyin. The pinyin letters (26 Roman letters, ü, ê) are used to approximate the non-Chinese language in question as closely as possible. This results in spellings that are different from both the customary spelling of the place name, and the pinyin spelling of the name in Chinese: :''See also: Tibetan Pinyin CONTROVERSY Debate continues about the actual suitability of pinyin as a Chinese romanization method. This argument revolves around pinyin's unconventional use of Roman letters, of which the Phonological values of some phonemes are quite different from that of most languages utilizing the Roman Alphabet . Some Sinologist s praise this as pinyin's flexibility in that it allows the entire Roman alphabet to be adapted to the Chinese sound system (compared to Wade-Giles , which leaves out or underuses many letters). Others point out that pinyin letter values are so unconventional that for a person unfamiliar with Chinese, they result in a larger number of mispronunciations when compared to Wade-Giles . However, as not only the PRC but by now most institutions and publications have adopted it, the debate seems increasingly obsolete. Pinyin, like all systems of romanization, has certain limitations that users should be aware of:
Computer systems long provided the most convincing argument in favor of pinyin; early computers were able to display nothing but 7-bit ASCII (essentially the 26 letters, the 10 digits, and a handful of punctuation marks). Most contemporary computer systems are now able to readily display characters from not only Chinese, but from many other writing systems as well. In addition, multiple Input Method Editor s exist that use standard keyboards to type them (pinyin being one such method). Now, PDAs , Tablet PCs and Digitizing Tablet s allow users to write characters with a Stylus , which can then be stored and edited like any text. Thus, this justification is no longer as strong as it used to be. Nonetheless, pinyin has gained wide acceptance, and supporters believe it is useful for students of Chinese as a second language. Also, the ability to easily convert electronic Chinese texts written in traditional or simplified characters into pinyin using computer programs such as the Chinese Pronunciation Tool has greatly increased the value of being able to read pinyin. ACCESSIBILITY NOTE Some Internet users using the Internet Explorer browser may have difficulty displaying characters bearing the third tone mark. If the following character displays as an empty square box: ǔ, do the following: on the Internet Explorer menu at the top of the screen select "Tools," then "Internet Options," then "Accessibility." Check the box labeled "Ignore font styles specified on Web pages." Click "OK." After that, select "Tools," then "Internet Options," then "Fonts." In the menu at the left, select "Arial Unicode MS" (or "Arial," if this font is not available), then click "OK." It may also be necessary to select "View," then "Encoding," then "Unicode (UTF-8)." Entering toned pinyin with Mac OS X Activate the "US Extended" keyboard in '' System Preferences '' and then do:
Entering toned pinyin with Windows Many Chinese IME's allow an additional Hanyu Pinyin toggle in addition to the simplified/traditional toggle. The user can then type pinyin and tone marks using the alphanumeric keys on a standard keyboard, (the popular is one such example). Pinyinput is a Windows-based IME that allows you to type toned pinyin with ease. Because it works at the system level, it will allow you to type pīnyīn with tones in any Windows program just as easily as you would type Chinese (in fact even easier, because you don't need to select the correct character). Activate the IME then start typing pinyin. Type a number from 1-4 after a pinyin syllable, and the corresponding tone will automatically be placed on the correct vowel of that syllable. FURTHER READING
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