Romanization of Chinese characters 漢語拼音

This is about the Romanization of Chinese characters, or Hanzi pinyin漢字拼音(or Hanyu pinyin 漢語拼音). 

 

When KMT’s Ma YJ, who spied on Taiwanese students abroad while in Boston and revealed his anti-democratic and anti-freedom attitude against Taiwanese repeatedly (and unashamedly trying to deny all these activities now), and other KMT members became mayors of Taiwan cities (with the help of their decades-long practices of bribery and vote-buying, using their hundreds of billions of party assets stolen from Taiwanese), they adopted Hanyu pinyin system to re-name the streets hurriedly. They said, because Chinese are using it, they would follow the suit, apparently too eager to make Taiwan a part of China, to appease China. Their mentality is so disgusting and nauseating. 

 

However, I prefer to look at the Hanyu pinyin scholastically, as a tool of communication, and not to be confused as a part of Chinese communistic ideologies.

 

Since when I had to spell “Hsu”, not “Shu”, as my family name in 1960’s, I have felt it so irrational, and troublesome whenever I have to explain to others how it should be spelt and pronounced. This continues to bother me until now, i.e. yesterday! Later I found out that it was because some thick-tongued British ambassador to China in 19^th Century, who apparently could not pronounce Chinese language correctly, started this Wade-Giles phonetic translation of Chinese characters. Not only they made "Sh" sound to be translated to an awkward "Hs", they did not distinguish ㄅversusㄆ; ㄐversusㄑ; ㄍversusㄎ; “之” versus “資”; and ㄉversusㄊ.  They made these hard sounds and soft sounds spelled alphabetically identical.

 

All these years, I have felt Chinese linguists needed someone with proper innovative attitude to make things right. I have always wanted to spell 郭 as “Guo” (not “Kuo”),  江 as Jiang (not Chiang); 德 as “Deh” (not “Teh”); and 張should be Zang or Zhang (not Chang).  And there should also be some way to represent the tongue-roll-up sound,「之」.    Now according to the Hanyu pinyin, the tongue-roll-up sound is represented by adding “h” to the “z”, i.e. “z=資” versus “zh=之”; “c＝疵” versus “ch=吃”. They differ by the tongue-roll- up pronunciation. That means 張should be written “Zhang”  The “ㄖ” is represented by “r”, therefore 榮 = “Rong”.

 

The cardinal rule of using English alphabets to represent words from another culture phonetically is not to confuse different words. Chinese characters have rather limited ways to pronounce. Many characters sound exactly the same. Therefore it would be impossible to use the alphabet to represent Chinese word distinctively. Linguists can only try their best. And we have to mostly rely on the adjacent words to figure out the exact character from its pronunciation. Of all three pronunciation methods available now, Wade-Giles, Hanyu pinyin, and Tongyong systems (通用拼音, invented by CKS’s scholars just to antagonize “communist's. It is not totally meritless, however.), Wade-Giles method is the most confusing and should have been discarded 100 years ago. Hanyu pinyin is the best, but still having some room of improvement, i.e. intonation needs to be indicated.      

 

In practical matters, we should not let political ideology to come into play. When acupuncture may work, use it! Traditional Chinese herb medicine may be effective? Study it.

 

What is difficult for me to swallow is that according to Hanyu pinyin, Shu is now Xu, Ching is Qing, and Shiaw is Xiau!!  My name will be Xu Qing Xiau!  [Here I make it clear that I will not change my English name as long as I live!!]  And do you know who is Cau2 Cau ?

 

But why do these Chinese linguistic scholars use these strange alphabets to represent ㄒ、ㄑ、 “疵”、sounds?  I believe they are looking at these particular alphabets (x, q, c) as plain symbols without relation to their original sounds in Roman alphabets. And they want to use only one alphabet for one sound. They just created the guideline that X=sh; Q=ch; and C-=Ts! One advantage of this is that, to fill in one’s initial, we write only one alphabet (“X”, “Q”, “C”), and not two alphabets for these consonants (“Sh”, “Ch”, or “Ts”).  I am still not used to them.

 

There is no scientific basis to the phonetics, only the rule to be set by the scholars for the convenience, i.e. consensus among linguists. Only that, the rule should be as reasonable as possible, or as clear and useful as possible.

