Standard Mandarin
Standard Mandarin is the official
Chinese spoken language used by the
People's Republic of China and
Republic of China (
Taiwan).(standard mandarin is also the name of a computer program used to pronounce Chinese [
pinyin])
The phonology of Standard Mandarin is based on that of the
Beijing dialect, which belongs to
Mandarin, a large and very diverse group of Chinese
dialects spoken across northern and southwestern China. The vocabulary is largely drawn from this group of dialects. The grammar of Standard Mandarin is standardized to the body of modern works written in
Vernacular Chinese, which in practice follows the tradition of the Mandarin group of dialects most closely with some notable exceptions. As a result, Standard Mandarin itself is usually called "Mandarin" in non-academic, everyday usage. However,
linguists use "Mandarin" to refer to the entire group of dialects. This convention will be adopted by the rest of this article.
Standard Mandarin is officially known in the
People's Republic of China as
P"tōnghuà (, literally "common speech" or "ordinary speech"), in the
Republic of China (
Taiwan) as
Guóy" (, literally "national language"), and in
Malaysia and
Singapore as
Huáy" (, literally "the Chinese (in a cultural sense) language"). All three terms are used interchangeably in Chinese communities around the world where different groups have come into contact. Standard Mandarin is also known as
Mandarin Chinese. Mandarin is the world's most widely spoken language.
Since ancient history, the
Chinese language has always consisted of a wide variety of dialects; hence prestige dialects and
lingua francas have always been needed.
Confucius, for example, used
yǎyán (
雅言), or "elegant speech", rather than colloquial regional dialects; text during the
Han Dynasty also referred to
tōngy" (
通语), or "common language".
Rime books, which were written since the
Southern and Northern Dynasties, may also have reflected one or more systems of standard
pronunciation during those times. However, all of these standard dialects were probably unknown outside the educated elite; even among the elite, pronunciations may have been very different, as the unifying factor of all Chinese dialects,
Classical Chinese, was a written standard, not a spoken one.
The
Ming Dynasty (
1368 -
1644) and the
Qing Dynasty (
1644 -
1912) began to use the term
guānhuà (官话), or "official speech", to refer to the speech used at the
courts. The term
Mandarin comes directly from the Portuguese. The word
mandarin was first used to name the Chinese bureaucratic officials (i.e., the
mandarins), because the Portuguese, under the misapprehension that the Sanskrit word (
mantri or
mentri) that was used throughout Asia to denote "an offical" had some connexion with the Portuguese word
mandar (to order somebody to do something), and having obverved that these officials all "issued orders", chose to call them
mandarins. From this, the Portugeuse immediately started calling the special language that these officials spoke amongst themselves (i.e.,
Guanhua) "the language of the mandarins", "the mandarin language" or, simply, "Mandarin". The fact that Guanhua was, to a certain extent, an artificial language, based upon a set of conventions (i.e., Northern Chinese family of languages for grammar and meaning, and the specific pronunciation of the Imperial Court's locale for its utterance), is precisely what makes it such an appropriate term for Modern Standard Chinese (i.e., Northern Chinese family of languages for grammar and meaning, and the specific pronunciation of Beijing for its utterance).
It seems that during the early part of this period, the standard was based on the
Nanjing dialect, but later the
Beijing dialect became increasingly influential, despite the mix of officials and commoners speaking various dialects in the capital,
Beijing. In the
17th century, the Empire had set up
Orthoepy Academies (正音書院, Zhèngyīn Shūyuàn) in an attempt to make pronunciation conform to the Beijing standard. But these attempts had little success. As late as the
19th century the emperor had difficulty understanding some of his own ministers in court, who did not always try to follow any standard pronunciation. Nevertheless, by
1909, the dying
Qing Dynasty had established the Beijing dialect as
guóy" (国语), or the "national language".
After the
Republic of China was established in
1912, there was more success in promoting a common national language. A
Commission on the Unification of Pronunciation was convened with delegates from the entire country. At first there was an attempt to introduce a standard pronunciation with elements from regional dialects. But this was deemed too difficult to promote, and in
1924 this attempt was abandoned and the Beijing dialect became the major source of standard national pronunciation, due to the status of that dialect as a prestigious dialect since the
Qing Dynasty. Elements from other dialects continue to exist in the standard language, but as exceptions rather than the rule.
The
People's Republic of China, established in
1949, continued the effort. In
1955, standard Mandarin was renamed
p"tōnghuà (普通话), or "common speech". (The name change was not recognized by the
Republic of China which has governed only
Taiwan and some surrounding islands since 1949.) Since then, the standards used in
mainland China and Taiwan have diverged somewhat.
After the
handovers of
Hong Kong [
1] and
Macau, the term
p"tōnghuà is used in those
Special Administrative Regions of the
People's Republic of China, and the
pinyin system is widely used.
In both
mainland China and Taiwan, the use of Standard Mandarin as the medium of instruction in the educational system and in the media has contributed to the spread of standard Mandarin. As a result, Standard Mandarin is now spoken fluently by most people in
Mainland China and in Taiwan. However in
Hong Kong, due to historical and linguistic reasons, the language of education and both formal and informal speech remains the local
Standard Cantonese but standard Mandarin is becoming increasingly influential.
The advent of the 20th century has seen many profound changes in Standard Mandarin.
