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: Zhōngwén yìyīn cǎi Hànyǔ Pīnyīn — bù bǔzhù Tōngyòng Pīnyīn (中文譯音採漢語 不補助通用), 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.)
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The Chinese word “pinyin” (this word is better not capitalized) is missing from the Chinese headline, making your pinyin rendition of it incorrect.
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.
So, will this legally obligate them to include tone marks?
I eagerly await a similar attention to Taiwanese romanization.