2018 marks the 60th anniversary of the National People’s Congress’s approval and promulgation of the Chinese Pinyin Scheme. In fact, it has been more than 400 years since Latin alphabet was used to phonetic Chinese characters.
Before the birth of hanyu pinyin, in order to promote the communication between the East and the West, Chinese character reformers have conducted in-depth research and formulated many influential Latin schemes for Chinese characters in order to popularize education and reduce illiteracy rate. These phonetic schemes also have a great influence on the phonetic schemes of modern Chinese (Putonghua).
Topic of this issue:Xu Chunwei is a private history columnist in The Paper and a columnist in Netease history.
Member of Literature and History Committee of zhenhai district CPPCC in Ningbo, member of Ningbo Local Records Society. The academic representative of the 8th and 9th International Symposium on Wu Dialect submitted a research paper on Ningbo Dialect with phonetic notation and Wittoma Pinyin, and was the first person to deduce the dialect phonology of Huaying Dictionary in Wu dialect circle.
If you are interested in the history of Chinese Pinyin (Latin Chinese characters) and the history of Chinese Pinyin literature, please click here to participate in the topic interaction.
▍When and who invented Chinese Pinyin?
Auspicious and elegant:Hello! When did Chinese Pinyin come into being? Who invented it?
Xu Chunwei:Chinese Pinyin in a broad sense dates back to the end of Ming Dynasty.
In 1605, Italian Matteo Ricci used Latin characters to annotate Chinese characters in his book, The Miracle of Western Characters.
In 1625, Jinnige, who was then Belgium, improved the pinyin scheme on his basis and wrote "Western Confucianism’s Eyes and Eyes". Their pinyin scheme is called "Li-Jin" scheme. However, this plan has basically no impact on future generations. The first semi-official scheme in China and the first standard transliteration of Chinese characters in the world is "Weituo Code-Zhai Lisi Style".
In 1867, the English sinologist Wiltoma’s Chinese textbook "Language Self-Collection" was born. The established symbol is Zhai Lisi’s first edition of Hua Ying Dictionary in 1892.
In the spring of 1906, a joint conference of imperial posts and telecommunications was held in Shanghai, and it was decided to take the spelling of Huaying Dictionary as the spelling basis of China place names standard. Just to meet the needs of telegraphy, it does not use any additional symbols (such as aspirated symbols, etc.). It is called "postal" pinyin, which is a variant of Wei pinyin.
In 1913, the Beiyang government held a pronunciation unification meeting, at which Ma Yuzao proposed to use the unique Chinese characters of his teacher Zhang Taiyan as a spelling tool. In 1918, the Ministry of Education revised and published it on the basis of Zhang Taiyan, which was the first official phonetic notation in China. The first Latin scheme designed by ourselves in China was the Romanization of Mandarin issued by Liu Fu, Qian Xuantong, li jinxi, Zhao Yuanren, Lin Yutang and Wang Yi in 1928 through the Ministry of Education.
In addition, in the late 1920s, the Chinese people began to form a movement of Latinized New Characters, with Qu Qiubai, Fang Shan, Ni Haishu and others as the main figures. Qu Qiubai’s Latinized New Characters of Northern Dialect laid the foundation for modern Chinese Pinyin, and they are highly consistent.
Chinese Pinyin in a narrow sense is the Pinyin in 1958.
It was decided by Chairman Mao and worked out collectively by hundreds of people headed by Wu Yuzhang. But there are also several key technical figures. From April 1956 to October 1957, 10 meetings were held to discuss and revise the Chinese Pinyin Scheme (Draft). There are three revised drafts: the first revised draft proposed by Wang Li, Lu Zhiwei and li jinxi, and several personal revised drafts proposed by Ding Xilin, Lin Handa, Wei Yun and li jinxi, among which Lin Handa’s draft is the second revised draft. It can be said that Chinese Pinyin is a cultural achievement formed in hundreds of years. Modern Chinese Pinyin is the collective achievement of the above-mentioned people.