Many polite and humble words that were in use in imperial China have almost entirely disappeared in daily conversation in modern-day Standard Mandarin, such as
jiàn (贱 "my humble") and
guì (贵 "your honorable").
The standardized
phonology of Standard Mandarin is reproduced below. Actual reproduction varies widely among speakers, as everyone (including national leaders) inadvertently introduces elements of his/her own native dialect. By contrast,
television and
radio announcers are usually chosen for their pronunciation accuracy. Below is the phonology of Standard Mandarin.
Initials
The following is the
initial inventory of Standard Mandarin as represented in the
International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA):
1 is often transcribed as (a
voiced retroflex fricative). This represents a variation in pronunciation among different speakers, rather than two different phonemes.
Corresponding chart in:
*
Pinyin* Zhuyin
* Gwoyeu Romatzyh
For more complete information, showing how initials and finals interact, see this Zhuyin-IPA
chart. The
vowel sounds in that
chart have been verified against the official IPA:
site. A table of valid initial and final combinations can also be seen at:
*
Pinyin table*
Zhuyin tableWhat are traditionally termed
retroflex are phonetically not true retroflex articulations. These consonants are, rather,
flat apical postalveolar, and thus differ from both palatoalveolar and (true) retroflex consonants (Ladefoged & Wu 1984; Ladefoged & Maddieson 1996:150-154).
The
alveolo-palatal consonants are in
complementary distribution (see
minimal pair) with the
alveolar consonants ,
retroflex consonants and
velar consonants . As a result, linguists prefer to classify as
allophones of one of the three other sets. The Yale and Wade-Giles systems, for example, mostly treat the palatals as allophones of the retroflex consonants;
Tongyong Pinyin mostly treats them as allophones of the dentals; and Chinese
Braille treats them as allophones of the velars.
is commonly pronounced (a
labiodental approximant) by speakers around Beijing; this may be considered substandard, but it nevertheless occurs frequently.
may be pronounced as , which is characteristic of the speech of young women, and also of some men. This is usually considered rather effeminate and may also be considered substandard.
Finals
The
final, or
rime, of a syllable, in Standard Mandarin, is the part after the initial consonant. A Mandarin final can be structurally described as (V
m)V(C
f). In other words, it consists of an optional
medial, a
nucleus, and an optional
coda. The medial can be absent, or it can be one of the three
glides: , , . The coda can be absent; it can be one of two
glides: , ; or it can be one of two
nasals: , .
Not counting tone distinctions, there are only about 35 distinct finals in Mandarin. Nonetheless, it's quite difficult to say with assurance exactly how many nuclear vocalic phonemes exist, because the restrictions on possible finals appear quite unsystematic on the surface.
There are at least the following phones:
*[a] (only in finals [ia], [ua], [ya], [ai], [uai], [au], [iau], [uan])
* (only in finals )
*[e] (only in finals [ei] and [uei])
* (only in finals and in the isolated word )
*[o] (only in finals [ou] and [iou])
* (only in final and in the isolated word )
* (only in finals )
* (only in final )
* (only in final , which occurs only after palatal sounds; sometimes pronounced as )
* (only in final , which occurs only after retroflex sounds; sometimes pronounced as )
*[i] (only in finals [i], [in], )
* (only in finals )
*[u] (only in final [u])
*[y] (only in final [y], [yn])
This shows fourteen different vowels. By very conservative standards, this represents a system of eight phonemes: /a/ ([a]/), /e/ ([e]/), /o/ ([o]/), (/), (), /i/, /u/ (/[u]), and /y/.
Further reduction can be achieved by noticing that /e/, /o/, and are in complementary distribution, and can be treated as a single phoneme (except in the isolated words and , which function only as exclamations and can be treated as outside of the core system, similar to the normal treatment of "hmm", "unh-unh", "shhh!" and other English exclamations that violate usual syllabic constraints). Note also that the finals and can be considered to be phonemically either or ; likewise for or . It would also be possible to merge and , provided that the palatal and retroflex series are not themselves merged, since /i/ does not occur after retroflex or velar sounds or after dental fricatives and affricates. If all of these suggestions are followed, and and considered to be and , the resulting system of , , , , and is much like the standard
Pinyin romanization scheme (except that Pinyin does not merge with and uses a certain number of shortcut spellings).
An even more reduced system results from considering main vowel , and to be the surface results of the respective glides combined with a null meta-phoneme. This system, shown below, analyzes the final part of a syllable as a combination of a glide slot (, , or null), a main vowel slot (, or null), and a coda slot (, , , or null). (The minimal vowel ( or ) is considered to be the surface manifestation when all three slots are null, rather than an allophone of main vowel .)
When the medial, nucleus, and coda combine into a final, their pronunciations may be affected. The following is the full table of finals of Standard Mandarin in
IPA:
| Nucleus | Coda | Medial | | Ø | style="background:#efefef" | style="background:#efefef" | style="background:#efefef"| |
| rowspan=5 style="background:#efefef" | style="background:#efefef"|Ø | | | | |
| style="background:#efefef" | | | | |
| style="background:#efefef" | | | | |
| style="background:#efefef" | | | | |
| style="background:#efefef" | | | | |
| rowspan=5 style="background:#efefef" | style="background:#efefef"|Ø | | | 1 | ² |
| style="background:#efefef" | | | | |
| style="background:#efefef" | | | | |
| style="background:#efefef" | | | | |
| style="background:#efefef" | | | ³ | |
| Ø | | | | |
1 Both
pinyin and
zhuyin have an additional "o", used after "b p m f", which is distinguished from "uo", used after everything else. "o" is generally put into the first column instead of the third. However, in Beijing pronunciation, these are identical.
