Category Archives: linguistics

Journal issue focuses on romanization

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cover of this issue of the Journal of the Royal Asiatic SocietyThe most recent issue of the Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society of Great Britain and Ireland (third series, volume 20, part 1, January 2010) features the following articles on romanization movements and script reforms.

  • Editorial Introduction: Romanisation in Comparative Perspective, by İlker Aytürk
  • The Literati and the Letters: A Few Words on the Turkish Alphabet Reform, by Laurent Mignon
  • Alphabet Reform in the Six Independent ex-Soviet Muslim Republics, by Jacob M. Landau
  • Politics of Romanisation in Azerbaijan (1921–1992), by Ayça Ergun
  • Romanisation in Uzbekistan Past and Present, by Mehmet Uzman
  • Romanisation of Bengali and Other Indian Scripts, by Dennis Kurzon
  • The Rōmaji movement in Japan, by Nanette Gottlieb
  • Postscript from the JRAS Editor, Sarah Ansari

Unfortunately, none of these cover any Sinitic languages or the case of Vietnam. And Gottlieb’s take on rōmaji is certainly more conservative than Unger’s. But I expect this will all make for interesting reading.

I am able to view all of the articles on my system. But perhaps others will run up against a subscription wall.

I thank Victor H. Mair for drawing this publication to my attention.

-r endings, their pronunciation, and Pinyin spelling

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cover of Chinese Romanization: Pronunciation and OrthographyArrr! In recognition of International Talk Like a Beijinger Pirate Day, here are the rules for how to spell those -r endings in Hanyu Pinyin and how those endings affect the pronunciation of syllables. In many cases, it’s more complicated than just adding an -r sound at the end of the standard syllable.

This information is from Yin Binyong’s Chinese Romanization: Pronunciation and Orthography. The full section from this book is available in PDF form: r- Suffixed Syllables.

Written form Actual pronunciation
-ar (mǎr, horse) -ar (mǎr)
-air (gàir, lid) -ar (gàr)
-anr (pánr, plate) -ar (pár)
-aor (bāor, bundle) -aor (bāor)
-angr (gāngr, jar) -ãr (gãr)
-or (mòr, dust) -or (mòr)
-our (hóur, monkey) -our (hóur)
-ongr (chóngr, insect) -õr (chõr)
-er (gēr, song) -er (gēr)
-eir (bèir, back) -er (bèr)
-enr (ménr, door) -er (mér)
-engr (dēngr, lamp) -ẽr (dẽr)
-ir* (zìr, Chinese character) -er (zèr)
-ir (mǐr, rice) -ier (mǐer)
-iar (xiár, box) -iar (xiár)
-ier (diér, saucer) -ier (diér)
-iaor (niǎor, bird) -iaor (niǎor)
-iur (qiúr, ball) -iour (qióur)
-ianr (diǎnr, bit) -iar (diǎr)
-iangr (qiāngr, tune) -iãr (qiãr)
-inr (xīnr, core) -ier (xīer)
-ingr (língr, bell) -iẽr (liẽr)
-iongr (xióngr, bear) -iõr (xiõr)
-ur (tùr, rabbit) -ur (tùr)
-uar (huār, flower) -uar (huār)
-uor (huór, work) -uor (huór)
-uair (kuàir, piece) -uar (kuàr)
-uir (shuǐr, water) -uer (shuěr)
-uanr (wánr, to play) -uar (wár)
-uangr (kuāngr, basket) -uãr (kuãr)
-unr (lúnr, wheel) -uer (luér)
-ür (qǔr, song) -üer (qǔer)
-üer (juér, peg) -üer (juér)
-üanr (quānr, loop) -üar (quār)
-ünr (qúnr, skirt) -üer (quér)

Notes:

  • ã, õ, ẽ indicate nasalized a, o, e.
  • The -i marked with an asterisk indicates either of the apical vowels that follow zh, ch, sh, r and z, c, s.

books bought in Beijing

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cover of a book by Zhou YouguangI didn’t have any luck finding anything in Sin Wenz (Lādīnghuà Xīn Wénzì / 拉丁化新文字), despite trips to several large used book stores. (Fortunately, the Internet is now providing some leads. Thanks, Brendan and Joel!) But I did find some other books to bring home.

I acquired lots of books by Zhou Youguang, not all of which focus primarily on linguistics:

Other than the Zhou Youguang books, here are my favorite finds of the trip, as they are for the most part in correctly word-parsed Hanyu Pinyin (with Hanzi underneath), along with a few notes in English:

I’ll soon be posting more about the above books with Pinyin, so watch this site for updates. Really, this is gonna be good.

