I don’t have time to write a proper post on this now. But the big news is that Taiwan will adopt Hanyu Pinyin, with Tongyong Pinyin left to wither away.
Here’s the story: ZhÅngwén yìyÄ«n cÇŽi Hà nyÇ” PÄ«nyÄ«n — bù bÇ”zhù TÅngyòng PÄ«nyÄ«n (ä¸æ–‡è¯éŸ³æŽ¡æ¼¢èªž ä¸è£œåŠ©é€šç”¨), United Daily News, September 17, 2008.
The Forumosa thread on this topic supplies some information for those of you who want to read something on this in English: MOE Approves Hanyu Pinyin as Taiwan Transliteration Policy?
(Thanks, Jidanni, for the heads up.)
Taiwan to switch to hanyu pinyin? » The Peking Duck said
[...] believe it when I see it but it is certainly about time. Source article here; the article they got it from, in Chinese, is [...]
Standard Pinyin at Last | Doubting to shuo: Chinese, Investing, EFL and Being a Geek in Taiwan said
[...] signs or MRT station names. It appears that the problem may be coming to an end. According to Pinyin.info, the Taiwanese government has finally adopted Hanyu Pinyin (Chinese language source), the [...]
C said
The Chinese word “pinyin” (this word is better not capitalized) is missing from the Chinese headline, making your pinyin rendition of it incorrect.
Pinyin Info said
Fundamentally, Hanyu Pinyin isn’t a rendering of Chinese characters. It is a way of writing the Mandarin language. Texts in hanzi are often not written in baihua but with many abbreviated forms; that’s all the more so with headlines. So I sometimes alter them slightly in the Pinyin.
In other words it’s not a bug, it’s a feature. ;-)
As for capitalizing “Pinyin” or not, others may prefer a different approach. I prefer the capitalized form when it serves as a short form for “Hanyu Pinyin.” The latter, as a proper noun, is most definitely capitalized.
Zla'od said
So, will this legally obligate them to include tone marks?
I eagerly await a similar attention to Taiwanese romanization.