Pinyin news

I haven’t posted anything in Pinyin lately. So here’s a story from a couple of days ago, giving some of the history of Taipei’s stupid and now disavowed “nicknumbering” system, under which the city’s main roads were given numbers for the supposed convenience of foreigners. But since no locals knew these numbers, the nicknumbering system helped basically no one find anything — something the city should have figured out before it wasted all that money putting up signs. The real problem was that the romanization on the city’s signs was FUBAR — something that was finally addressed a little later.

Táiběi shìyìyuán Lǐ Xīn zhǐchū, Táiběi shìzhèngfǔ zài Mínguó 89 nián [2000 -- I've changed the rest of the dates to international years] tuīchū de “dàjiē dàdào” (lùpái jiāzhù Yīngwén xùhào) zhèngcè, jìngrán zài 7 yuè jīng shìzhǎng Hǎo Lóngbīn tóngyì, juédìng “bù wán le”. Tā tòng pī shì-fǔ zhèngcè fǎnfù, bànlǐ dānwèi Mínzhèngjú zéwúpángdài, yīng gěi shìmín yī ge jiāodài.

Mínzhèngjú biǎoshì, zǎo zài 2002 nián tǒngyī shǐyòng Hànyǔ Pīnyīn qián, yǐ tuīdòng “dàjiē dàdào” zhèngcè, gù bùfen biāoshì pái cǎi Tōngyòng Pīnyīn, liǎngzhě luóji bìngbù yīzhì; cǐwài, yuèláiyuè duō wàijí guānguāngkè juéde lái Táiwān jiùshì yào tǐhuì “Zhōng-xiào, Rén’ài, Xìnyì, Hépíng” de Rújiā jīngshén shì mìngmíngfǎ, shùzì xíng jiēdào míng fǎn’ér xiǎnde méiyǒu tèsè.

Mínzhèngjú juédìng cóngshànrúliú, gǎi yǐ Hànyǔ Pīnyīn zuòwéi tǒngyī yìyīn, bùzài zhíxíng “dàjiē dàdào” zhèngcè.

Lǐ Xīn biǎoshì, shì-fǔ yǐ “fāzhǎn guānguāng, xiézhù wàijí rénshì biànrèn” wéi yóu, 2000 nián qǐ dàzhāngqígǔ, jiāng shìnèi 10 tiáo dōng-xī xiàng zhǔyào dàolù dìng míngwéi “dì-yī zhì dì-shí dàdào”; 14 tiáo nán-běi xiàng zhǔyào dàolù dìng míngwéi “dì-yī zhì dì-shísì dàjiē”.

Bùjǐn zài zhèxiē lùduàn de lùpái, shì-fǔ xuānchuánpǐn dōu xīnzēng xiāngguān Yīngwén biāoshì, yě yāoqiú yuánjǐng shújì, yǐbiàn zhǐyǐn wàijí guānguāngkè.

Bùliào shíguòjìngqiān, céngjīng bèi lièwéi qián Táiběi shìzhǎng Mǎ Yīngjiǔ zhòngyào zhèngjì de dàjiē dàdào zhèngcè, yīn shíshī guòchéng hùnluàn, xiàoguǒ bùjiā, yǐ yóu Hǎo Lóngbīn qiānzì juédìng “shōubīng” bùzài shīxíng, wèilái jiāng zhúbù yǐ Hànyǔ Pīnyīn tǒngyī yìyīn.

Mínzhèngjú biǎoshì, 1998 nián guānguāng wěiyuánhuì wěiyuán kāihuì shí, dāngshí yà dōu lí zhì zǒngcái Yán Chángshòu tíchū fǎngxiào guówài dàjiē dàdào mìngmíng fāngshì, huòkě tíshēng lái Táiwān guānguāng de wàijí lǚkè, zài Táiběi jiào yì biànshí fāngwèi; shì-fǔ jīngguò duōfāng pínggū, 2000 nián zhèngshì tuīdòng dàjiē dàdào zhèngcè.