² Another way to represent the four finals of this line is: , which reflects Beijing pronunciation.
³ is pronounced when it follows an initial.
Corresponding chart in:
*
Pinyin* Zhuyin
* Gwoyeu Romatzyh
A table of valid initial and final combinations can also be seen at:
*
Pinyin table*
Zhuyin tableRetroflex Finals
Standard Mandarin also uses a
rhotic consonant, . There are two cases in which it is used:
#In a small number of words, such as 二 "two", 耳 "ear", etc. All of these words are pronounced as with no initial consonant.#As a
noun suffix (Traditional: -', Simplified: -儿). The suffix combines with the final, and regular but complex changes occur as a result.
The basic rules controlling the surface pronunciation of a final plus are as follows:
*Coda [i] and [n] are deleted.
*Coda is deleted, but the syllable becomes
nasalized.
*Main vowels [i] and [y] become glides and have a added.
*Certain vowels are changed: [a] becomes ; [e], and become ; in the finals and becomes (but it remains in the finals and ).
The following chart shows how the finals from the above chart are affected by the addition of this suffix:
| Nucleus | Coda
(+rhotic) | Medial | | Ø | style="background:#efefef" | style="background:#efefef" | style="background:#efefef"| |
| rowspan=5 style="background:#efefef" | style="background:#efefef"|Ø | | | | |
| style="background:#efefef" | | | | |
| style="background:#efefef" | | | | |
| style="background:#efefef" | | | | |
| style="background:#efefef" | | | | |
| rowspan=5 style="background:#efefef" | style="background:#efefef"|Ø | | | | |
| style="background:#efefef" | | | | |
| style="background:#efefef" | | | | |
| style="background:#efefef" | | | | |
| style="background:#efefef" | | | | |
| Ø | | | | |
The behavior of retroflexed finals provides some evidence for the phonemic analysis of main vowels. The fact that and become and confirms their analysis as /ian/ and /yan/ (rather than and ), and the differing behavior of and [i] suggests that these should not be merged (contrary to Pinyin). The behavior of
and , however, is problematic, since it suggests that they should not be merged, contrary to most analyses. (An alternative, consistent with retroflex behavior, would be to merge and as a single phoneme and maintain as a separate phoneme occurring only in a single final. Some evidence for this comes from standard Beijing pronunciation, where and are simple vowels but "" is actually a complex diphthong, pronounced approximately as -- a combination of the vowels in Standard American "put" and "putt"}}.)
Tones
 |
Relative pitch changes of the four tones |
Mandarin, like most Chinese dialects, is a
tonal language. This means that
tone, just like consonants and vowels, are used to distinguish words from each other. Many foreigners have difficulties mastering the tones of each character, but correct tonal pronunciation is essential for intelligibility because of the vast number of
homophones in the language. The following are the 4 tones of Standard Mandarin:
#
First tone, or
high-level tone (陰平/阴平 yīnpíng, literal meaning:
yin-level):#: a steady high
sound, as if it were being sung instead of spoken.#
Second tone, or
rising tone (陽平/阳平 yángpíng, literal meaning:
yang-level), or
linguistically,
high-rising:#: is a sound that rises from mid-level tone to high (e.g., What?!)#
Third tone (low tone, or low-falling-raising, 上聲/上声 shǎngsh"ng or shàngsh"ng, literal meaning: "up tone"):#: has a mid-low to low descent, if at the end of a sentence or before a pause, it is then followed by a rising pitch.#
Fourth tone,
falling tone (去聲/去声 qùsh"ng, literal meaning: "away tone"), or
high-falling:#: features a sharp downward accent ("dipping") from high to low, and is a shorter tone, similar to curt commands. (e.g., Stop!)
Other pitch shapes sometimes called
tones:
*
Fifth tone,
neutral tone, or
zeroth tone (輕聲/轻声 qīng sh"ng, literal meaning: "light tone"):
*: All unstressed syllables are pronounced with this "tone", which is sometimes considered as a lack of tone. In most varieties of Mandarin, the second syllable in two-syllable compounds is weaker in tonal prominence than the first character, and is sometimes called a "neutral" tone. On the other hand, if a very unemphasized
incorrect tone is produced, its presence may be noted by the careful listener.
Most
romanizations represent the tones as
diacritics on the vowels (e.g.,
Pinyin,
MPS II and
Tongyong Pinyin).
Zhuyin uses diacritics as well. Others, like
Wade-Giles, use superscript numbers at the end of each syllable. The tone marks and numbers are rarely used outside of
textbooks.
Gwoyeu Romatzyh is a rare example where tones are not represented as special
symbols, but using normal letters of the alphabet (although in a very complex fashion).
To listen to the tones, see
http://www.wku.edu/~shizhen.gao/Chinese101/pinyin/tones.htm (click on the blue-red yin yang symbol).
|
The shape of the 3rd tone when before 1st, 2nd and 4th tones |
Pronunciation also varies with context according to the rules of
tone sandhi. The most prominent phenomenon of this kind is when there are two third tones in immediate sequence, in which case the first of them changes to a second tone. If there are three third tones in series, the first may or may not be converted to a second tone, depending on the preference of the speaker and the dialect area.
