Romanization of Chinese in Taiwan
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Romanization systems used in Taiwan (the Republic of China) includes the following natively developed systems, adopted officially by the national government: Gwoyeu Romatzyh (GR, 1945-1984), Mandarin Phonetic Symbols II (MPS II, 1984-2000), and Tongyong Pinyin (since 2000). Alongside these aforementioned nominally official systems, Wade-Giles has been used for decades in many contexts.
Generally speaking, street signs have been transcribed in one of the native systems; other proper names (places and people) are written in Wade-Giles. However, since the introduction of Tongyong, place names -- save for counties and the top-level municipalities -- are now usually romanized using Tongyong. There are a few anomalies; for example, Taipei City uses Hanyu Pinyin.
The contention surrounding romanizations has never been purely academic or in response to the needs of the foreign community in Taiwan, but rather shrouded by politics. As a result, modern romanization of Mandarin in Taiwan is by and large inconsistent and quite difficult for most overseas visitors, foreign-born residents and local Taiwanese to interpret.
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[edit] Education
Romanization is not normally taught in Taiwan's public schools at any level. Consequently, most Taiwanese do not know how to romanize their names or addresses. Teachers use only Zhuyin ("bopomofo") for teaching and annotating the pronunciation of Mandarin. There have been sporadic discussions about using a romanization system during early education to teach children Mandarin pronunciation (like how students in Mainland China learn Mandarin using Hanyu Pinyin). However, like all other aspects of romanization in Taiwan, this is a controversial issue. The plan in the early 2000s to adopt Pinyin was delayed due to disagreements over which form to use (Tongyong or Hanyu). The move is complicated by the massive effort needed to produce new instructional materials and retrain teachers.
Textbooks teaching other Taiwanese languages -- namely, Hoklo, Hakka, and Formosan languages -- now also often include pronunciation in Romanizations (such as modified Tongyong) in addition to Zhuyin. Textbooks purely supplemented by romanization, without Zhuyin annotations, are very rare at the elementary-school level, since a sizeable minority of Taiwanese schoolchildren cannot easily read the English alphabet.
Government publications for teaching overseas Taiwanese children [1] usually are completely bilingual, but only have Zhuyin in the main body of the texts and a comparison chart of Zhuyin and one or more Romanization systems. Those for teaching advanced learners (such as youths and adults) have infrequent phonetic annotations for new phrases or characters. These annotations, usually in the footnotes, are romanized, in addition to having Zhuyin.
Like most Mandarin instructional materials released in North America, phrasebooks and textbooks targeting foreign (non-Taiwanese) students of Mandarin (mostly adult learners and workers from overseas) in Taiwan usually include only Hanyu Pinyin with tone marks (accompanied by Traditional Chinese characters).
[edit] Place names
The national government officially adopted Tongyong Pinyin in 2000 but allowed local governments to make their own choices. Consequently, Taipei, Taiwan's capital, has adopted Hanyu Pinyin. Taipei has replaced its earlier signage, most of which had used a bastardized version of Wade-Giles influenced by the Postal. [2] Kaohsiung, Taiwan's second city, has adopted Tongyong. Elsewhere in Taiwan, signs tend to be in a mixture of systems; with Tongyong Pinyin being increasingly common, but still many signs left over from the MPS II (or even the GR) era.
Romanization errors are common throughout Taiwan, because of the shortage of a workforce trained in romanization and the lack of political will for correct implementation. Many common errors are derived from the accent of Taiwanese Mandarin, such as interchanging the -ng and -n sounds. For example, guan and guang are often confused with one another on signs and plaques. Simple typos (such as replacing e with t) are also ubiquitous. The area with the fewest errors on official signage is Taipei City. Since romanized signage is not a priority in areas with few foreign tourists, most errors occur in remote areas with limited resources (if there were any romanized signs to begin with).
Official websites of local governments also employ romanization inconsistently. For instance, as of 2007, the Jhongli city hall website's title and URL are still in MPS II (Jung-li) [3]. On the other hand, the Jhongli Land Office has updated its title to Tongyong (Jhongli), but URL remians in MPS II [4]. And the Jhongli Household Registration Office have a Wade-Giles URL (Chungli) but refers to itself in Tongyong (and has a street address in Hanyu) [5].
[edit] Personal names
Most people in Taiwan have their names romanized using a variation of Wade-Giles. This simplified version employs no diacritics (tone marks, apostrophes and umlauts) and -- in semi- and unofficial contexts -- usually incorrectly capitalized. The first letter in the second character of the given names should be, according to governmental and academic conventions, in the lower case, but in reality usually not. For example, Lu Hsiu-lien is sometimes written incorrectly as Lu Hsiu-Lien, contrary to the set rules of Wade-Giles. The use of Wade-Giles is generally not out of personal preference but because this system has been used by most government offices' reference materials in Taiwan to date.
There are a few Taiwanese personalities (such as politicians) whose names are transcribed in obscure or idiosyncratic schemes. For instance, using any major romanization, Lee Teng-hui's surname would have been Li. Vincent Siew's surname and Ma Ying-jeou's given name are also peculiarly romanized. The single closest romanization to Chen Shui-bian's name would be Hanyu Pinyin, except that Hanyu never uses hyphens.
[edit] Businesses
Public and private enterprises are not bound to any set of standards in their English names. The variations in this areas are therefore even greater and unpreditcable. Some choose to transliterate their names, but other transcribe. The first parts of Chunghwa Telecom, the Chinese Bank, and China Airlines are actually identical in Mandarin, i.e., Zhonghua (中華), meaning "(of) China".
Many business owners use an ad hoc approach, just so long as the end result is pronounceable and visually pleasant. The Hualon Group and Yulon Motor have opt for readability and lose a couple of letters (the second syllable would be long or lung in all major romanizations).
As many conglomerates in Taiwan are owned by the Hoklo, it is not uncommon to find companies that romanized their names in Hoklo. The Shin Kong, for example, is faithful to its Hoklo pronunciation (Sin-kong) but not Mandarin.
Like those on street signs, romanization on store signs and commercial products' labels are not yet systematized.
[edit] Other contexts
Taiwan Post currently provide official support to address romanization in both Hanyu and Tongyong Pinyin [6]. Prior to 2000, addresses were usually written in Wade or MPS II. Given the correct 5-digit zip code, the postal workers are usually able to deliver mails in any other varieties of romanizations as well.
Most of the Taiwanese universities have names in Wade-Giles, such as Cheng Kung, Chung Hsing, Feng Chia and Chiao Tung. A few with pre-Taiwanese existence were romanized using the Postal Guide, i.e., Tsing Hua, Soochow, and Chengchi (actually ad hoc, since it'd be chih in Postal). Few universities have names in other local languages, such as Tamkang and Takming (both in Hoklo).
Since elementary, middle, and senior high schools are under the jurisdiction of the local government, they follow whatever romanization the particular county or city use at the time -- now being usually Tongyong Pinyin.
[edit] See also
- Romanization of Chinese, general discussion cross regions
- Daoism-Taoism romanization issue, case study of the academic contention in romanizing Chinese
- Wade-Giles#Punctuation, example of deviations from set standards in Taiwanese romanizations
[edit] External links
- A Comparison of Various Chinese Romanization Systems, summary from the Government Information Office (no GR)
- A comparison chart of Chinese romanizations, with Tongyong Pinyin highlighted and include GR
- Differences between Tongyong Pinyin and Hanyu Pinyin