Although this collection of Y.R. Chao says it’s volume 15, it’s actually two books:

  • Zhào Yuánrèn quánjí, dì 15 juàn (趙元任全集第15卷)

Some more titles:

  • Measured Words: The Development of Objective Language Testing, by Bernard Spolsky
  • Pǔtōnghuà shuǐpíng cèshì shíshī gāngyào (普通話水平測試實施綱要). Now with the great smell of beer! Sorry, Brendan, I owe you one — more than one, actually.

The following I bought because Yin Binyong, the scholar primarily responsible for Hanyu Pinyin’s orthography, is the author of these titles from Sinolingua’s series of Bógǔtōngjīn xué Hànyǔ cóngshū (“Gems of the Chinese Language through the Ages” (their translation)), all of which are in Mandarin (Hanzi) and English, with Pinyin only for the sayings being illustrated:

cover of 'Chinese-English Dictionary of Polyphonic Characters' (多音多义字汉英词典)cover of 'Putonghua shuiping ceshi shishi gangyao' (普通話水平測試實施綱要)cover of 'Xinhua pinxie cidian'

Other:

And finally:

Of course I already have that one — more than one copy, in fact. But it’s always good to have more than one spare when it comes to one of the two most important books on Pinyin orthography. I really need to follow up on my requests to use excerpts from this book, as it is the only major title missing from my list of romanization-related books (though it’s in Mandarin only).

sign in a Beijing bookstore reading 'Education Theury' [sic]

Korea may make some spellings mandatory

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I’ve been doing so much on signage lately that I’ve been neglecting the issue of romanization. (Remember romanization?) Here’s something just in from South Korea, a country that rivals Taiwan in making a national pastime of screwing around with its romanization system.

The Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism and the Presidential Council on National Competitiveness on Wednesday discussed plans to make the Korean language more accessible worldwide, including working out a Romanization standard for family names, compiling a new Hangul dictionary with about 1 million entries, and building a Hangul cultural center.

The government will come up with standard Romanization for family names this year that will become mandatory for people when they apply for new passports and for government offices that use both Hangul and English on official documents such as birth records and residence registration cards.

In Taiwan, people can choose among romanization systems for the name on their passport. Employing romanization for Hoklo, Hakka, or a language of one of Taiwan’s official tribes is also permitted.

An earlier Romanization project for family names was suspended in 2000 due to controversy over exceptions. The new standard will cost a huge amount of money as the Romanized names of businesses, schools and individuals as well as road signs will have to be changed.

A new Hangul dictionary is to be compiled by 2012, adding a large number of words to the last official dictionary published in 1999, which has about 500,000 entries, and adding easy sample sentences.

Experts have said that the younger generation have trouble understanding the conventional dictionary, as there are too many difficult Chinese characters in explanations and definitions.

The government also plans to compile a multilingual web dictionary comprising about 20 different foreign language sections — such as Vietnamese-Hangul and Thai-Hangul — to help foreigners and Korean nationals overseas.

A Hangul cultural center, to be built at a cost of W35.2 billion [US$27.5 million] by 2012, is to give visitors hands-on experience of the Korean language.

source: Standard Romanization for Korean Names Planned, Chosun Ilbo, June 25, 2009

Photo of street signs in Namyangju, Gyeonggi-do (Namyangju, Ky?nggi-do) courtesy of Robert Badger.
korean_streetsigns

Tian’anmen, not Tiananmen

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I’m certainly not expecting the Western media to start writing Tiān’ānmén (天安門/天安门) with tone marks. But its it’s not like the apostrophe is an obscure glyph to be found only in specialist typefaces that dig deep into Unicode, the sort of thing that might require an English form separate from the Pinyin one.

Microsoft Word certainly isn’t helping matters, as it flags the correct form (Tian’anmen) as a misspelling but does not flag the apostrophe-less form (Tiananmen).

screenshot from Microsoft Word, showing that 'Tian'anmen', unlike 'Tiananmen', is marked as misspelled

Indeed, if you ask the program to help you with the supposedly misspelled “Tian’anmen”, it suggests “Tiananmen”.

screen shot of Microsoft Word's spell checker suggesting 'Tiananmen' as a replacement for 'Tian'anmen'

So my guess would be that the “Tiananmen” form is the result of a combination of (1) the Cupertino effect, (2) laziness, and (3) people thinking that Tian’anmen “looks funny”.

