13. Romanization III

     Taiwan has finally felt the necessity of formulating a new Romanization policy. Up until recently there had been a laissez-faire attitude towards Romanization, but mostly Wade-Giles was used. Taiwan subsequently entered a 'Warring States' period as regards Romanization systems. The two main contenders are Pinyin 漢語拼音 (probably used by most, but not all, people in the world who bother with the issue at all) and a home-grown variety called Tongyong 通用拼音. Tongyong is very similar to Pinyin; there is said to be only about a 15% difference between the two, though some disagree with this and put the number at over 19% in terms of syllable types. In any case, the differences in the Tongyong system (e.g. Pinyin q = Tongyong c) can put one off if you're not used to it.

     This site provides a tutorial in learning how to use the Tongyong system (in Chinese):

http://abc.iis.sinica.edu.tw/tp/howtolearn3.htm

      Here are two MPS-Tongyong conversion tables; the second offers Tongyong character input software as well (in Chinese):

http://abc.iis.sinica.edu.tw/tp/syllabary.htm
http://abc.iis.sinica.edu.tw/tp/howtoinstall.htm

     The debate is mainly one of making interfaces more compatible internationally vs. asserting one's national individuality. An additional complication in this issue is that Taipei street signs, for example, are not only written in systems of mysterious origin, but there are many spelling mistakes in them as well, so you never know just what you're getting.

      A related issue is whether or not to replace the Mandarin Phonetic Symbols, used in Taiwan elementary schools to teach Chinese character pronunciations, with Romanization. See (in Chinese):

http://mail.scu.edu.tw/~t0812345/idle_talk/12.htm

     One argument against teaching Romanization too early is that it may interfere with foreign language (usually English) learning later on. Do you think this is a valid argument? Why or why not?

     For very clear, informative, and highly readable discussions of Romanization and phonetic symbols, link to these two excellent essays (in Chinese) by Li Wen-Chao 李文肇, a professor of phonology from Taiwan now teaching at San Francisco State University.

(1) 認識羅馬拼音之一：拼音、音標與標準語
Chinese Romanization (1): Phonetic Symbols and the Standard Language

(2) 羅馬拼音與注音符號; 記音工具或認同指標?
Romanization and the Mandarin Phonetic Symbols:
Transcription Tool or Symbol of National Identity?

     In the end, Tongyong won out – or did it? Although the Tongyong system is now, as of July 11, 2002, supposedly Taiwan's new official Romanization system, it remains to be seen whether it will be widely adopted. It doesn't seem to be catching on yet, and the Taipei City Government has unilaterally chosen to post streets names in the Pinyin system, disregarding official national policy. You try and figure out what's going on now – it sounds like the whole thing is still up in the air! And it doesn't seem as fashionable to talk about it any more. Is everybody just worn out? Maybe Romanization anarchy is the only policy people can live with.


    We'll leave the headache-causing but interesting sociolinguistic study of Taiwan's Romanization policy at that, and move on now to a big and important topic in phonetics and phonology.

Next: Phonemes and allophones

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