Category Archives: signage

Taipei County signage and romanization systems

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Speaking yesterday on topics related to signage and romanization, Taipei County Magistrate Zhou Xi-wei said that Taipei County should have its systems match those of Taipei City:

Táiběi Xiànzhǎng Zhōu Xīwěi xīwàng yǐ shēnghuóquān wéi kǎoliáng, yào hé Táiběi Shì zhěnghé yīzhì.

One of the implications of this is that for Taipei County, Taiwan’s most populous area, Tongyong Pinyin is out and Hanyu Pinyin is in.

This is no surprise, given that Zhou

  • is a member of the Kuomintang, whose chairman, Ma Ying-jeou, has backed Hanyu Pinyin and implemented it in Taipei in his role as mayor of the capital
  • campaigned for integration (whatever that’s supposed to mean) of Taipei County with Taipei City.

As an advocate of Hanyu Pinyin and resident of Taipei County, I’m pleased by the change. But as someone who has lived in Taiwan for ten years, I know all too well how likely it is that the new signage will be botched. Taiwan has a poor record of correct implementation of romanization — in any system. Moreover, there are aspects of Taipei City’s signage that Taipei County should certainly not copy, namely InTerCaPiTaLiZaTion (unnecessary and counterproductive) and “nicknumbering” (putting a number on a street does nothing to aid communication if nobody knows what the number refers to). So if this doesn’t end up another SNAFU, I’ll be pleasantly surprised. (Does anyone have any good contacts within the Taipei County government? I’d like to be able to talk with some people in charge well before this gets beyond the planning stage.)

Until late last year Taipei County was under a DPP administration, so its romanization policy, such as it was, was to use Tongyong Pinyin. But implementation has been spotty and often sloppy. Most street signs in Taipei County remain in MPS2. Banqiao has seen more signs in Tongyong Pinyin; but most of those have the romanization in such relatively tiny letters that it’s nearly useless for drivers.

Turning back for a moment to the news reports that prompted this post, an additional item of interest is the headline of one of the stories: Pīnyīn fāngshì「qiao」bùdìng Yīngwén dìmíng busasa (拼音方式「喬」不定 英文地名霧煞煞). Here, both qiao and busasa are Taiwanese, not Mandarin. (A-giâu or somebody else, help me out on the spelling here!)

Here’s one of the stories:

Táiběi jiéyùn Bǎnqiáo-Tǔchéng xiàn jiāng yú wǔ yuèfèn tōngchē zhì Tǔchéng yǒng nìng zhàn, yīnyīng zhuǎnchéng lǚkè xūyào, Tái-Tiě Bǎnqiáo chēzhàn jiāng shèzhì línshíxìng zhǐshì pái. Bùguò, Yīngyǔ yìyīn hùnluàn, xiànzhǎng Zhōu Xī-wěi biǎoshì, gāi cǎiyòng Tōngyòng Pīnyīn huòshì Hànyǔ Pīnyīn, jiāng huì yǐ shēnghuóquān de gàiniàn wèi qiántí, yǔ Táiběi Shì zhěnghé.

So the additional MRT stations are opening in May after all. As a Banqiao resident who has waited long for that day, I’m happy to hear it. But since the stations are opening so soon, I’d be willing to bet that they’ll reproduce the mistakes already in the system instead of correcting them.

Zhōu Xī-wěi biǎoshì, wèilái yě jiāng tuīdòng yī piào fúwù dàodǐ wèi mùbiāo, rú mínzhòng chíyǒu yōu yóu kǎ huò qítā piàozhèng, jíkě zhuǎnchéng jiéyùn, gāo tiě huò Tái-Tiě, dāchéng dàzhòng yùnshū gōngjù jiāng gèng biànlì.