Ugh.

And as long as I’m on this, it’s not Tian An Men, TianAnMen, Tienanmen, Tianan men, etc., either.

But, no, I don’t expect this will do much good; and if I ever work myself into a case of apostrophe rage it will probably be for other names.

—

further reading:

Dungan and Gyami

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The most recent release from the archives of Sino-Platonic Papers is a particular favorite of mine, Two Non-Tetragraphic Northern Sinitic Languages (2.6 MB PDF), by Victor H. Mair. In case that title sounds a little technical, in layman’s terms the title might be A Couple of Languages Closely Related to Mandarin that Are Not Written with Chinese Characters (Which Many People Mistakenly Believe Are Essential for Such Languages), with One of Them Having Been Successfully Written with an Alphabet for Many Decades.

This issue comprises two studies:

  1. Implications of the Soviet Dungan Script for Chinese Language Reform, which has long been featured here on Pinyin.info, and
  2. Who Were the Gyámi?

This issue also contains “A Short Supplementary Note on the Name ‘Tibet.'” The subject of the essay probably sounds perfectly innocuous. But it set off a few rounds of polite but pointed dueling among scholars — in the pages of a journal, that is, not with pistols at forty paces or anything of that sort. The exchanges make for interesting reading. See, for example, SPP 35 (“Reviews IV,” pp. 32-37) and SPP 70 (“Reviews VI,” pp. 21, 79-84).

This was first published in May 1990 as issue no. 18 of Sino-Platonic Papers.

further reading:

update for Karlgren now available

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image of the cover of Minimal Old Chinese and Later Han Chinese: A Companion to Grammata Serica RecensaThe latest release in the University of Hawai`i Press’s groundbreaking ABC Chinese Dictionary Series is Minimal Old Chinese and Later Han Chinese: A Companion to Grammata Serica Recensa, by Axel Schuessler.

The list price is US$58. Amazon currently offers it for US$39.52. (I’m testing to see if acting as a shill will succeed in bringing me kickbacks from the net-commerce giant.)

I suppose I could describe the book more. But if the name Bernhard Karlgren and the book’s title don’t mean anything to you, then this probably isn’t a volume you need just yet, important though it is for its field.

previous announcement: updating Karlgren: a forthcoming reference book, August 14, 2008

onomatopoeia in Mandarin and how to write it in Hanyu Pinyin

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cover of Chinese Romanization: Pronunciation and OrthographyToday’s selection from Yin Binyong’s Chinese Romanization: Pronunciation and Orthography is onomatopoeic words (340 KB PDF).

Yin Binyong makes a distinction between onomatopoeic words that originate in Literary Sinitic (which thus generally have fixed forms in Chinese characters) and those from Modern Mandarin. The former can be written with tone marks, the latter aren’t.

In practice that distinction may well be more trouble than it’s worth. But I was happy to learn a new expression from his examples: shūshēnglǎnglǎng (the sound of reading aloud), which YBY writes as two words and the ABC Chinese-English Comprehensive Dictionary writes solid.

OK, for some niceties and examples:

Some of these words can be stretched out for auditory effect; to express this lengthening in writing, a dash is added after the syllable:

  • Du — , qìdi xiǎng le. (Toot went the steam whistle.)
  • Dà gōngjī, o — o — tí. (The rooster crowed cock-a-doodle-do.)

Reduplication is of course quite common in Mandarin.

  • huahua (sound of water or rain)
  • huhu (sound of wind)
  • wawa (sound of calling or crying)
  • dongdong (sound of beating drums).
  • wangwang (sound of a dog barking)
  • miaomiao (sound of a cat meowing)
  • jiji (sound of insects buzzing or chirping)
  • zizi (sound of a mouse squeaking)
  • gugu (sound of a pigeon cooing)
  • wengweng (sound of bees or flies buzzing)
  • gaga (sound of a duck quacking)
  • haha (sound of laughter)
  • heihei (sound of bitter or sardonic laughter)
  • xixi (sound of giggling)
  • gege (sound of guffawing)

All of those could also be written tripled instead of doubled, e.g., wangwangwang, miaomiaomiao, hahaha.

Yin provides some orthographic rules based on the patterns of the onomatopoeic words. The sound of a ticking clock, for example, could take various forms, such as

  • dida
  • dida dida
  • didi-dada

Note spacing, hyphens, and lack thereof. See the PDF for all the details.

Still, don’t sweat the stylistic niceties of these too much. It’s onomatopoeia, so have fun!

further reading: