Author Archives: Pinyin Info

early ‘universal’ romanization system

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No-Sword brings up Karl Richard Lepsius’s early, IPA-like system, with Matt linking to Google Print’s online edition of Standard Alphabet for Reducing Unwritten Languages and Foreign Graphic Systems to a Uniform Orthography in European Letters.

The book groups Taiwanese, Hakka, and Mandarin — or Hok-lo, Hak-ka, and Mandarinic (my favorite), as it refers to them — under “monosyllabic languages” (grr). OTOH, Tibetan is given as an “isolated language.” Interestingly, Mandarin pronunciation is given following the practice of Nanjing, not Beijing; a similar choice made a couple of hundred years ealier is also part of what’s behind the “Peking” spelling for what is now referred to as Beijing (1 MB PDF).

Taiwanese and alphabetical abbreviations

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I’d been working on a post about the cards and miniature magnets given away at Family Mart (Quánjiā / 全家) convenience stores with purchases of at least NT$75 (about US$2). But Jason at Wandering to Tamshui beat me to it yesterday with a post showing all of the cards, so I’ll keep this short.

These are particularly interesting because of the use of Taiwanese as well as several other languages, though everything here is labeled “Yingwen” (English). As Jason wrote, “That faint sound you hear is a thousand foreign English teachers slapping their foreheads in despair.”

The series, labeled Quánmín pīn Yīngwén (全民拼英文), is probably meant to counter rival 7-Eleven’s popular Hello Kitty button series. Although few take on Hello Kitty and live to tell the tale, I think the alphabet cards are doing fairly well.

Below is an example. On the left is the wrapper (pun not intended). Top right shows the front and back of the magnet that comes with this particular card. And at bottom right is the card itself. (I say card; but it’s really just glossy paper.)

Here MG is meant to stand for mai3 ke2 sian1 (as always, help with my spelling would be appreciated), which, despite the use of Chinese characters (嘜假仙), is Taiwanese, not Mandarin. Reading 嘜假仙 as Mandarin yields only nonsense. (So much for the “universality” and “ideographic” myths of Chinese characters.)

photo of promotional item from a convenience store; it uses the Roman alphabet to indicate abbreviations of phrases in Taiwanese

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Ma Ying-jeou speaks of Taipei County adopting Hanyu Pinyin

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In another sign that Tongyong Pinyin’s days in Taipei County are numbered (not that Tongyong was ever used here much in the first place), Taipei Mayor (and KMT Chairman) Ma Ying-jeou said this on Tuesday:

mùqián Táiběi Shì yǔ Táiběi Xiàn lù míngzi de pīnfǎ bùyī, Táiběi Shì cǎi Hànyǔ Pīnyīn, Táiběi Xiàn cǎi Tōngyòng Pīnyīn, wèilái kěyǐ tǒngyī yòng Hànyǔ Pīnyīn (目前台北市與台北縣路名的拼法不一，北市採「漢語拼音」，北縣採「通用拼音」，未來可以統一用「漢語拼音」)

Although he didn’t state specifically that Taipei County most definitely will use Hanyu Pinyin (which wouldn’t be his announcement to make), he certainly seems to back that happening. Of course, that’s no big surprise; but I like to chronicle such things anyway.

source: Mǎ Yīngjiǔ: Táiběi Xiàn-Shì hézuò; Yīngwén lù míngzi kěyǐ cǎi Hànyǔ Pīnyīn (馬英九:台北縣市合作 英文路名可採漢語拼音), CNA, April 18, 2006

Chinese companies adopting more ‘English’ names: report

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Langchao (浪潮), an IT company in China, has adopted the “English” name of “Inspur” (a marketing-speak portmanteau of “inspire” and “spur”). The switch is apparently part of a trend, with some Chinese marketing departments coming to prefer even invented English to real Mandarin. Such are the demands of the international market, it seems.

Sun Peishu, Inspur’s president and chief executive officer, said when he met foreign customers, he found it was often difficult and inconvenient for them to pronounce the names of his company and brand.

“That is a big handicap for us, if our customers can not even pronounce our name,” said Sun.

So the company decided to scrap the name Langchao, which had been in use for 23 years, since its foundation.

In the past years, more and more Chinese companies are changing their names from Chinese pinyin to English as the first step towards the global expansion.

Compare the earlier logo with the new one.

old logo -- with Chinese characters written with a brush; white on blue logo with 'inspur' and then Chinese characters for 'langchao'; blue on white

original logo

  • Chinese characters written in a calligraphic style
  • no Pinyin
  • I think that’s supposed to be a wave in the triangle. (“Làngcháo” is the Mandarin word for (1) tide; wave (2) tendency (3) major social movement.)

new logo

  • “English” name comes first
  • Chinese characters written in a non-calligraphic style

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Taiwan gov’t to subsidize ‘mother-tongue’ education in kindergartens

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“Mother-tongue language education” is a phrase used to mean the languages of Taiwan’s tribes and the Sinitic languages of Taiwan other than Mandarin.