Sanmao’s long skirt: Why are there symbols like Japanese in the dictionary, and do those characters still have practical significance now?
Xu Chunwei: This is the phonetic serial number invented by Zhang Taiyan, and he was inspired by Japanese pseudonyms. Phonetic symbols are also part of Chinese characters, which are homologous to pseudonyms and are essentially semi-syllabic characters.
In 1913, the Ministry of Education of Beiyang government held a "pronunciation unification meeting". Ma Yuzao, the son of Zhangmen, proposed to use his teacher’s unique Chinese characters as phonetic symbols. Due to the large number of children of Zhangmen, the proposal was passed. In 1918, the Ministry of Education officially announced that it was named "Zhuyin Letter". In 1930, Wu Zhihui proposed to change its name to "Zhuyin Symbol". In 1958, when determining the scheme of modern Chinese Pinyin, there was a debate in China about whether the national alphabet (phonetic symbols) is better or the Latin alphabet (Chinese Pinyin). The conclusion is that the latter is convenient for international communication. Now only a few reference books, such as dictionaries, can see phonetic symbols.
Superman of the florist:I remember when I was a child, I learned "Ah, guess what, alas, my husband should …" But I don’t know what it is. None of my classmates have heard it now. Is it because of my dialect (northerner), or is there a mistake in my memory?
Xu Chunwei:Hello, now read the sound generally. What you have learned is the name sound. The pronunciation of vowels is the local sound. The name sound refers to the address of Chinese phonetic alphabet. The alphabetical reading in "Chinese Pinyin Scheme" is to read with the name sound. Chinese phonetic alphabet is not only used for pinyin of syllables’ initials and finals, but also has the functions of sorting and searching. If the letters have no names, it is inconvenient to call them. There are 26 letters in the alphabet of Hanyu Pinyin Scheme, and each letter has a name sound. The determination of the sound value of the name sound stipulates that the name sound of a vowel letter is served by its local sound, and if a vowel letter has several local sounds, the main pronunciation is used as the name sound; The name sound of consonant letters is composed of vowels before or after the local sound (y w is a sound-proof letter, and there is no local sound, so the name sound is set separately). Specifically, whether to add before or after, what vowels to add, and how many vowels to add, we should follow international habits and consider the difference of names. According to the list of Chinese phonetic alphabets, the name sounds of the 26 Chinese phonetic alphabets in "Chinese phonetic scheme" are: a b ê c ê d ê e ê f g ê ha i ji; e kê êl êm nê o pê qiu ar ês tê u vê wa xi ya zê。
WLM：Shanxi and Shaanxi, how to distinguish with pinyin?
Xu Chunwei:Generally, it is solved by tone-marking, shǎnxī Shā nx: and Shaanxi Sh: nx:. However, there is generally no tone on local famous brands or in foreign language books. Therefore, shaanxi is now spelled Shaanxi when it is used as a place name. This treatment is not unreasonable, but an old pinyin scheme "Mandarin Roman characters" is used. Mandarin Roman characters express tones by adding or changing letters, and an rhyme is flat an, flat arn, rising aan and falling ann. Regarding the Romance of Mandarin, we can read the article "Romance of Mandarin, the Failed Attempt of the Elite to Rebuild Civilization" in "The Paper Private History".
Bouquet with Jun:What Pinyin schemes in previous Pinyin documents have been referenced in the formulation of Chinese Pinyin schemes?
Xu Chunwei:The tone of Chinese Pinyin comes from the phonetic symbols set by the pronunciation unification meeting. The initial consonant and the final vowel are partly derived from the Romance, the national language of Guoluo School in the south of the Yangtze River, and the Latin new characters of Qu Qiubai’s northern dialect. The Latinized New Characters of Northern Dialect are the closest to Chinese Pinyin.
Liang Liang:Hello, can you recommend books on this subject? I’m interested!