Zhōu Xī-wěi jīntiān xiàwǔ xúnshì Bǎnqiáo huǒchēzhàn rénxíng tōngdào, duìyú Tái-Tiě, gāo tiě jí jiéyùn sān tiě gòng gòu, zhàn pái, lù míng Yīngwén biāoshì què wǔhuābāmén, yǒude yòng Táiwān Tōngyòng Pīnyīn, yǒude yǐ Zhōngguó dàlù Hànyǔ Pīnyīn, érqiě biāoshì shífēn bù míngxiǎn, dēngguāng bùgòu míngliàng, Zhōu Xī-wěi xīwàng gè dānwèi xiétiáo gǎishàn.

Zhōu Xī-wěi rènwéi, Bǎnqiáo chēzhàn jiānglái shì quánguó zuìdà de jiāotōng zhuǎnyùnzhàn, měirì fúwù wúshù mínzhòng, biāoshì yīng yǐ jiǎndān fāngshì, qīngchu gàosu shǐyòng rénshēn yú héchù, gāi wǎng héchù qù.

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more on Beijing’s English and Pinyin signage

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The plan to mix Pinyin and English on signage in Beijing is now official.

Orientations in road names should be in English, such as “MAIJIAPU East Rd.” This is unless it is part of the actual name, like “BEIWEI Rd.” [The “bei” in Beiwei means “north.”] However, road names starting with orientations should have them in initials only, for example, “E. CHANG’AN Ave.”

This regulation is the first part of a campaign to standardize English translations on public signs in Beijing. The campaign will extend to all tourist spots, commercial and cultural facilities, museums, subways, sports centers and hospitals in the city, the report said.

The use of “avenue” will be restricted for the time being to Chang’an Ave., Ping’an Ave, and Liangguang Ave.

A few terms will go untranslated: hutong (alley), li (lane), qu (district), and yuan (garden). Such terms are viewed as embodying Beijing’s culture (tǐxiàn Běijīng chéngshì wénhuà tèsè); the articles didn’t mention, however, that hutong is a loan word from Mongolian.

A few old standards will remain. “Tsinghua University” will remain as such; but road signs will read, for example, Qinghua South Rd.

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JOHNNY DePP AND CHINeSe CHARACTeRS

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cover of 'Corpse Bride' in ChineseThe cover for the DVD for Tim Burton’s Corpse Bride (Dìyù Xīnniáng / 地獄新娘 / “Hell Bride”) has what for me is an arresting usage: the roman letter “e” has been incorporated into a Chinese character.

Tim Burton's ['Corpse Bride'] -- in Chinese characters

At first I thought this substitution of “e” for the 日 portion of the shì (是) phonetic element of 提 (tí) might be meant as playfully phonetic itself: “Teem” Burton, of sorts.

提姆波頓
Tímǔ Bōdùn

But then I noticed how Johnny Depp’s name was written:
Johnny Depp's name in Chinese characters

There’s that e again. But this case, the character, 普, which also has its 日 element replaced, doesn’t have a long e sound in its pronunciation:

強尼戴普
Qiángní Dàipǔ

“Daipu”? That sounds like a portmanteau for what’s found in dirty diapers. (Sorry. Couldn’t resist.)

So it was just a case of a designer having fun. The e has no phonetic function here.

But there’s something else interesting about how Johnny Depp’s name is written. The first character, 強, takes more strokes to write in its so-called simplified form than in traditional Chinese characters.

traditional (11 strokes) 強 强 “simplified” (12 strokes)

the Zhuzihu spelling blues

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road and trail signs giving different spellings for the same placeLess than 10 years ago the romanization on Taipei’s street signs was a complete mess. The “standard,” such as it was, was the inherently bad bastardized Wade-Giles; but misspellings were abundant, so much so that even some individual intersections had signs with several different spellings. It was the sort of thing foreigners in Taiwan loved to point out. Since almost all of those signs are now gone — and good riddance! — I offer up this lesser sample, taken about ten days ago when my wife and I went walking on Yangming Shan to see the sakura and calla lilies.