Relationship between
Middle Chinese and modern tones:
V- =
unvoiced initial consonantL =
sonorant initial consonant
V+ =
voiced initial consonant (not
sonorant)
| Middle Chinese Tone | Ping (平) | Shang (上) | Qu (去) | Ru (入) |
| Middle Chinese Initial | V- | L | V+ | V- | L | V+ | V- | L | V+ | V- | L | V+ |
| Standard Mandarin Tone name | Yin Ping
(陰平, 1) | Yang Ping
(陽平, 2) | Shang
(上, 3) | Qu
(去, 4) | redistributed
with no pattern | to Qu | to Yang Ping |
| Standard Mandarin Tone contour | 55 | 35 | 214 | 51 | to 51 | to 35 |
It is known that if the two
morphemes of a compound word cannot be ordered by grammar, the order of the two is usually determined by tones " Yin Ping (1), Yang Ping (2), Shang (3), Qu (4), and Ru, which is the plosive-ending tone that has already disappeared. Below are some compound words that show this rule. Tones are shown in parentheses, and
R indicates Ru.
左右 (34)
南北 (2R)
輕重 (14)
貧富 (24)
凹凸 (1R)
喜' (34)
"樂 (1R)
"死 (13)
死活 (3R)
陰陽 (12)
明暗 (24)
毀譽 (34)
'貶 (13)
離合 (2R)
In the 1920s
Hu Shih, a strong advocate of
vernacular Chinese (or
Baihua) literature, expressed the view that alphabetic writing, introduced in two stages, would be the key to mass literacy:
"I think China will have to have an alphabetic writing in the future. But there are too many monosyllables in the literary language, and it would be impossible to change over to an alphabetic script. So it is necessary first to replace the literary style with the báihwà style, and after that to change from báihwà writing to alphabetic writing.
[Hsia (1956), p.114]In 1940,
Mao Zedong wrote:
…our script must be reformed under certain conditions, and our language must be brought closer to that of the masses.[From "On New Democracy". This is the only occasion that any direct statement by Mao has ever been published concerning language reform. It is also significant that the phrase "under certain conditions" has never been further elaborated. The notion that "our language must be brought closer to that of the masses" is consistent with the views expressed by Stalin (1950/1972).]In 1951, Mao demanded that the
Committee for Research into Language Reform[This was a sub-commmittee of the Association for Reforming the Chinese Written Language which had been set up in Beijing in 1949 (Wu, 1958, p.30).] set about devising a totally indigenous phonetic system::
Our written language must be reformed. It should take the direction of phoneticization, common to all the languages of the world; it must be national in form; the alphabet and the projects should be elaborated on the basis of the existing Chinese characters.[Although this is often cited as a "statement" by Mao, Milsky (1973, pp.100-101) states that this is not a direct quotation. It is an account, within a speech by Ma Xulun (Minister of Education and Chairman of the Committee for Studying the Reform of the Chinese Written Language) in July 1952, which describes the overall intention of the directive that had been delivered by Mao "three or four months ago". Chappell (1980) notes that the specific, unequivocal and outright rejection of "Latinization" contained within this directive (which had been "communicated at private meetings " between Mao and members of the Committee) was "a startling reversal of the previous orientation of the Association… towards Latinization, given that the members [of that Association] had been activists in the two main romanization movements prior to 1949: Latinxua Sinwenz and Gwoyeu Romatzyh. (p.106, emphasis added).]Although the term "
romanization" is rather misleading in the context of the "phoneticization" of Chinese languages the term is now universally used by convention.
While the Chinese and the non-Chinese romanization projects were driven by entirely different needs (and operated in entirely different circumstances),
[It is significant that "all [of the Chinese] proposals were motivated by a strong desire to contribute to the cause of modernizing the country, rather than being a purely intellectual exercise " (Chen, 1999, p.166).] each has had an enormous influence upon the other.
Despite the constant assertions that
"the difficulty of the [traditional Chinese] writing system was largely responsible for the high rate of illiteracy in China, which in turn accounted for the country's weakness and ineptitude in the face of foreign powers", and the extent to which
"these assumptions have been part of the foundation underlying the whole process of script reform [since the 1890s]", and the extent to which these assertions are now universally accepted as being self-evident,
established fact, it is highly significant that none of these claims have ever been tested or proved (Chen, 1999, p.166).
The non-Chinese need
From the time the first Westerners entered China there has been an ever-increasing need for systematic, coherent mechanisms:
* to make the actual pronunciation conventions of spoken Chinese intelligible to non-Chinese-speaking students (especially to those who had no experience of a
tonal language).
[For example, Giles' 1892 conversion of the 1859 Syllabary of Wade, per medium of certain important structural alterations and the addition of superscripts to indicate the suprasegmental tones, into what is now known as the Wade-Giles system.]* to make the
syntactic structure of a Chinese language intelligible to those who were only familiar with Latin
grammar.
* to
transliterate the citation pronunciation of specific
Chinese characters according to the pronunciation conventions of a specific European language, to allow the insertion of that Chinese pronunciation into a Western text.
[For example, the system employed by Legge in his contributions to the "Sacred Books of China" section of the Sacred Books of the East. As with many other systems of that time, Legge identified a particular Chinese sound as identical with one made in a language familiar to European scholars, and he used the letter(s) used in that language to transliterate the Chinese sound.]* to allow instant communication in "colloquial Chinese" between Chinese and non-Chinese speakers through the use of a specific phrase-book.