Xu Chunwei:The history of Chinese Pinyin since the 20th century can be seen in Hundred Years of Chinese by Japanese scholars Ishikawa Kan and Komatsu Lan, published by Shanghai Education Press. Personally, I think it is a more detailed history of Chinese Pinyin and Chinese Standard Phonetic. Before the 20th century, you can see the life stories of Matteo Ricci, Jinnige, Ding Weiliang, wade and Zhai Lisi. You can also look at the works of the parties involved in Chinese Pinyin, such as li jinxi and Zhao Yuanren of Guoluo School, Qu Qiubai, Fang Shan, Ye Laishi and others who Latin new characters.
A New Latin Writing Scheme for Northern Dialect
▍Are Pinyin still used in other Chinese-speaking areas?
Peng you:Is our Chinese Pinyin more mature than that used in other areas? For example, Taiwan Province’s Pinyin "Zheng" and "cheng" both use Cheng, but they read the same as Mandarin, but the Chinese Pinyin "zh" can be accurately distinguished.
Xu Chunwei:What you mentioned is not Taiwan Province Pinyin, but postal Pinyin, a variant of Weituo Code-Zhai Lisi Pinyin. Wei tuo code pinyin is divided into cheng and ch’eng. In the spring of 1906, a joint conference of imperial posts and telecommunications was held in Shanghai. The meeting decided to unify and standardize the Latin alphabet spelling of place names in China, and decided to basically take the Latin alphabet spelling in the first edition of Huaying Dictionary compiled by Zhai Lisi as the basis. Just to meet the needs of telegraphy, the meeting decided not to use any additional symbols (such as aspirated symbols, etc.), which is called postal pinyin and a variant of Wei pinyin. Zhao Yuanren complained that postal pinyin led to the separation of Changzhou and Zhangzhou, both of which were Changchow. Wei Tuoma Pinyin (postal Pinyin) was the international standard for Latin transliteration of Chinese characters in the late Qing Dynasty and the Republic of China. The Roman characters, the national language of Nanjing government, have been unable to compete and almost disappeared. In addition to Wittig Pinyin, there are also Chinese romanization, universal Pinyin and Chinese Pinyin in mainland China in Taiwan Province. Except for the Universal Pinyin, which was made by Taiwan Province authorities, the rest were not designed by Taiwan Province.
Students are interested in learning pinyin.
▍Do dialects still have meaning?
qquser：Why not use the letter "V" in Chinese Pinyin?
Xu Chunwei:The phonetic symbol has a V, and the symbol is "ten thousand". Because the old national voice is an artificial language that gathers the north and the south, phonetic symbols attach great importance to "leap sound", that is, dialect sound.
The "Wu" in its initials means "ng", "Guang" means "gn", and "Wan" means "V" is taken from the southern dialect to spell "leap". It also has a voiced mark. However, after the dispute between Beijing and China, Beijing sound was adopted as the national sound. Since there are no initials in Beijing dialect, these symbols are useless and have been cancelled. Now there are V initials in the phonetic symbols in Xinhua Dictionary. Specifically, we can see the article "Romance in Mandarin, the failed attempt of elite to rebuild civilization" in The Paper’s private history.
But the Chinese flowering crabapple still:Hello, teacher! I would like to ask, what is the advantage of phonetic notation with Latin letters over other phonetic notation methods?
Xu Chunwei:First of all, the cost is low, and only 26 letters are used to express all syllable combinations (actually, Chinese pinyin has not used V). The second is to facilitate international exchanges. In 1958, when determining the scheme of modern Chinese Pinyin, there was a debate in China about whether the national alphabet (phonetic symbols) is better or the Latin alphabet (Chinese Pinyin). The conclusion is that the latter is convenient for international communication. Now only a few reference books, such as dictionaries, can see phonetic symbols. After the abolition of Chinese characters on the Korean peninsula, proverbs were used instead. Proverbs are actually pinyin characters, so they should be translated into Latin letters for foreign communication.
dalen6：What influence does the popularity of Putonghua have on dialects, and how to protect our dialects?
