Category Archives: writing systems

911 Restaurant?!

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A restaurant in Wuhan, China, has decided to call itself “911.” The local authorities — good for them — are not happy about this and have ordered the place to change its name, noting that this is not the name used on the application for a business license. The powers that be also state — and here’s the part that relates to the theme of Pinyin News —

Tóngshí, qǐyè míngchēng bùdé hányǒu Hànyǔ Pīnyīn Zìmǔ (wàiwén míngchēng zhōng shǐyòng de chúwài), shùzì.
(At the same time, business names must not contain Hanyu Pinyin letters [i.e. alphabetic writing] (foreign-language names excepted) or numbers.)
(同时，企业名称不得含有汉语拼音字母（外文名称中使用的除外）、数字。)

But then the article says:

“027,” “778,” “2046,” “Sānwǔ chún,” děngděng, zhèxiē shùzì zhāopai shì-fǒu yě wéiguī? [Wuhan] Shì Gōngshāng Jú yǒuguān fùzérén biǎoshì, 《qǐyè míngchēng guǎnlǐ guīdìng》 zhōng suǒzhǐ de jìnzhǐ yòng shùzì shì Ālābó shùzì, dàxiě, xiéyīn bìngbù zài zhèige fànwéi nèi.
027、778、2046、三五醇等这些数字招牌是否也违规？市工商局有关负责人表示，《企业名称管理规定》中所指的禁用数字是阿拉伯数字，大写、谐音并不在这个范围内。

This seems to contradict the earlier paragraph, so it’s difficult to know what’s going on.

source

‘almost-bilingual signs’

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Campaign targets almost-bilingual signs
www.chinaview.cn 2005-09-12 13:55:23

BEIJING, Sept. 12 — Sources with the Beijing Municipal Traffic Administration said a campaign was launched on September 6 to standardize bilingual signs along the city’s second and third ring arterials, including principal and minor ones. In addition, checks also cover signs in the city’s major tourist attractions and scenic spots. Confusing and misleading signs will be replaced.

“Should nothing unexpected happen (during this process), problems related with bilingual (Chinese-English) signs will be adequately addressed,” a member of staff with the administration told reporters.

Problems with translations ranging from careless spelling and bad grammar to cultural misinterpretation are commonplace due mainly to a lack of professional translators. A typical example would be “Stop cashier”, a sign often seen at supermarket or department store cash tills.

The message is confusing and takes an English-speaking visitor a second or two to understand that what it’s really trying to say is “Cashier Closed” or “Till Closed”.

The take-a-dictionary-and-translate-literally method of translation employed by substandard translators sometimes results in ludicrous errors. An example would be the shoddy translation from chukou (exit) to “export”, and from shusan (evacuate) to “scatter”.

The absence of uniform criterion and a designated standardization institution contribute to another major issue with bilingual signs: the mixed use of Chinese pinyin and English for road signs. For the Chinese characters which mean “minor arterial (road)”, some signs display the Chinese pinyin fulu while others use “service road”, which is not entirely correct.

Speaking of the mixed use of Chinese pinyin and English in road signs, a facilities official with the administration spoke about the dilemma they face.

“The National Chinese Committee orders the use of Chinese pinyin while the Beijing Citizen Speaking English Office demands the use of Chinese-English bilingual signs,” the official lamented.

source

Hakka and Chinese characters

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I’ll comment on this later.

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source

Taiwan’s first periodical in romanization

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A blogger cites a 1962 study as noting that Taiwan’s first periodical, a Presbyterian newsletter, was in romanized Taiwanese.

??????????????????????????????????????????????????????1962??

Táiwān dì-yī fèn bàokān shì 1885 nián chuàngkān de Táiwān fǔchéng jiàohuì bào, yóu Zhǎnglǎo Jiàohuì chuàngbàn, cǎiyòng Táiyǔ Luómǎ pīnyīn wénzì, bàodǎo jiàohuì dòngtài （Pān Xiánmó, 1962）.

It’s also worth noting that the roman alphabet was the first real script of Taiwan, the Dutch colonialists having developed a means for writing one of the language of the Aborigines. This script continued to be used for hundreds of years, though by relatively few people.