[For example, the Yale system. See the Yale system article for examples of the system's usage in military applications.]The Chinese need
The Indian,
Sanskrit grammarians who came to China two thousand years ago to work on the
translation of Buddhist scriptures into Chinese and the
transliteration of Buddhist terms into Chinese,
[Such as the translators associated with An Shih Kao, circa 148.] discovered the "initial sound", "final sound", and "suprasegmental tone" structure of spoken Chinese syllables. This understanding is reflected in the precise
Fanqie system, and it is the core principle of
all of the modern systems of rendering correct Chinese pronunciation.
[In this sense, Zhuyin Fuhao, Gwoyeu Romatzyh, and Hanyu Pinyin systems are all equal, and entirely interchangeable.] Yet, whilst the Fanqie system was ideal for indicating the conventional pronunciation of single, isolated characters in written,
Classical Chinese literature, it was quite unworkable in relation to the pronunciation of essentially polysyllabic, colloquial
spoken Chinese languages, such as Mandarin.
By contrast with the needs of "Western" users, the Chinese had seven entirely different domains of need for an efficient, simple and coherent system of "romanization":
(1) An auxilliary phonetic system for fully literate speakers of Mandarin, to allow them to easily identify the specific pronunciation for a character within a specific context
[Known as "Po Yin Zi", or "Po Du Zi". Chao (1968, p.172) calls them "split reading characters ".] and, as a consequence, any auxilliary phonetic system had to be able to be written (a) vertically down the page, (b) right-to-left, and (c) left-to-right.
[It is essential to understand that the People's Daily did not print its Chinese characters horizontally, from left-to-right, until 1 January 1956 (Chappell, 1980, p.115), and it took some considerable time for other printed literature to begin to follow that up-to-that-time, non-Chinese practice.](2) A phonetic system to provide fully literate speakers of another mutually unintelligible Chinese language, such as
Cantonese, with a mechanism to enable them to recite a Chinese text in Mandarin.
(3) As an auxilliary phonetic system to guide native-speaker-of-Mandarin students who were learning either Classical or Modern Chinese.
(4) An alternative phonetic system for fully literate speakers of Mandarin who needed to operate technical equipment (telegraphic equipment, telex machines, typewriters, teleprinters, linotype machines, etc.) per medium of a standard QWERTY keyboard.
[It would also facilitate the wider application of flag signals, such as maritime signals and semaphore.](5) As a systematic mechanism for entirely superseding the need for Chinese written characters, and facilitating some level of functional literacy amongst native speakers of Mandarin who could not read Chinese characters,
[Precisely what has been achieved through the use of the Hangul system in North Korea, and the Quoc Ngu system in Vietnam.] especially to meet the needs of mass education and industrial expansion.
(6) A system to facilitate the indexing of books, and cataloguing in general, and to make dictionaries far easier to the consult.
(7) A phonetic system that would reduce the significant difficulties faced by foreigners attempting to learn to speak, read and write Chinese.
[This would also work to facilitate a far higher level of international understanding of China and things Chinese; and, as well, it would work to promote far more productive commercial, scientific, technological, and cultural interchanges between Chinese and non-Chinese.]The non-Chinese systems
Wade-Giles
The first system to be widely accepted was the (1859) system of the British diplomat
Thomas Wade,
[Wade's system, introduced in 1859, was used by the British Consular Service.] which was revised and improved by
Herbert Giles into the (1892)
Wade-Giles system. Apart from the correction of a number of ambiguities and inconsistencies within the Wade system, the innovation of the Wade-Giles system was that it also indicated tones.
A major drawback of the Wade-Giles system was that it demanded the use of apostrophes, additional markings over individual letters (such as ê and ü), and superscript digits (such as Ch'üeh
4); all of which, despite their crucial significance, were often omitted in texts -- and, as a consequence, in the absence of matched character(s), the "Chinese" syllable delivered no meaning at all.
[For example, the sixteeen different syllabic sounds indicated, in Wade-Giles, as Chu1, Chu2, Chu3, Chu4, Chü1, Chü2, Chü3, Chü4, Ch'u1, Ch'u2, Ch'u3, Ch'u4, Ch'ü1, Ch'ü2, Ch'ü3, Ch'ü4 could all finish up appearing as "Chu".]Postal System
The
Postal System Pinyin, which was standardized in
1906, was based on French styles of romanization,
[Which was logical, since the French were, for a time, responsible for the Chinese postal system (in the same way that the Germans were responsible for the railways).] and was exclusively used for place names.
Yale system
The
Yale Romanization system was created at
Yale University during
World War II specifically to facilitate communication between American military personnel and their Chinese counterparts. Although the Yale system has been entirely superseded by the Chinese
Hanyu Pinyin system, it is important to understand that the Yale system survived far beyond its natural "use-by-date" for at least three significant reasons:
(1) It was ideal for phrase-book usage.
(2) It was inextricably linked to the Yale system of teaching Chinese.: The Yale system taught Mandarin through teaching the patterns of the spoken, colloquial Chinese language. All other available systems taught Mandarin as if (a) it was a written language, and (b) it followed the rules of Latin grammar.: The Yale system was, at the time of its creation (and for maybe the next 20 years), the most successful system of teaching Mandarin in terms of students' development of correct speaking skills, and the speed of their language acquisition, and the degree to which they retained their skills and vocabulary.
