THE PROBLEM OF A STANDARD ROMAN I SAT I ON SYSTEM OF

MANDAR I N CHI NESE

Dr . Hengt s e Tu

Chinese is a non-alphabetic language . In the first p lace , one c an­not find the pronunciation of a word from spelling as most Western peop le do , one has to memorise the sound of each of the 5 , 0 0 0 of t en­used Chinese words or characters . In this sense , Chinese is not phono­graphic , but ideographic . In the se cond p lace , the writing of Chinese words is no easy j ob . While there are a number of such simple pic to­graphs as one line for one , two lines for two , a square for mouth , composed of five t o fifteen stroke s , some words ( 2 8 strokes for a ' ahise Z ' , 32 strokes for ' to beg ' ) are practically impos sible for any­one to write corre ctly . In order to overcome these difficulties , some kind of alphabet naturally comes to mind .

With the coming of Christian missionarie s from the West in the seventeenth century , the Romanisation system was introduced into China . Attemp t s were made by the missionaries to do away entirely with the old written characters and to subs titute for them the Roman letters in their zeal to teach common people to read the Bible . Romanisation was also applied in a few books and pamphlets , mostly of a religious character , but their use did not extend appreciab ly outside the Christian com­munities or beyond those who otherwise would be illiterate . Similar experiment s were followed by Chinese scholars , and b e sides Roman let­ters , other kinds of phonetic signs were devised . The se experiments had however met the fate of those originated by the Wes terners . Indeed , any attempt to substitute a phonetic script for the time-honored forms of Chinese words must face the fact t hat the large part of the existing literature would be unintelligib le if trans cribed in an alphabet . Hence , the later deve lopment turned to a two-fold purpose: to facilitate

73

Tu, D.H. "The Problem of a Standard Romanisation System of Mandarin Chinese". In Perez, A.Q., Santiago, A.O. and Nguyễn Đ.L. editors, Papers from the Conference on the Standardisation of Asian Languages, Manila, Philippines, December 16-21, 1974. C-47:73-76. Pacific Linguistics, The Australian National University, 1978. DOI:10.15144/PL-C47.73 ©1978 Pacific Linguistics and/or the author(s). Online edition licensed 2015 CC BY-SA 4.0, with permission of PL. A sealang.net/CRCL initiative.

7 4 DR. HENGTSE TU

learning of Chinese language , particularly by foreigners ; and to tran­s cribe Chinese names into Romanised form . No less than twenty syst ems have thus appeared s ince the turn of the century . Among them four are widely supported and adopted by lexicographers: ( 1 ) the Wade system , ( 2 ) the Yale system, ( 3 ) the National Romanisation ( Kwoyeu Romatzyh ) ,

and ( 4 ) the Pinying system . The Wade system, or the Wade-Giles system , the oldest of the four ,

was originally devi sed by Thomas Wade , and later revised by Herbert A . Gile s , both in the nineteenth century . It is still the most widely used of all Romanisation systems , especially in spelling Chinese names in English books and periodicals .

The Yale system was completed by the Ins titute of Far Eastern Languages , Yale University , contracted by the United States Government to revi se a War Department dict ionary of spoken Chinese pub lished in 1 9 4 5 . The first dict ionary in the Yale system was pub lished in 1 9 6 5 by the Yale University Pres s . The system has proved to be more effe ctive than the Wade system in teaching Mandarin to English-speaking people .

The Nat ional Romanisation ( Kwoyeu Romat zyh ) was first promulgated by the Chinese Government in 192 8 . In China , much of its significance was however taken away by the National Phonetic Symbols (non-Romanised alphabe t ) adopted by the government ten years earlier for teaching Mandarin in schools . The revival of interest in the National Romanisa­t ion was seen in Lin Yutang ' s C h� n e4 e - Engl�4 h V�ct�o na�y 0 6 M o d e� n

U4ag e , pub lished i n 1972 .

The Pinying system was originally promulgated by the communist authorities in Peking and was introduc ed in the sixties to the United States by two dictionaries in this system: Modern Chinese-English Technical and General Dictionary , McGraw Hill , 19 6 3 , and Chinese­English Dic t ionary , U . S . Department of Commerce , 196 3 . This is the late s t addit ion to the Romanisation movement , but it is still far from perfect .

1 . F U N D A M E N TAL P R I N C I P L E S

All Romanisation systems follow two fundamental principles . First , among the different pronunciations of Chinese words in different place s , a standard one is adopted for the Romanisat ion . Second , the sounds of a set of Roman letters are defined so to represent the pronun ciation of Chinese words .

A unified written language for the whole mas s of Chinese peop le appeared as early as the third century B . C . when Emperor Chin Shih Huang ordered his prime minister Li SSu to codify all Chinese characters . This results in the fact that differences between the numerous dialec t s

THE PROBLEM OF A STANDARD ROMANISATION SYSTEM OF MANDARIN CHINESE

7 5

in provinces and countie s are large ly those o f pronunciation . Almost from the very beginnin g , the dialect of Pekin g , or called Mandarin , was chosen as the standard pronunciation to be represented in the Romanisa­tion . This pronunciation was again formally rec ognised by the govern­ment as the National Spoken Language ( Kuo Yu ) in the official dic tion­ary , Kua Yin T z u Tien , pub lished in 1920 by the Ministry of Education.