The Ministry of Education is now offering subsidies for kindergartens to promote mother-tongue language education nationwide. The ministry is now accepting applications from up to 50 kindergartens for subsidies worth NT$70,000 (US$2,188) each. Ministry officials said they hoped that mother-tongue language learning would start at a younger age so that kids in kindergarten could learn to listen to and speak native languages through stories, songs and other activities. They would also learn to appreciate Taiwanese culture at a younger age, officials said. The ministry will offer subsidies for Hoklo (commonly known as Taiwanese) and Aboriginal languages, while Hakka subsidies will be given according to Council of Hakka Affairs rules. The plan is expected to be carried out starting in the fall semester of this year, officials said.

source: Language funds offered, Taipei Times, April 11, 2006

smuggler learns importance of proper Pinyin

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A 28-year-old Taiwanese woman has been arrested in Hong Kong on charges of drug smuggling. Customs officials there found that the woman, who had arrived from Cambodia, had 3 kg of heroin hidden inside preserved plums. (I have a hard time thinking of these as “prunes” because they are so different than the U.S. prunes I grew up with — or rather avoided as best I could as I was growing up.)

One of the things that alerted the suspicions of the officials was that the lettering on her seven packages of plums (chénpíméi, 陳皮梅) read, in part, “Cnan.”

Yī míng 28 suì Táiwān nǚzǐ, jiāng zhěngzhěng 3 gōngjīn de hǎiluòyīn cáng zài 300 duō kē chénpíméi lǐ, zhǔnbèi yóu Jiǎnpǔzhài yùnsòng dào Táiwān fàn shòu, túzhōng zài Xiāng Gǎng jīchǎng bèi hǎiguān dāngchǎng dǎizhù, bèi jīyā zài Xiāng Gǎng kānshǒusuǒ, wànyī zuìmíng chénglì, xiánfàn jiāng miànduì 10 nián yǐshàng de yǒuqī túxíng.

Xiánfàn shì yī wèi cóng Jiǎnpǔzhài dào Xiāng Gǎng de 28 suì Táiwān nǚzǐ, jìhuà jiāng dúpǐn yùnsòng dào Táiwān fàn shòu, zhěngzhěng 3 gōngjīn de hǎiluòyīn jiàzhí 560 wàn yuán, qiǎomiào de cáng zài 300 duō kē chénpíméi lǐ, kěshì yīnwèi bāozhuāng shang “chénpíméi” de Yīngwénzì pīncuò le, yǐnqǐ Xiāng Gǎng hǎiguān de huáiyí, jiēfā zhè qǐyùn dú àn.

Xiāng Gǎng hǎiguān jiāndū Lǐ Zhāngróng biǎoshì, xiánfàn bǎ chénpíméi zhōngjiān de hé[tao] wā chūlai shōucáng hǎiluòyīng, dànshì yóuyú chénpíméi Yīngwén pīnyīn shì Chan, fàndú jítuán pīnchéng cnan, zāodào hǎiguān rényuán huáiyí dàibǔ.

Mùqián zhè wèi Táiwān xiánfàn bèi Xiāng Gǎng jǐngfāng yǐ fànyùn wēixiǎn yàowù zuì, jīyā zài Xiāng Gǎng de kānshǒusuǒ, 4 yuè 24 rì jiāng zài Xiāng Gǎng fǎyuàn jiēshòu shěnxùn, wànyī zuìmíng chénglì, xiánfàn jiāngyào miànduì 10 nián yǐshàng de yǒuqī túxíng.

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Taipei mayor calls for more Mandarin, less English and Taiwanese in primary schools

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According to one of the stories on this, the Taipei City Government’s Department of Education did a study comparing the amount of time sixth-graders spent on Mandarin classes in several countries. In Taiwan the figure is between 80 and 133 hours. In China the figure is 172 hours. And in Singapore the number is between 80 and 200 hours. As a percentage of the population, however, I would expect Taiwan to have the highest number of fluent or native speakers of Mandarin. On the other hand, Chinese characters are difficult for everyone.

Ma’s call is probably aimed not just at boosting Mandarin but at edging out the teaching of Taiwanese and Hakka (which may not be able to be reduced without eliminating their teaching altogether). This also sounds like another move to increase the amount of Literary Sinitic (Classical Chinese) in the classroom, which would certainly be a move in the wrong direction.

I suspect, though, that calls from parents, who often place more value on English than on other courses, will put an end to this. And anyway, in Taiwan it’s the central government that sets educational policy.

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UN has been using only simplified characters for years: Taiwan foreign ministry

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In my earlier post on a report that the United Nations would drop the use of traditional Chinese characters, I wrote, “I hadn’t known the U.N. was still using traditional characters at all.”

According to a release from Taiwan’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MOFA) yesterday, the U.N. has not used traditional characters for years. The story led the Taiwan News today:

When Taiwan’s representative office in New York checked on the report with the U.N., officials from the Department of the U.N. Secretariat said they were not informed of the report and felt puzzled by it, the [MOFA] statement said.

Although the U.N. uses Chinese, English, French, Spanish, Arabic, and Russian as its official languages, the decision has not deterred the development of other languages, such as Japanese, German, or Portuguese, the statement added.

The conservation of culture in countries using these languages was also unaffected by the U.N.’s language policy, the statement said.

Overseas Chinese Affairs Commission Vice Minister Cheng Tong-hsing said yesterday at the Legislature that the government has plans to call press conferences and various publicity campaigns to boost public awareness of the significance of using traditional Chinese characters among Taiwanese and overseas Chinese.

Minister of Education Tu Cheng-sheng (杜正勝) also said that due to the language’s historical and cultural significance, the MOE is firm in its stance that traditional Chinese characters will continue to be taught in local educational institutions regardless of the U.N.’s decision.

The Taipei Times‘ report was more cautious:

Tu said that the education ministry was in the process of verifying the UN’s plans.

It appears there’s something fishy (xīqiāo) going on, as the foreign ministry put it.

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