Zhuyin
| Chinese Language Romanization |
| For Mandarin (Putonghua/Guoyu) *Bopomofo *Gwoyeu Romatzyh *Hanyu Pinyin *MPS II *Postal System Pinyin *Tongyong Pinyin *Wade-Giles *Yale Romanization |
| For Cantonese *Barnett-Chao *Gwohngdongwaa pengyam *Jyutping *Meyer-Wempe *Penkyamp |
Zhùyīn Fúhào (注音符號), or "The Notation of Annotated Sounds", often abbreviated as Zhuyin, or known as Bopomofo (ㄅㄆㄇㄈ) for the first four syllables of these Chinese phonetic symbols, is the national phonetic system of the Republic of China (based on Taiwan) for teaching the Chinese languages, especially Mandarin to illiterate Mandarin-speaking children (See Uses). The system uses 37 special symbols to represent the Mandarin sounds: 21 consonants and 16 vowels. There is a one symbol-one sound correspondence.
| Table of contents |
|
2 Symbol origins 3 Uses 4 Writing 5 Zhuyin vs. Hanyu Pinyin 6 See also 7 External links |
Commission on the Unification of Pronunciation led by Woo Tsin-hang from 1912 to 13 created a system called Guoyin Zimu (國音字母 "National Language Symbols") or Zhuyin Zimu (註音字母 or 注音字母 "Sound-annotating Symbols") which is based on Zhang Binglin's shorthands. (For differences with the Zhang system, see Commission on the Unification of Pronunciation#Phonetic symbols.) A draft was released on July 11, 1913 by the Republic of China National Ministry of Education, the it was not officially proclaimed until November 23, 1918, however. Zhuyin Zimu was renamed to Zhuyin Fuhao in April 1930.
The ROC Education Ministry has attempted for many years to phase out
the use of Zhuyin in favor of a system based on Roman characters (see MPS II). However, this transition has been extremely slow due to the difficulty in teaching elementary school teachers a new Roman-based system.
History
Symbol origins
There was no official document explaining the details of the origins of the characters, but they are apperent if you understand some basic Chinese characters. The zhuyin symbols are mainly fragments of characters that contain the sound that each symbol represents. For example:
A few were made by adding additional strokes, for example:
A few are virtually identical to Chinese characters still in use, for example:
Many are nearly entirely identical to radicalss with the same sounds, for example:
Other symbols, mostly vowel symbols, are based entirely or partly on obsolete variants of characters, for example:
There are still others that are totally unlike any known symbols, but were designed to look like, and be written in the same style as, Chinese chacacters. The zhuyin characters usually are represented in typographic fonts as if drawn with an ink brush (as in Regular Script).
These ruby characters are printed next to the Chinese characters in young children's books. One seldom sees these symbols used in adult publications except as pronunciation guide (or index system) in dictionary entries. Bopomofo is also used as an input method for Chinese text in computer.
Unlike pinyin, the sole purpose for zhuyin in elementary education is to teach proper Mandarin pronunciation to children. Grade one textbooks of all subjects (including Mandarin) are entirely in Zhuyin. After that, the text will be annotated. Around grade four, the Zhuyin annotation will disappear, remaining only in the new character section. School children learn the symbols so that they can look up pronunciation in a Chinese dictionary properly.
Pinyin, on the other hand, is dual-purpose. Other than a pronunciation notation, pinyin is used widely in publications in mainland China. Some books from mainland China are published purely in pinyin with no trace of a single Chinese character. Those books are targeted to minority tribal groups or Westerners who know verbal Mandarin but have difficulty recognizing written Chinese characters.
Zhuyin cannot replace Traditional Chinese as a faster mean of writing. For teenagers and adults, reading a long passage entirely in Zhuyin is much more arduous than one in Traditional Chinese (even if it contains unfamiliar characters), since one Zhuyin syllable, even with the tone mark, still presents great ambiguity despite the context. This situation is similar to Pinyin-Simplified Chinese.
Zhuyin symbols are written like Chinese characters, including the general order of strokes and positioning. It is always to the right of the Chinese characters, whether the characters are vertical or horizontal. Very rarely do they appear on top of Chinese characters when written horizontally like furigana. Because a syllable block contains usually two or three Zhuyin symbols (squares) stacked on top of each other, the blocks are rectangular.
The tone marks are similar to the later developed Pinyin's, except that the first tone has no symbolization at all, and the last tone has a black dot. The neutral dot is the only mark to be placed on top of the vertical Zhuyin syllable block, the rest three are to the vertical right of the block.
The marks are sometimes in Regular Script like the symbols proper, and with the same basic shape as Pinyin's. However, the detail varies, Zhuyin's tone two's thickened end is always lower-left, the opposite of the acute accent mark used in Pinyin. Tone 3's mark has the most tremendous variation.
Zhuyin's tone symbolization was used by ROC-sponsored Romanizations of the Mandarin Promotion Council all had identical tone mark usage and allocation, except not in Regular Style calligraphy, but in Western fontface like Pinyin.
Zhuyin and Pinyin are based on the same Mandarin pronunciations, hence a mostly 1-to-1 mapping between the two systems. Zhuyin is used in Taiwan with bopomofo symbols. Pinyin is used in Mainland China using the Roman alphabet.
Bopomofo/zhuyin (the 'zhuyin' and 'pinyin' columns shows equivalency)
Uses
Writing
Zhuyin vs. Hanyu Pinyin
| zhuyin | pinyin | zhuyin | pinyin | zhuyin | pinyin | zhuyin | pinyin | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Consonants | ||||||||||
| ㄅ | B | ㄆ | P | ㄇ | M | ㄈ | F | |||
| ㄉ | D | ㄊ | T | ㄋ | N | ㄌ | L | |||
| ㄍ | G | ㄎ | K | ㄏ | H | |||||
| ㄐ | J | ㄑ | Q | ㄒ | X | |||||
| ㄓ | Zh | ㄔ | Ch | ㄕ | Sh | ㄖ | R | |||
| ㄗ | Z | ㄘ | C | ㄙ | S | |||||
| Vowels | ||||||||||
| ㄚ | A | ㄛ | O | ㄜ | E | ㄝ | Ê | |||
| ㄞ | Ai | ㄟ | Ei | ㄠ | Ao | ㄡ | Ou | |||
| ㄢ | An | ㄣ | En | ㄤ | Ang | ㄥ | Eng | |||
| ㄦ | Er | ㄧ | I | ㄨ | U | ㄩ | Ü | |||
Dialect (non-Mandarin) letters (not many web browsers can display these glyphs, see #External links for PDF pictures.)
| Char | Name | Char | Name | Char | Name | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| ㄪ | V | ㄫ | Ng | ㄬ | Gn |
Extended Bopomofo for Min-nan and Hakka
| Char | Name | Char | Name | Char | Name | Char | Name | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| ㆠ | Bu | ㆦ | Oo | ㆬ | Im | ㆲ | Ong | |||
| ㆡ | Zi | ㆧ | Onn | ㆭ | Ngg | ㆳ | Innn | |||
| ㆢ | Ji | ㆨ | Ir | ㆮ | Ainn | ㆴ | Final P | |||
| ㆣ | Gu | ㆩ | Ann | ㆯ | Aunn | ㆵ | Final T | |||
| ㆤ | Ee | ㆪ | Inn | ㆰ | Am | ㆶ | Final K | |||
| ㆥ | Enn | ㆫ | Unn | ㆱ | Om | ㆷ | Final H |
See also
External links