Zhuyin
zh-cn:注音符号zh-tw:注音符號
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.
History
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\nthe 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.
Symbol origins
\nThere 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:\n* ㄅ (b) ← 白 (bai)\n* ㄆ (p) ← 波 (po)\n* ㄋ (n) ← 乃 (nai)\n* ㄒ (x) ← 下 (xia)\n* ㄙ (s) ← 私 (si)\n* ㄝ (ê) ← 也 (ye)\n* ㄦ (er) ← 兒 (er)
A few were made by adding additional strokes, for example:\n* ㄉ (d) ← 刀 (dao)\n* ㄌ (l) ← 力 (li)\n* ㄘ (c) ← 七 (ci, now pronounced qi)
A few are virtually identical to Chinese characters still in use, for example:\n* ㄧ (i) ← 一 (yi)\n* ㄚ (a) ← 丫 (ya)
Many are nearly entirely identical to radicalss with the same sounds, for example:\n* ㄈ (f) ← 匚 (fang)\n* ㄏ (h) ← 厂 (han)\n* ㄗ (z) ← 卩 (jie) \n* ㄕ (sh) ← 尸 (shi)\n* ㄤ (ang) ← 尢 (wang)\n* ㄩ (ü) ← 凵 (yu)\n* ㄡ (ou) ← 又 (you)\n* ㄖ (r) ← 日 (ri)\n* ㄔ (chi) ← 彳 (chi)\n* ㄇ (m) ← 冂 (jiong) which does not have the same sound, but it exists in 冒 (mao) and 冪 (mi)
Other symbols, mostly vowel symbols, are based entirely or partly on obsolete variants of characters, for example:\n* ㄨ (u) ← 五 (wu); likely a derivative of the
Seal Script 
.
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).
Uses
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.
Writing
\n
\n
\nZhuyin 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.
\nThe 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.
\n
Zhuyin vs. Hanyu 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)\n
\n| zhuyin | pinyin | | zhuyin | pinyin | | zhuyin | pinyin | | zhuyin | pinyin |
|---|
\n| Consonants |
\n| ㄅ | B | | ㄆ | P | | ㄇ | M | | ㄈ | F |
\n| ㄉ | D | | ㄊ | T | | ㄋ | N | | ㄌ | L |
\n| ㄍ | G | | ㄎ | K | | ㄏ | H | | | |
\n| ㄐ | J | | ㄑ | Q | | ㄒ | X | | | |
\n| ㄓ | Zh | | ㄔ | Ch | | ㄕ | Sh | | ㄖ | R |
\n| ㄗ | Z | | ㄘ | C | | ㄙ | S | | | |
\n| Vowels |
\n| ㄚ | A | | ㄛ | O | | ㄜ | E | | ㄝ | Ê |
\n| ㄞ | Ai | | ㄟ | Ei | | ㄠ | Ao | | ㄡ | Ou |
\n| ㄢ | An | | ㄣ | En | | ㄤ | Ang | | ㄥ | Eng |
\n| ㄦ | Er | | ㄧ | I | | ㄨ | U | | ㄩ | Ü |
\n
Dialect (non-Mandarin) letters (not many web browsers can display these glyphs, see
#External links for
PDF pictures.)\n
\n| Char | Name | | Char | Name | | Char | Name |
|---|
\n| ㄪ | V | | ㄫ | Ng | | ㄬ | Gn |
\n
Extended Bopomofo for
Min-nan and
Hakka\n
\n| Char | Name | | Char | Name | | Char | Name | | Char | Name |
|---|
\n| ㆠ | Bu | | ㆦ | Oo | | ㆬ | Im | | ㆲ | Ong |
\n| ㆡ | Zi | | ㆧ | Onn | | ㆭ | Ngg | | ㆳ | Innn |
\n| ㆢ | Ji | | ㆨ | Ir | | ㆮ | Ainn | | ㆴ | Final P |
\n| ㆣ | Gu | | ㆩ | Ann | | ㆯ | Aunn | | ㆵ | Final T |
\n| ㆤ | Ee | | ㆪ | Inn | | ㆰ | Am | | ㆶ | Final K |
\n| ㆥ | Enn | | ㆫ | Unn | | ㆱ | Om | | ㆷ | Final H |
\n
See also
\n*Chinese language\n*
Mandarin (linguistics)\n**
Putonghua\n**
Guoyu\n*
Pinyin\n*
Chinese input methods for computers\n*
Ruby characters
External links
\n*Unicode reference glyphs for
bopomofo &
extended bopomofo (in
PDF format)\n*
Mandarin Dictionary and
syllabary (need Chinese font for
Big5 encoding)
- NPA->IPA National Phonetic Alphabet (zhu yin fu-hao) spellings of words transliterated into the International Phonetic Alphabet (The vowel values have been verified against the official IPA site. See [1] )
Category:Alphabetic writing systems