The sign on the top, reading “ZhuZiHu Rd.”, is in a mix of Hanyu Pinyin and English (Rd.), though, like other Hanyu Pinyin signs in Taipei, it uses InTerCaPiTaLiZaTion for individual syllables, which is wrong, wrong, wrong. (It should be Zhuzihu or Zhuzi Hu, not ZhuZiHu.) The trail marker at the bottom marked “Jhuzihu” is in misspelled Tongyong Pinyin; in Tongyong it should be written “Jhuzihhu”.

misspelled and poorly made Tongyong road signs in TaipeiThe reason for the different spellings here is almost certainly that the road, being within Taipei, is labeled in Hanyu Pinyin, whereas the trail marker, for a trail within Yangming Shan National Park, was put up by the central government and is thus in Tongyong Pinyin — well, almost. The misspelled Tongyong in the sign isn’t just a one-off, either. All of the Tongyong-ish signs I saw in the area are misspelled in the same way. See, for example, the sign at right. (The arrows, by the way, are both correct: The road is a loop.)

Note, also, how the “i” in the second example below is printed incorrectly, with the top of the dot lining up with the tops of the other lowercase letters. I’ve been seeing increasing instances of this particular typographical monstrosity, which puzzles me because it seems like the sort of error that someone has to go out of their way to make.

Those familiar with Taipei may have noticed something odd about the name Zhuzihu: It is not bisyllabic. Indeed, it is the only road name of Sinitic origin within Taipei to have more than two syllables. (The only other two such names are loans from English (Roosevelt) and a language of one of Taiwan’s tribes (Ketagelan). See Taipei street names and the monosyllabic myth.)

calla liliesCloser examination, however, reveals that Zhuzihu is based upon a bisyllabic name after all. Zhuzi Hu means “Bamboo Lake” (Zhúzi Hú / 竹子湖). The only particular reason for writing it solid (Zhuzihu) rather than as “Zhuzi Hu” is that there’s no actual hu (lake) there anymore. (It was more like a marsh, anyway.) Come to think of it, I don’t remember seeing any bamboo there, either. A case could be made for writing it either way: Zhuzi Hu or Zhuzihu

By the way, I wrote the Taipei City Government to have it correct its Web site on the calla lilies. The problem was that the Tongyong Pinyin spelling, Jhuzihhu, was used rather than the Hanyu Pinyin spelling, Zhuzihu. More than a week passed without any changes. Today, however, I noticed that some (but not all or even most) of the spellings had been changed — to another wrong spelling! Now some of the time the Web site gives the Tongyong Pinyin version, Jhuzihhu, and some of the time it gives Zhuzihhu, that latter having one h too many for correct Hanyu Pinyin. No one has yet responded to my message.

China to enact rules on characters in personal names: PRC official

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China plans to impose limits on the Chinese characters that may be used in personal names, according to Bao Suixian, deputy director of the Public Security Management Bureau under the PRC Ministry of Public Security. I regard this as a step in the right direction.

[Bao] said the aim is to standardize names of Chinese citizens, and especially “reduce the incidence of rarely-used characters.”

But how big the database will be or when the draft will be completed was not disclosed. (China Daily)

A June 2005 article in a Taiwan magazine reports, “In [the] future, names in mainland China will be restricted to a choice of 12,000 characters.” If that’s at all reliable, I suspect the number would be derived from China’s now-outdated GB 2312-1980 character set (7,445 characters, 6,763 of which are Hanzi) plus the 4,600 “supplemental characters” being added. A project at Peking University compiled the latter list of obscure characters from names throughout the country.

Bào Suìxiàn biǎoshì, jìn 3 niánlái, Běi-Dà fāngzhèng zìkù yǐ cóng quánguó gèdì sōují dào 4,600 ge lěngpì zì, mùqián, quánguó gè zhì zhèng zhōngxīn zhèng ānzhuāng lěngpì zì ruǎnjiàn, ruǎnjiàn kāigōng hòu, yuánlái yīn lěngpì zì méiyǒu lǐngdào shēnfen zhèngjiàn de gōngmín, duǎnqī nèi kěyǐ lǐngdào xīn zhèng. (Beijing News)

But even with 4,600 more characters — a list more than two-thirds the size of the original — the list isn’t big enough. Beijing officials have already run up against 231 characters that still aren’t covered by the new system. There are sure to be even more.