(3) For a considerable period of time in the 1960s and 1970s, particularly in countries such as Australia, the U.K., and the U.S.A., a decision to study either Mandarin or Classical Chinese also meant making a very political choice.:One had to choose between learning either simple or traditional characters and, as well, choose between using either the
Hanyu Pinyin or
Gwoyeu Romatzyh systems of romanization; and, in the process, seem to pro-actively align oneself with either the Beijing-centred
CCP or the Taipei-centred
KMT respectively.:The fact that there were also (a) large
expatriate Chinese communities with various strongly-held political positions, and (b) Western academics with strong allegiances to one side or the other, meant that the choice of the "neutral" Yale textbooks (such as those produced by
John DeFrancis), the "neutral" Yale teaching system (which was, at the time, the best in the English-speaking world), and the "neutral" Yale Romanization system kept one immune from harmful, career threatening, and otherwise counterproductive criticism.
Hanyu Pinyin
Whilst the Wade, Wade-Giles, and Postal systems still appear in the European literature, they generally only appear within a passage cited from an earlier work. It is now almost universal for texts in all European languages to employ the Chinese
Hanyu Pinyin system (usually without tone marks) in the form adopted by the
PRC government in 1979.
The Chinese systems
Qieyin Xinzi
The first modern indigenous Chinese romanization system, the
Qieyin Xinzi (
"New Phonetic Alphabet "), was developed in 1892 by
Lu Zhuangzhang (盧戇章) (1854-1928). It was used to write the sounds of the
Xiamen dialect of the
Southern Min language.
[Chen (1999), p.165.]Zhuyin Fuhao
Wu Jingheng (吳敬恆) (who had developed a "beansprout alphabet") and
Wang Zhao (王照) (who had developed a Mandarin alphabet,
"Guanhua Zimu", in 1900),
[Hsia (1956), p.108.] and
Lu Zhuangzhang were part of the
Commission on the Unification of Pronunciation (1912-1913), which developed the rudimentary
Jiyin Zimu (記音字母) system of
Zhang Binglin into the Mandarin-specific phonetic system now known as the
Zhuyin Fuhao (注音符號), or
Bopomofo system, that was eventually proclaimed on 23 November 1918.
The significant feature of the Zhuyin Fuhao system is that it is comprised entirely of "
ruby characters" which can be written beside any Chinese text regardless of whether the characters appear vertically, right-to-left, or left-to-right.
[This characteristic of the Zhuyin Fuhao system explains the longevity of the system within Chinese societies, such as that of Taiwan, in which the Chinese characters are still written vertically, right-to-left, or left-to-right in newspapers, textbooks and other printed material.]
It also explains the preference for Zhuyin Fuhao system over Latin-alphabet-based systems of romanization that can only be written left to right, and whose syllables do not consistently occupy a space that has a constant relation to the size of a printed Chinese character (the Zhuyin Fuhao "ruby characters" are usually of such a size that two of them occupy as much linear text space as a single Chinese character).Gwoyeu Romatzyh
In 1923, the KMT's Ministry of Education instituted a
National Language Unification Commission which, in turn, formed an 11-member romanization unit. The political circumstances of the time prevented any positive outcome from the formation of this unit.
[DeFrancis (1950), p.74.]A new voluntary working subcommittee was independently formed by a group of five scholars who strongly advocated romanization. The committee, which met 22 times over a 12 month period (1925-1926), was comprised of
Zhao Yuanren,
Lin Yutang,
Qian Xuantong,
Li Jinxi (黎"熙), and one
Wang Yi.
[DeFrancis (1950), pp.72-75.] The group developed the
Gwoyeu Romatzyh system that was proclaimed on 26 September 1928. The most distinctive aspect of this new system was that, rather than relying upon marks or numbers, it indicated the tonal variations of the "root syllable" by a systematic variation within the spelling of the syllable itself. This also meant that the entire system could be written with the characters on a standard QWERTY keyboard.
…the call to abolish [the written] characters in favour of a romanized alphabet reached a peak around 1923. As almost all of the designers of [Gwoyeu Romatzyh] were ardent supporters of this radical view, it is only natural that, aside from serving the immediate auxilliary role of sound annotation, etc., their scheme was designed in such a way that it would be capable of serving all functions expected of a bonafide writing system, and supersede [the written Chinese] characters in due course.[Chen (1999), p.183.]Despite the fact that it was created to eventually replace Chinese characters altogether, and that it was constructed by linguists, the Gwoyeu Romatzyh system was never extensively used for any purpose other than delivering the pronunciation of a specific Chinese written character in dictionaries.
[Such as, for example, Lin (1972), and Simon (1975).] And, whilst the "within syllable" indication of the tone made sense to Western users, the complexity of its tonal system was such that it was never popular with Chinese users.
[Seybolt and Chiang (1979) believe that a second reason was, that subsequent to the promulagation of the Gwoyeu Romatzyh system in 1928, "the increasingly conservative National Government, led by the Guomindang, lost interest in, and later suppressed, efforts to alter the traditional script " (p.19). Norman (1988):In the final analysis, [Gwoyeu Romatzyh] failed not because of defects in the system itself, but because it never received the official support it would have required to succeed; perhaps more importantly, it was viewed by many as the product of a group of elitist enthusiasts, and lacked any real popular base of support. (pp.259-260)]Latinxua Sinwenz
The work towards constructing the
Latinxua Sinwenz system began in Moscow as early as 1928 when the Soviet "Scientific Research Institute on China" sought to create a means through which the large Chinese population living in the far eastern region of the U.S.S.R. could be made literate,
[Principally, these were the Chinese immigrant workers in Vladivostok and Khabarovsk.] facilitating their further education.
