Pinyin news

An observant reader, Sonarchic, sent in the top two photos below, both of which were taken in Taizhong (Taichung), Taiwan. The first one is especially interesting in that what would be written zhong in Hanyu Pinyin is here written two different ways: chung and zhueng.

Here’s an older street sign.

I’ve appended two photos I took myself in Taizhong about two years ago.

The first was taken on a highway near Taizhong. Since highways are under the central government’s jurisdiction, these signs are in Tongyong Pinyin.

And here is a relatively new street sign with Taizhong itself. Note the use of Hanyu Pinyin, which, despite reports to the contrary, is not limited in Taiwan to Taipei City. I don’t know what “C1″ refers to; I certainly hope it’s not a variant of Taipei’s idiotic nicknumbering system. Note also how any mention of the road’s sections (duan) are omitted from the romanization — very bad. Moreover, it has always seemed to me that Taizhong’s street signs suffer from too much information: just look at all those numbers. That can’t be good for readability.

So, to wrap up, these signs in and near Taizhong, give us:

• Taichung Interchange (bastardized Wade-Giles)
• Zhuengzhang EXPY (misspelled Hanyu Pinyin) (BTW, this should be written Zhong-Zhang EXPY, as in [Tai]zhong-Zhang[hua] EXPY)
• Junggung 3rd Rd (MPS2 — not Yale)
• Jhongsing (Tongyong Pinyin)
• Zhonghua (Hanyu Pinyin)

All that for a simple zhong (中).

5 Comments »

As most readers of this site know, Taiwan has approached romanization and signage with a sloppiness that sometimes beggars belief. Although the situation has improved somewhat this decade, many errors remain. And even where there are not errors, people still must often contend with a variety of romanization systems.

Thus, my list of Taiwan place names may come in handy.

I made the list more than a year ago but put it on another website and never drew much attention to it. Now I’ve moved it here to Pinyin Info, where it may do more good.

The list, which is arranged by county and then by city, gives Chinese characters, Hanyu Pinyin (both with and without tone marks), Tongyong Pinyin (ugh!), and a commonly seen older form (usually bastardized Wade-Giles).

I have not bothered to include MPS2, because it is seen more on street signs than on maps. And, anyway, it’s on its way out. I strongly recommend using Hanyu Pinyin.

3 Comments »

Dan of Jidanni.org has come up with a list of Taizhong’s busstops in the mixed style of Hanyu Pinyin and English that has become standard in Taiwan and is becoming so in China.

I hear that this list may actually be implemented! If so, that would be much to Taizhong’s credit, as local governments elsewhere in Taiwan are often not so responsive.

Here are the lists:

• Master list of all busstops in Taizhong
• busstops, given by individual bus routes

Good work, Dan!

Just out of curiousity, I removed the English and numerals from the list and then compared how it would be written in Hanyu Pinyin (the international standard) vs. Tongyong Pinyin (Taiwan’s international embarassment). This revealed that 337 of 633 entries would be written differently in Hanyu Pinyin and Tongyong Pinyin, giving a difference rate of 53.2 percent.

No Comments »