Bùguò zài lùpái jiāzhù Yīngwénbǎn dàjiē dàdào míng hòu, duì wàijí lǚkè bāngzhù bùdà, bùshǎo běndì mínzhòng bèi wèndào “dì-yī dàdào zài nǎli?” fǎn’ér yī tóu wùshuǐ, gēnběn huídá bù chūlai. Yīncǐ jiēxiàlái shì-fǔ huì zhúnián biānliè yùsuàn, yǐ Hànyǔ Pīnyīn tǒngyī lùpái yìyīn.

Thanks, Dan, for alerting me to this.

source: Dàjiē dàdào bù wán le — yìyuán tòng pī (大街大道不玩了 議員痛批), United Daily News, October 27, 2008

No Comments »

As some of you may recall, last October I wrote about finding official signs for a Taipei street that used English rather than romanization (Street names in English translation: trend or error?).

Some of the signs for what is written in Hanzi “園區街” (Yuánqū Jiē) read, in Taipei’s standard but stupid InTerCaPiTaLiZaTion, “YuanQu St.” while others read “Park St.” (which, by the way, is a misleading translation). I called the Taipei City Government about this and was informed that Park was an error and that the signs would be fixed to read Yuanqu.

Nearly a year has gone by since then. Have any of the street signs been changed?

The answer is yes. The signs, including some new ones, are indeed consistent. All of them now read — have you guessed it yet? — “Park St.”

That’s right: They eliminated the signs that were correct and put up new signs that are wrong. I’m trying to relax, so I won’t write out all of the many maledictions I have been muttering about Taipei City Government and its bureaucracy.

Here’s one of the street signs in October 2007:

Here’s the same sign in August 2008:

A close-up, showing how “Park” was pasted over “YuanQu”.

6 Comments »

Taipei Mayor Hau Lung-bin (Hǎo Lóngbīn / 郝龍斌) said on Sunday that Taipei will not switch from Hanyu Pinyin to Tongyong Pinyin, despite pressure from the Ministry of the Interior to do so.

Questioned by reporters at the wedding of Taiwan’s top “Go” player, Hau stressed that the Taipei City Government would continue to use Hanyu Pinyin despite the Interior Ministry’s push as it’s the most commonly used pinyin system in the international community.

“Taipei City has decided to continue using Hanyu Pinyin to connect with other countries in the world,” Hau said.

He suggested that the Interior Ministry consult with linguistic scholars and learn to respect their expertise when standardizing the romanization of Taiwan’s place and street names.

Yes, the MOI would do well to follow this advice — as would the Taipei City Government itself. Taipei’s stupid @#$%! InTerCaPiTaLiZaTion and lack of apostrophes are significant errors. And sometimes the lack of tone marks is a problem. And don’t get me started about Taipei’s “nicknumbering” system.

Taipei City is the only city in Taiwan that has adopted Hanyu Pinyin.

This is incorrect. Several cities around Taiwan use Hanyu Pinyin, such as Xinzhu and Taizhong, though none as consistently as Taipei.

TVBS is reporting that Taipei will be forced to switch, which I very much doubt will happen — certainly not before the presidential election in March 2008.

Nèizhèngbù de xíngzhèng mìnglìng yīdàn bānbù, bùyòng sòngjiāo Lìyuàn tóngyì, Táiběi shìzhèngfǔ zhǐyǒu zhàobàn de fèn, 5 nián qián, Mǎ Yīngjiǔ qiángshì zhǔdǎo Hànyǔ Pīnyīn, ràng Táiběi Shì chéngwéi tā yǎnzhōng, gēn guójì jiēguǐ de dūshì, 5 nián hòu, Nèizhèngbù dìngdìng fǎlìng qiǎngpò zhíxíng, gěi le yī jì huímǎqiāng.

TVBS also gives the cost for changing Taipei’s signs at NT$8 million (US$250,000).

The TVBS video gives lots of pictures of signs.

sources:

• Taipei City ready to defy MOI over romanization, Taiwan News, November 12, 2007
• Yīngyì jiāng cǎi “Tōngyòng Pīnyīn” — Táiběi Shì fǎndàn! (英譯將採「通用拼音」 北市反彈！), print report, TVBS, November 13, 2007
• Yīngyì jiāng cǎi “Tōngyòng Pīnyīn” — Táiběi Shì fǎndàn! (英譯將採「通用拼音」 北市反彈！), video report, TVBS, November 13, 2007

5 Comments »

In addition to skewering Tongyong Pinyin in his latest column, Johnny Neihu reports on a new Web site from the Taipei City Government with bizarre romanization and completely crappy English.

However, it hasn’t taken long for things [in Taipei's English-language environment] to start deteriorating — 11 months to be precise. Mayor Hau Lung-bin (郝龍斌) has already begun to make his mark, if the English moniker of the metropolis’ most recent culinary fiesta is anything to go by.

I am talking about Taipei’s “Newrow Mian” Festival, which, for those ignorant of Mayor Hau’s personal Romanization system, means beef noodles. “Newrow”? It sounds more like the sort of French-accented Mandarin you would expect from a badly congested Inspector Clouseau if they ever made The Pink Panther in Beijing. But then what can you expect from a mayor with a master’s degree in food science?

Any laowai getting into a cab and asking for a lift to the nearest “newrow” store will no doubt be greeted with a look more vacant than that of Hau at a council meeting.

My guess is that the city government brokered some sort of deal on purchasing livestock for the festival with “La New” of shoes fame. The city got the right to use La New’s dodgy transliteration of the Mandarin word for cow, and so the carcasses were split, with the shoe company getting the leather and the noodle festival getting the beef, so to speak.

But the title of the noodle extravaganza was not the only questionable translation circulating last week. One of the festival’s contests was named the “International Teamwork Intercourse Competition.” What that has to do with beef noodles is anyone’s guess, but I bet the tickets sold pretty fast.

The Web site was set up to promote a “festival” for one of Taipei’s standard foods: niúròumiàn (beef noodle soup / 牛肉麵).

This is yet another example of Taiwan trying to promote its English-language environment by using machine-generated Chinglish, and by coming up with Anglicizations that don’t work as romanizations of Mandarin and mean nothing to local Mandarin speakers. Although the sound of the English word “row” is not too far from that of the Mandarin ròu, “new” for niú is a much bigger stretch. In fact, “new” is probably closer to nǚ (女), meaning female, which would give us a female flesh festival (nǚ ròu jié). Maybe the organizers could work in that International Teamwork Intercourse Competition after all. Now that would likely be a successful tourist draw, albeit the wrong sort.

This gives me an excuse to toss in something for lagniappe: niúròu chǎng (牛肉場), which literally means “beef area” but which is actually a slang term for a place with strippers — a place to see “meat” on display. (Compare this with English, in which “beefcake” refers to men, not women.) Even within the not-so-high-class world of strip joints, niurou chang are relatively low class.

According to the 2005 Mandarin-language article linked to below, niurou chang began in Taiwan in 1984. The article also provides an etymolgy, though perhaps an invented one.

Biǎoyǎn de nèiróng dōu gēn niúròu wúguān, wèihé jiào niúròu chǎng?

Yuánlái niúròu de Táiyǔ jiù zuò “yǒu ròu,” suǒyǐ lù “ròu,” mài ròu de suǒzài jiù jiào “niúròu chǎng.” Zhèige bù mài ròu què jiào “niúròu chǎng de sèqíng chǎngsuǒ.”

This states that such places were originally called in Taiwanese “have meat,” which sounds like “reveal flesh.” Perhaps Taffy, A-giâu, or someone else who knows Taiwanese can comment.

Just in case the Taipei City Government should develop a sense of shame and fix the English on this Web site (ha!), click on the image for a screen shot of the first page of the English site.

sources:

• 2007 Newrow Mian Festival Web site, in Mandarin, English, and Japanese
• NEWS WATCH: What’s your beef with intercourse?, Taipei Times, November 10, 2007
• “yǒu ròu” lù ròu, niúròu chǎng qǔzì Táiyǔ xiéyīn (「有肉」露肉,牛肉場取自台語諧音), ET Today, April 5, 2005

4 Comments »

Ah, Park Street: Taipei’s lovely tree-lined boulevard next to a wonderful oasis of well-manicured nature.

Nope.

Here, “park” refers to Nangang Software Park (Nángǎng Ruǎntǐ Yuánqū, 南港軟體園區), an area in eastern Taipei of new buildings housing mainly software-development and biomedical companies. The software park itself is a pretty nice place and looks fine; its surrounding area, however, is anything but green and leafy, comprising mainly dreary brick buildings and vacant lots.