Squabbling over romanization systems for Taiwanese

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Here’s a long piece that gives an idea of the fighting over romanization systems for Taiwanese (Minnan/Hoklo/Hokkien/ whatever you want to call it). In this case, the author is a backer of the Tongyong system for Taiwanese.

Lest people be confused, although several years ago Taiwan’s central government approved Tongyong Pinyin schemes for Mandarin and Hakka, it did not approve Tongyong for Taiwanese.

I don’t know enough about the particulars of the language to take a firm position on which romanization system would be best for Taiwanese, but I should probably make clear that I have an extremely low opinion of the tactics and rhetoric of many of the main backers of Tongyong Pinyin for Mandarin.

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writing Aborigine names

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Taiwan’s Central News Agency reported on August 30 that Walis Pelin, the head of the government’s Council of Indigenous Peoples, is pushing for Taiwan’s Aborigines to be able to use accurate renditions of their names. (It’s about time!) Pelin says that only about 1,000 of Taiwan’s 460,000 Aborigines are presently using their real (i.e. non-sinified) names. (The context of this use isn’t clear in the story — typical for CNA!)

Chinese characters, being for a completely different language family, aren’t particularly suited for this task. So he wants the Roman alphabet used, too. But it seems he may not fully understand the situation, given his remarks on romanization and churches and the fact that he’s calling for just one system — a situation that may not be practical, given that Taiwan’s Aborigines have quite a few different languages.

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Tā shǒuxiān jǔ yuánzhùmín huīfù běn xìng wéilì zhǐchū, quán tái de 460,000 yuánzhùmín zhīzhōng, xiànjiēduàn yuē jǐnyǒu 1,000 rén huīfù běn xìng. Yóuyú zhíxíng fāngmiàn què yǒu shízhì kùnnan, wèilái xīwàng yuánzhùmín de míng xìng nénggòu cǎi Luómǎ pīnyīn hé Hànzì bìngliè móshì.

Bùguò, yǒu jiàn yú Luómǎ pīnyīn jǐnxiànyú jiàohuì shǐyòng, zàijiā shàng gè jiàohuì de Luómǎ pīnyīn yě bùyī’érzú, [Táiwān Xíngzhèngyuàn Yuánzhùmín Zú Wěiyuánhuì zhǔwěi] Walis Pelin qīpàn Luómǎ pīnyīn de shūxiě xìtǒng hé fúhào néng jǐn sù tǒngyīhuà.

source

software to read Mandarin books/websites aloud

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Newly designed computers for the visually impaired have been tested recently by students, who gave the thumbs up Monday to the ” talking computers, ” according to the Ministry of Education which finances the program.

Chen Kuo-shih (??? [Chén Guóshī]), who recently received his Ph.D. in English from National Sun Yat-sen University and the author of a Braille English-Chinese dictionary, recalled that more than 20 of his classmates would take turns reciting English books for him every week when he was still an undergraduate. To complete his Ph.D. thesis, Chen “read” voraciously by hiring some of his classmates to read aloud his textbooks for him, at a cost of over NT$50,000.

Chen noted that a computer reading machine, which caters to the needs of blind people, would be a great help to visually impaired students of literature or history.

Elementary school student Wang Shih-ming received training in using a special computer for blind people and had a much easier life at school. Aside from being a straight-A student, he also used the Internet to collect information, book train tickets, or even arrange his travel itinerary online.

The new computers for the blind were designed by Tamkang University under the sponsorship of the education ministry. Compatible with Windows operating systems, these computers also have Chinese interfaces and can read aloud every word in a document or on a Web page. The education ministry hopes visually impaired students can utilize the new machines for studying and to enjoy the benefits of the Internet.

From Taiwan’s Central News Agency on August 31.

interesting blog entries at Shadow

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Gary Feng’s blog, Shadow, has a number of posts of interest to readers of Pinyin.info. Recent posts include 汉字简化，得不偿失 (Hànzì jiǎnhuà，débùchángshī), Japanese Kanji that are not Chinese, 汉语拼音教学的历史与现状 (Hànyǔ Pīnyīn jiàoxué de lìshǐ yǔ xiànzhuàng), and Teaching Pinyin and word parsing in Chinese.