I should probably note that learning 12,000 characters would require someone to have a phenomenal memory — not to mention a lot of spare time and extraordinary dedication. Almost no one in all of China knows that many characters. The percentage of those who know even half that amount would be in the low single digits. Literacy, for the majority of the population, is defined as knowing as few as 1,500 characters; but the figures for those who know even that relatively low number are greatly exaggerated.

Chinese parents usually choose the second and/or third characters for their babies, but “strong,” “smart,” and “wise” for boys; and “pretty,” “quiet,” and “lovely” for girls are popular, so overlapping names are common.

I’ll let those with feminist blogs handle that one.

Figures from nationwide household registration departments show that about 100,000 Chinese share the name “Wang Tao.”

The popularity of assigning single-syllable given names is a real problem.

To avoid such situations, some parents choose names from the gigantic Kang Hsi Dictionary that lists 50,000 characters while the largest standard computer database contains only 27,000.

Such names, which are unrecognizable by computers, have caused inconvenience to about 60 million Chinese in their daily lives, especially when they travel, register in hotels or open bank accounts, the ministry said.

Names with rarely-used characters also hinder a nationwide programme to replace the first-generation identity cards with intelligent, computer-read cards, Bao said.

At least 40,000 Beijing residents whose names cannot be recognized by computers have not got new ID cards since the replacement exercise started in 2004, according to the city’s public security bureau.

The updated ID cards, with advanced anti-forgery and printing features, include an electronic chip to store personal information from computers. “So we cannot handwrite rarely-used characters on the cards like we did before,” Bao said.

(emphasis added)

Below is an anecdote from Taiwan. It refers to a man who changed his name to one having particularly obscure characters. This was to improve his luck and his parents’ health.

Having a name that can’t be entered into a computer because the characters are not in the standard character set has also caused him considerable headaches. His most vivid memory is of getting sick in the middle of the night and going to an emergency ward, where unfortunately the nurse on duty had never seen the two strange characters before and was unable to enter his name into the computer as he rolled on the floor in pain. In the end he had to plead with her to give him an injection for the pain and then discuss the name problem later.

Lucky name. Heh.

prohibited macrons?

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Signs leading to a temple in Japan’s Nara Prefecture feature a variety of romanizations. Inconsistent romanization is hardly newsworthy in itself, this being common in East Asia. But things get a little more interesting as the article progresses.

Akihiko Yonekawa, a Japanese language professor at Baika Women’s University, says that “Muroji” is not a proper phonetic spelling, so if that is the goal it should be spelled “Murooji.” According to the direct transcription of kana characters, it would be “Murouji,” but that does not comply with Hepburn’s principles. The professor notes that prohibiting macrons made the whole process more difficult.

West Japan Railway Co. agrees. Forgoing the Hepburn system, the railway firm uses macrons for names with long vowel sounds, like Kyoto.

Macrons were used in romanization for decades after World War II, but in 1986 the transport ministry prohibited them.

“We don’t know the details as to the change,” says a transport ministry official.

“But we presume that Roman characters with macrons were not used for many of the road signs in the past, and those officials in charge of the changes might have thought it would be difficult for foreigners to understand the Roman alphabet with added macrons, since there are no macrons in English.”

As far as Yonekawa is concerned, the problem comes down to indifference. “Japanese people stick to how kanji are used appropriately, but they show little interest in other types of characters,” he says with a sigh.

Difficult for foreigners to understand the Roman alphabet with added macrons? Perhaps what the official means is that without macrons even the most ignorant foreigners can imagine that they know how to pronounce Japanese correctly. But with them they might have cause to doubt. Is that really such a bad thing?

source: Long vowels spell confusion for temple, International Herald Tribune & Asahi Shimbum, March 7,2006

Shanghai moves against English-only signage, ads

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The official Shanghai Language Works Commission has been keeping busy. In addition to ordering severe restrictions on the use of the language native to most people in the area, yesterday it decreed that beginning next month all companies, stores, and entertainment venues in Shanghai must include Chinese characters on their signs and in their notices and advertisements.