But what’s odder than the name itself is that it appears in English rather than in the mix of Hanyu Pinyin (with StuPid, StuPid InTerCapITaLiZaTion) and English (e.g., St., Rd.) that has become standard in Taipei. Also odd is that at one end of the street the signs read “Park St,” but at the other end “YuanQu St.” This is a fairly new street name, as the software park is only a few years old.

The flash on my camera helps reveal that the part of the sign reading “YuanQu St.” is pasted on top of something else — quite possibly “Park St.”

I spent about 15 minutes today getting my phone call to the Taipei City Government transferred from one desk to another before I was able to speak with someone who knew what she was doing. She stated that the Park Street version is in error and would be corrected to Yuanqu Street.

I really wish I’d asked for her extension number, because I’m certain to be making similar calls in the future.

6 Comments »

What’s being touted as the first Broadway-style Hakka musical will open in October at Taipei’s National Theater. The play, “Fú chūn jiànǚ” (to give the Mandarin title) (「福春嫁女」, My Daughter’s Wedding), is based on Shakespeare’s The Taming of the Shrew.

sources and further reading:

• Kèjiā jīngshén, Shāwēng (Shakespeare) gǔgàn, yìshù xuè-ròu　”Fú chūn jiànǚ” ràng Kèjiā wénhuà xùnhuà le àiqíng (客家精神、莎翁骨幹、藝術血肉　《福春嫁女》讓客家文化馴化了愛情), Taiwan Council for Hakka Affairs, August 29, 2007
• Hakka musical to debut, Taipei Times, September 2, 2007
• Dāng Shāwēng (Shakespeare) míng jù pèngshang Kèjiā “Fú chūn jiànǚ” tiǎozhàn Kèjiā xìjù kèbǎn yìnxiàng (當莎翁名劇碰上客家　「福春嫁女」挑戰客家戲劇刻板印象), August 29, 2007
• Shǒu chū Kèjiā gēwǔjù “Fú chūn jiànǚ” — 10 yuè dēngtái (首齣客家歌舞劇福春嫁女 10月登台), CNA, August 29, 2007

No Comments »

The Taipei City Government has begun to replace busstop signs throughout the city.

The color scheme of the new signs, however, is a poor choice because white letters against a gray background offer little contrast, especially at night.

Here, for example, is are daytime and nighttime shots of the same stop, taken from different angles.

The stop is not lit well, so the nighttime photo had to be taken with a flash. So this photo, though the focus came out a little fuzzy, represents an improvement over what people would normally see at night.

Two weeks ago I wrote the Taipei City Government’s Department of Transportation for clarification about the policies associated with this signage but have not received an answer. Everyone I have spoken with in that office has been friendly; but the system is unfortunately still stuck in its ways.

At least InTerCaPiTaLiZaTion doesn’t seem to be in effect. And the new style for displaying bus routes does provide more information to those who cannot read Chinese characters.

(click for larger image)

1 Comment »

When Taipei’s MRT system — which is mainly a subway system but which also has elevated portions and even sections at ground level — opened, most of its signage was in bastardized Wade-Giles, with the “English” pronunciation of the station names broadcast in the cars resembling a hideous parody of the speech of an especially clueless foreign visitor. Fortunately, the romanization was switched to Hanyu Pinyin and the English announcements were re-recorded to give pronunciations that much more accurately reflected the Mandarin station names.

Unfortunately, English announcements have been added in recent months that feature a high-pitched voice that is probably intended to be ke’ai (”cute”) but which is actually cloying. These must die, die, die! But I’m straying from the main topic.

Anyway, the MRT’s current signage, nicely designed as most of it is, does not give any tone marks. Nor does it provide Pinyin for the station names that are translated into English. And there are also a few mistakes that really need to be corrected in the official forms of the names.

So, I have updated and added some minor corrections to the lists I put up long ago on my first Web site, Romanization.com. The new versions, here on Pinyin Info, are here: Taipei MRT stations in Chinese characters, Hanyu Pinyin, and some English.

3 Comments »