This was significantly different from all other romanization schemes in that, from the very outset, it was intended that the Latinxua Sinwenz system, once established, would supersede the Chinese characters.
[Chen (1999), p.186.] They decided to use the the Latin alphabet because they thought that it would serve their purpose better than the
Cyrillic alphabet.
[Hsia (1956), pp.109-110.] Unlike the
Gwoyeu Romatzyh system, with its complex method of indicating tones, the
Latinxua Sinwenz system does not indicate tones at all; yet, unlike the
Gwoyeu Romatzyh system, it was not Mandarin-specific and, therefore could be used for other Chinese languages and their dialects.
The eminent Moscow-based Chinese scholar
Qu Qiubai (1899-1935) and the Russian linguist V.S. Kolokolov (1896-1979) devised a prototype romanization system in 1929.
In 1931 a coordinated effort between the Soviet
sinologists B.M. Alekseev, A.A. Dragunov and A.G. Shrprintsin, and the Moscow-based Chinese scholars
Qu Qiubai,
Wu Yuzhang,
Lin Boqu (林伯渠),
Xiao San,
Wang Xiangbao, and
Xu Teli established the
Latinxua Sinwenz system. The system was supported by a number of Chinese intellectuals such as
Guo Moruo and
Lu Xun, and trials were conducted amongst the 100,000 Chinese immigrant workers living in the Soviet Union for about four years
[The "Soviet experiment with latinized Chinese came to an end [in 1936]" when most of the Chinese immigrant workers were repatriated to China (Norman, 1988, p.261). DeFrancis (1950) reports that "despite the end of Latinxua in the U.S.S.R. it is the opinion of the Soviet scholars who worked on the system that it was an unqualified success" (p.108).] and later, in 1940-1942, in the communist-controlled
Shaanxi-
Gansu-
Ningxia Border Region of China.
[Milsky (1973), p.99; Chen (1999), p.184; Hsia (1956), p.110.] In November 1949, the railways in China's north-east adopted the Latinxua Sinwenz system for all their telecommunications.
[Milsky (1973), p.103.]For a time, the system was very important in spreading literacy in Northern China; and more than 300 publications totalling half a million issues appeared in Latinxua Sinwenz.
[Chen (1999), p.186.] However:
In 1944 the latinization movement was officially curtailed in the communist-controlled areas [of China] on the pretext that there were insufficient trained cadres capable of teaching the system. It is more likely that, as the communists prepared to take power in a much wider territory, they had second thoughts about the rhetoric that surrounded the latinization movement; in order to obtain the maximum popular support, they withdrew suppport from a movement that deeply offended many supporters of the traditional writing system.[Norman (1988), p.262.]Hanyu Pinyin
In October 1949, the
Association for Reforming the Chinese Written Language was established.
Wu Yuzhang (one of the creators of the
Latinxua Sinwenz system) was appointed Chairman.
All of the members of its initial governing body belonged to either the
Latinxua Sinwenz movement (
Ni Haishu (倪海曙),
Lin Handa (林汉达), etc.) or the
Gwoyeu Romatzyh movement (
Li Jinxi (黎"熙),
Luo Changpei (羅常培), etc.); and, for the most part, they were also highly trained linguists. Its first task (1949-1952) was to take
"the phonetic project adopting the Latin alphabet" as
"the main object of its research".
[Milsky (1973), p.102 (translated from People's Daily of 11 October 1949).]In a speech delivered on 10 January 1958,
[Two different translations of the speech are at: Zhou (1958); and Zhou (1979).] Zhou Enlai observed that the Committee had spent three years in an earnest attempt to create a non-Latin Chinese phonetic alphabet (they had also attempted to adapt the
Zhuyin Fuhao system); however
"no satisfactory result could be obtained", and
"the Latin alphabet was then adopted".
[ Zhou (1958), p.26.] He also emphatically stated:
In future, we shall adopt the Latin alphabet for the Chinese phonetic alphabet. Being in wide use in scientific and technological fields and in constant day-to-day usage, it will be easily remembered. The adoption of such an alphabet will, therefore, greatly facilitate the popularization of the common speech [i.e. Putonghua].
[ Zhou (1958), p.19.]The development of the
Hanyu Pinyin system is a complex process involving decision-making on a number of extremely volatile issues, including:
* Should the
Hanyu Pinyin system's pronunciation be based on that of Beijing?
* Was the
Hanyu Pinyin system going to supersede Chinese written characters altogether, or would it simply provide a guide to pronunciation?
[If it was intended to supersede the Chinese written characters, then the ease of writing the pronunciation (including tones) in a cursive script would be an extremely critical feature.]* Should the traditional Chinese writing system
be simplified, or not?
* Should the
Hanyu Pinyin system use the Latin alphabet, or not?
[Amongst many others, both Mao Zedong and the Red Guards were strongly opposed to the use of the Latin alphabet (Milsky, 1973, passim).]* Should the
Hanyu Pinyin system indicate tones in all cases (as with
Gwoyeu Romatzyh), or not (as with
Latinxua Sinwenz)?