The regulation is aimed primarily against English-only signage.

What’s not clear, though, is if the rules declare what the Chinese characters must say or how much space must be given to them. Can the English be much larger? Can there be a full page of copy in English but just, say, the address in Chinese characters?

Those who violate the rule will be warned and told to fix the problem immediately. Repeat offenders will have their names added to a black-list published in local media outlets, but they face no fines or jail terms, according to the rule.

“Foreign-language-only signboards will probably hamper people’s understanding and deliberately set up communication barriers for most Chinese,” said Sun Xiaoxian, an official with the language works commission.

Many entertainment facilities that target foreign consumers have never set up Chinese signs, and others deliberately use English only to demonstrate they are the so-called “high-class” places, Sun said.

Only 15 of the 39 signs for businesses in front of the Shanghai Center, an office and hotel complex on Nanjing Road W., have Chinese characters on them.

Of 14 bars and restaurants along Tongren Road, only Blue Frog has a Chinese name — Lan Wa — on its sign.

A manager at Blue Angel, a bar next door to Blue Frog, said he had never heard of the new regulation.

“Most of our customers are foreigners, so we don’t need to worry that they cannot recognize the English signs,” said the manager who refused to disclose her name.

Many bars in the city don’t even have Chinese menus, according to Sun.

Blue Angel only added Chinese to its menu a few months ago, the manager said.

The language commission officials said they conduct regular spot checks beginning next month to ensure the regulation is being followed.

English only signs outlawed, Shanghai Daily, February 24, 2006

Chinese calligraphy: ‘in memoryam’

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Taiwan’s Ministry of Education has the custom of sending memorial calligraphy banners to the families of recently deceased scholars. This is roughly the equivalent of sending flowers to someone’s funeral. The banners are meant to be displayed at the memorial service. They’re usually sent under the name of the minister, who would almost never review them personally, much less write them himself.

Even so, it was an embarrassment all around when someone noticed that a scroll from the ministry that should have had the stock polite phrase 音容宛在 (yīnróngwǎnzài — “the voice and face [of the deceased] still seem here”) instead had 音容苑在 (yīn-róng yuàn zài — roughly “the voice and face [of the deceased] are in the park”).

Compare: wǎn 宛 苑 yuàn.

This wasn’t a slip in just one scroll. The exact same text was used in some one hundred such scrolls, about seven of which had already been sent out.

While I enjoy Schadenfreude as much as the next person and more than occasionally rail against government sloppiness, which this is certainly an example of, I’m not trying to play “gotcha” here. What interests me particularly about the story is what it says about the state of calligraphy. (For this entry, I’ll not bother to go into detail about how many people would be uncertain of recognizing 宛.)

It turns out that the person who did the calligraphy isn’t an artist but a security guard at the ministry. While that might sound like proof that the ancient art of calligraphy extends through all levels of society, the more accurate conclusion is likely that more or less anyone was able to get the job — he’s obviously not an expert, or he wouldn’t have made the same mistake one hundred times — because relatively few people really care much about calligraphy anymore. Certainly the Ministry of Education could have found a qualified calligrapher if it looked outside its own personnel; but it wouldn’t want to spend the money required and preferred to find someone in house. (I worked for years at a Taiwan government ministry and have seen for myself how things operate.) The people who do such tasks are almost never young. Chinese calligraphy has become a specialist pursuit, and a diminishing one at that, as calligraphers and traditionalists often note with sadness and occasionally alarm.

It may surprise some of my readers to learn that I actually love Chinese calligraphy. (For example, I’m in awe of Huai-su’s “Autobiography.”) I’ve got a large shufa in my living room. Quite a number of people have remarked on how well done it is; not one of them, however, has been able to read it. So let’s not confuse an art form — which, lest we forget, has a fine tradition, too, in plenty of places that use alphabetic scripts — with a good idea for a dominant script for a language.

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