Xu Chunwei:Because there is no standard for dialects, many dialect words will be mispronounced by Putonghua. For example, the "WeChat" in Ningbo dialect where the subject is located should be vixin, and now many people pronounce it ueixin. Therefore, dialects also need education and standards. As far as I know, some primary schools in Ningbo and Shanghai already have local dialect courses.
▍Is it possible to abolish Chinese characters and replace them with Pinyin?
Bear:The reverse phonetic notation in Kangxi Dictionary didn’t have Chinese Pinyin at that time, so how to get the pronunciation of the upper word and rhyme of the lower word?
Xu Chunwei:That is the anti-tangent of the middle ancient sound. However, many dialects cannot be spelled with anti-tangent because of the relationship between ancient and modern sound changes. For example, you can’t cut out Mandarin (Beijing dialect) and Cantonese. In addition, there is still the problem that Chinese characters must be learned to learn anti-tangent, and the education cost is too high. Pinyin does not have this problem.
Zhang Yuyao:Hello, teacher, what harm will it do if pinyin is used instead of words?
Xu Chunwei:There are so many homophones in modern Chinese (Putonghua) that we can imagine the consequences of abolishing Chinese characters according to the present situation of the Korean Peninsula. Take the sudo syllable in Korean as an example, the corresponding words are "granting ferry", "rice" and "monasticism", etc. They don’t know what it means without corresponding context. South Korea later discovered the disadvantages of pinyin and had to add Chinese characters to its ID card, otherwise the rate of duplicate names would be extremely high. Mandarin has the same problem, especially when it comes to homophones with "all" and "none" but completely opposite meanings, it will increase the possibility of misunderstanding and communication costs without using Chinese characters to express their meanings.
Peng you:Since modern times, people have been proposing to abolish Chinese characters and replace them with pinyin. What do you think?
Xu Chunwei:There are so many homophones in modern Chinese (Putonghua) that we can refer to the present situation of the Korean Peninsula after abolishing Chinese characters. In particular, when encountering homophones such as "all" and "none", the possibility of misunderstanding and communication cost will increase without using Chinese characters to express meaning. South Korea later discovered the disadvantages of pinyin and had to add Chinese characters to its ID card, otherwise the rate of duplicate names would be extremely high. By the way, the real name of Lin Run Yun, a famous Korean artist in her girlhood, is written like this; Because people who didn’t understand the original translation didn’t understand the pronunciation of Korean characters, they mistakenly wrote Lim Yoon A.
Guang Zhouta’s English name Canton Tower follows the traditional spelling.
Only its meaning is exhausted:Hello, teacher. Can you pronounce the vowels ui and iu as uei and iou? Then why write it as ui and iu?
Xu Chunwei:Simple is for the sake of simple treatment, but this treatment is not without basis. Uei, iou, and another uen, the vowel in the middle will be weakened.
imshunshun：Hello, teacher! I have three questions. First, since Pinyin came into being in the late Ming Dynasty, why is Mr. Zhou Youguang known as the father of Chinese Pinyin? Secondly, some people think that the current pinyin is anti-Chinese, because pinyin uses letters and Chinese characters are hieroglyphics. What do you think of this? Third, how to correctly evaluate the pinyin system we use now? thank you
Xu Chunwei:The first problem is caused by some media. You can read my previous answer, the names of the main designers and participants of Chinese Pinyin. The second question is, in fact, there have been national alphabet forms in China, that is, phonetic symbols changed from Chinese radicals. Invented by Zhang Taiyan, the Ministry of Education of Beiyang government improved the publication on his basis. However, in 1958, when we established Chinese Pinyin, we thought that Latin alphabet was convenient for international communication, so we used Latin alphabet. The third question, personally, is really not easy to use. There is no phonetic notation in Beijing dialect, while English, French and other western languages and Japanese are voiced. Using voiced symbols B, D and G to represent unvoiced sounds [P] [T] [K] will easily lead to mispronunciations by westerners, and it will also make people in China mispronounce foreign languages. The reason why Chinese Pinyin is handled this way is that Pinyin is for the convenience of learning, not for foreigners.