 

However, the way Han4yu3 pinyin is now, without indicating the intonation of each character, we are abandoning a very important way to distinguish Chinese characters further. There are hundreds of characters that can be represented by the sound “Li”, for example. To reduce the confusion, the intonation of each character must be indicated. Without it, Hsu2 and Hsu3 will be confused as the same person. How do you know who Cau Cau is? With intonation, now you should know who Zheng4 Cheng2-Gong is, and who are Li3 Hong2-Zhang, Zhang Zong-Chang, Li3 Zhi4-Shueh2, Zhang Chang2-Shee3, Guo Tseng2-tong3, Jhu Nai3-shin, Zhan Deh2-sheng4, Chen2 Chi3-Ming2, Liu2 Wen2-bin, Lien2 Yau2-dong, etc, the most famous names in the Chinese and Taiwanese history.

  

I do not know what will happen to X, Q, C in phonetic translation of Chinese characters. However, my name will continue to be Clement C. S. Hsu, MD

漢語拼音及通用拼音相異點如下：

Zhuyin	Hanyu Pinyin	Tongyong Pinyin
注音	漢語拼音	通用拼音

ㄇㄧㄡ

miu

miou

ㄈㄥ

feng

fong

ㄉㄧㄡ

diu

diou

ㄉㄨㄟ

dui

duei

ㄊㄨㄟ

tui

tuei

ㄋㄧㄡ

niu

niou

ㄋㄩ	nU	nyu
ㄋㄩㄝ	nue	nyue

ㄌㄧㄡ

liu

Liou

ㄌㄩ	lU	lyu
ㄌㄩㄝ	lue	lyue
ㄌㄩㄢ	lUan	lyuan
ㄌㄩㄣ	lUn	lyuen

ㄍㄨㄟ

gui

guei

ㄎㄨㄟ

kui

kuei

ㄏㄨㄟ

hui

huei

ㄐㄧㄡ

jiu

jiou

ㄐㄧㄡ

jiu

jiou

ㄐㄩ

ju

jyu

ㄐㄩㄥ	jiong	jyong
ㄑㄧ	qi	ci
ㄑㄧㄚ	qia	cia
ㄑㄧㄝ	qie	cie
ㄑㄧㄠ	qiao	ciao
ㄑㄧㄡ	qiu	ciou
ㄑㄧㄢ	qian	cian
ㄑㄧㄣ	qin	cin
ㄑㄧㄤ	qiang	ciang
ㄑㄧㄥ	qing	cing
ㄑㄩ	qu	cyu
ㄑㄩㄝ	que	cyue
ㄑㄩㄢ	quan	cyuan
ㄑㄩㄣ	qun	cyun
ㄑㄩㄥ	qiong	cyong
ㄒㄧ	xi	si
ㄒㄧㄚ	xia	sia
ㄒㄧㄝ	xie	sie
ㄒㄧㄠ	xiao	siao
ㄒㄧㄡ	xiu	siou
ㄒㄧㄢ	xian	sian
ㄒㄧㄣ	xin	sin
ㄒㄧㄤ	xiang	siang
ㄒㄧㄥ	xing	sing
ㄒㄩ	xu	syu
ㄒㄩㄝ	xue	syue
ㄒㄩㄢ	xuan	syuan
ㄒㄩㄣ	xun	syun
ㄒㄩㄥ	xiong	syong
ㄓ	zhi	jhih
ㄓㄚ	zha	jha
ㄓㄜ	zhe	jhe
ㄓㄞ	zhai	jhai
ㄓㄟ	zhei	jhei
ㄓㄠ	zhao	jhao
ㄓㄡ	zhou	jhou
ㄓㄢ	zhan	jhan
ㄓㄣ	zhen	jhen
ㄓㄤ	zhang	jhang
ㄓㄥ	zheng	jheng
ㄓㄨ	zhu	jhu
ㄓㄨㄚ	zhua	jhua
ㄓㄨㄛ	zhuo	jhuo
ㄓㄨㄞ	zhuai	jhuai
ㄓㄨㄟ	zhui	jhuei
ㄓㄨㄢ	zhuan	jhuan
ㄓㄨㄣ	zhun	jhun
ㄓㄨㄤ	zhuang	jhuang
ㄓㄨㄥ	zhong	jhong
ㄔ	chi	chih

ㄔㄨㄟ

chui

Chuei

ㄕㄨㄟ

shui

shuei

ㄖㄨㄟ

rui

ruei

ㄗ

zi

zih

ㄘ

ci

cih

ㄘㄨㄟ

cui

cuei

ㄙ

si

Sih

ㄙㄨㄟ

sui

suei

ㄨㄣ

wen

wun

ㄨㄥ

weng

wong