The second principle calls for analysis of the Chinese syllable . Each syllable contains three elements: an initial , or the beginning sound , which is the initial consonant ; a final , or the rest of the syllable , which is either a vowe l , a diphthong or a vowe l with nasal ending; and a tone , or quality of the voice . As the t one exis t s i n Chinese , and i s usually indicated by special signs , t h e Roman ters are primarily adopted to repre sent the initials and finals .

only let­

While all systems adopt practically equal number of the Roman let ters , defi­nition of the sound of these letters varie s with each system. For example , a ' ta b Z e ' in the Wade system is represented by C H O , in the Yale system by J WO , in the National Romanisation by J U O , and in the Pinying system by Z H UO .

The t one is the most delicate part of the pronunciation of a Chinese word . A mistake in tones in speaking Chinese make s it at onc e unin­tel ligible , j ust as in English pronunciation of p o Z ice ' as po Z ' ice .

In Mandarin , there are four t ones , namely , ( 1 ) upper even t one ( pit ch 55 ) ; ( 2 ) lower even t one (pitch 35 ) ; ( 3 ) rising t one (pit ch 21 4 ) ; and ( 4 ) falling or going t one ( pitch 5 1 ) . It should be understood , howeve r , that the actual height and interval o f the se t ones are relative t o the sex and voice of the individual , and to the mood of the moment. In general , each of the four steps in the preceding s cheme varies between a tone and a t one and a hal f , so that the t onal range is somewhere between an augmented fifth and an octave . Needless t o say , the pit ch of the speaking voice in Chine se , as in a non-t onal language , moves portamento instead of j umping disc ontinuous ly from one pit ch t o another . Consequently , only on instruments with s liding pit ch , such as the c e llo , can one give a fair imitation of Chinese t one s , while a keyed instru­ment cannot remotely approximate any except the first t one , that is the upper even tone. By all means , a t one is an integral part of a Chinese syllable , and therefore in written Chinese , the tonal marks are e s sen­tial ; they c annot be optional , dropped or added at the risk of c on­fusion .

The four maj or Romanisation systems have different ways t o mark the tones . In the Wade system, the tones are indicated by a figure at the right-hand top corner of the Romanised word: 1 ( first t one ) , 2 ( se c ond tone ) , 3 ( third t one ) , 4 ( fourth t one ) . In the Yale and the Pinying

76 DR. HENGTSE TU

systems special symbols are used instead of figure: - ( gau ) for first tone ; , ( r e n ) for second tone ; Y ( rna ) for third tone ; and ' ( ha u ) for fourth tone. In the National Romanisation , tones are indicat ed by changing spelling . It is said that this i s the most characteristic feature of the Nat ional Romanisation system , and that "the purpose for which this feature was incorporated was for convenience in writing and printing . " ( Yuen-ren Chao and Lien-sheng Yang: C on e� e VieZion��y 0 6

Spo k en C hin e� e ) . But the rules are too complicated to learn , and the spelling becomes so confused that it compromises the advantage of pronounc ing the word outright at sight.

2 . A STANDARD ROMA N I SAT I O N S Y S T E M

A good Romanisat ion system o f Chine se should meet several condition s . First of all , it should give an automat ic pronunciat ion of the conson­ant sounds . That is , if one reads the consonant lett ers with their usual English values , one make s a sound that is exactly right or some­thing that is near enough so that people will have no trouble of under­standing . This is not achieved in any of the four systems. H S and J

( near R ) in Wade , S Y in Nat ional Romanisation , NG and S Y in Yale , and Q, X , Z H in Pinying , all represent very different sounds from their English pronunciation . In the Wade , ambiguity also result s from the use of apostrophe for aspirat ed syllable ( P , p i ; T , T ' ; K , K ' , et c . ) .

Then , the representat ion of the vowe l sounds should be regular and easy to pronounce . The vowels have the regular values in European con t inent ( French , German , Spanish , et c . ) , not the English. In Romanisat ion , there is similar regularity , but some of the vowel sounds are difficult for foreigners to reproduce . Noticeable are I H ( S H I H ) ,

U ( S S U ) , Y U E H in the Wade ; I E , I U E , Y ( J Y , S H Y ) in National Romanisa­t ion ; E E , Z ( as vowel ) , R ( as vowel ) in the Yale ; I E , U E in the Pinying .

Finally , there i s the prob lem of the tones . They cannot he lpfully be described , they must be i llustrated . Here is the I mis sion impos s­ible ' of all Romanisation systems. What we can expect of a standard Romanisation system is , therefore , one in which the first two con­dition s ( consonants and vowels ) can be met more sat isfactorily than all the exist ing systems , certainly not the third prob lem.

Tu, D.H. "The Problem of a Standard Romanisation System of Mandarin Chinese". In Perez, A.Q., Santiago, A.O. and Nguyễn Đ.L. editors, Papers from the Conference on the Standardisation of Asian Languages, Manila, Philippines, December 16-21, 1974. C-47:73-76. Pacific Linguistics, The Australian National University, 1978. DOI:10.15144/PL-C47.73 ©1978 Pacific Linguistics and/or the author(s). Online edition licensed 2015 CC BY-SA 4.0, with permission of PL. A sealang.net/CRCL initiative.