* Should the
Hanyu Pinyin system be Mandarin-specific, or should it be adaptable to other dialects (and other Chinese languages)?
* Was the sole reason for the creation of
Hanyu Pinyin system to facilitate the rapid, efficient spread of Putonghua throughout the whole of China?
[For example, an American delegation that visited China in 1974 reported that "the principal uses of pinyin at present are to facilitate the learning of Chinese characters, and to facilitate the speed of Putonghua popularization, primarily for Chinese-speakers but also for minorities and foreigners. (Lehmann, 1975, p.52)]The movement for language reform came to a standstill during the
Cultural Revolution; and nothing was published on language reform or linguistics from 1966 to 1972.
[Chappell (1980), p.107.]The Pinyin subtitles that had first appeared on the masthead of the
People's Daily newspaper and the
Hong Qi (
"Red Flag ") Journal in 1958 did not appear at all between July 1966 and January 1977.
[Chappell (1980), p.116.]In its final form, the
Hanyu Pinyin system:
:(a) was used to indicate pronunciation only,
:(b) was exclusively based on the pronunciation of the Beijing dialect,
:(c) included tone marks,
:(d) embodied the traditional "initial sound", "final sound", and "suprasegmental tone" model, and
:(e) was written in the Latin alphabet.
Despite the fact that the "Draft Scheme for a Chinese Phonetic Alphabet" published in "People's China" on 16 March 1956 contained certain unusual and peculiar characters, the
Committee for Research into Language Reform soon reverted to the Latin Alphabet, citing the following reasons:
(1) The Latin alphabet is extensively used by scientists regardless of their native tongue,
[For example, a and b and c, and x and y and z are indispensible to international mathematics and science.] and technical terms are frequently written in Latin.
(2) The Latin alphabet is simple to write and easy to read. It has beeen used for centuries all over the world. It is easily adaptable to the task of recording Chinese pronunciation.
(3) Whilst the use of the Cyrillic alphabet would strengthen ties with the U.S.S.R., the Latin alphabet is familiar to most Russian students, and its use would strengthen the ties between China and many of its Southeast Asian neighbours who are already familiar with the Latin alphabet.
(4) As a response to Mao Zedong's remark that "cultural patriotism" should be a "weighty factor" in the choice of an alphabet, despite the fact that the Latin alphabet is "foreign" it will serve as a strong tool for economic and industrial expansion; and, moreover, the fact that two of the most patriotic Chinese,
Qu Qiubai and
Lu Xun, were such strong advocates of the Latin alphabet indicates that the choice does not indicate any lack of patriotism.
(5) On the basis that the British, French, Germans, Spanish, Polish and Czechoslovakians have all modified the Latin alphabet for their own usage, and because the Latin alphabet is derived from the Greek alphabet, which, in turn came from Phoenecian and Egyptian, there as much shame attached to using the Latin alphabet as there is in using Arabic numerals and the conventional mathematical symbols, regardless of their point of origin.
[All five points have been paraphrased from Hsia (1956), pp.119-121.]The position in Taiwan
The
Zhuyin Fuhao system is used for teaching the pronunciation of characters and compounds in schools. Efforts to phase out this system in favor of Tongyong Pinyin have stalled due to disagreements over which form of
"Pinyin" to use, and the massive effort needed to produce new educational materials and to completely retrain teachers.
A variety of transcription systems are used on Taiwan, in a situation that has often been politicised. The ROC central government adopted
Tongyong Pinyin in 2002, but has permitted local governments to override that decision in favor of their own preferred romanization systems.
Taipei City's mayor and current leader of the mildly pro-unification opposition party
Kuomintang,
Ma Ying-jeou, adopted
Hanyu Pinyin for the street names of Taipei, as well as for the
Taipei Rapid Transit System (which extends into
Taipei County, controlled by the ruling party, the
Democratic Progressive Party). This has resulted in protests accusing Ma of failing to consult and showing disrespect to the
Taipei County Government, as well as disregarding central language policies.
By the official definition of the People's Republic of China, standard Mandarin uses:
* The
phonology or sound system of
Beijing. A distinction should be made between the sound system of a dialect or language and the actual pronunciation of words in it. The pronunciations of words chosen for Standard Mandarin do not necessarily reproduce those of the Beijing dialect. The pronunciation of words is a standardization choice and occasional standardization differences (not accents) do exist, between putonghua and guoyu, for example.In fluent speech, Chinese speakers can easily tell the difference between a speaker of the Beijing dialect and a speaker of Standard Mandarin. Beijingers speak Standard Mandarin with elements of their own dialect (i.e. "accents") in the same way as other speakers.
* The
vocabulary of Mandarin dialects in general. This means that all
slang and other elements deemed "regionalisms" are excluded. On the one hand, the vocabulary of all Chinese dialects, especially in more technical fields like
science,
law, and
government, are very similar. (This is similar to the profusion of
Latin and
Greek words in European languages.) This means that much of the vocabulary of standardized Mandarin is shared with all varieties of Chinese. On the other hand, many colloquial vocabulary and
slang found in Beijing dialect are not found in Standard Mandarin, and may not be understood by people not from Beijing.
* The
grammar and
usage of exemplary modern
Chinese literature, such as the work of
Lu Xun, collectively known as "
Vernacular Chinese". Vernacular Chinese, the standard written form of modern Chinese, is in turn based loosely upon a mixture of northern (predominant), southern, and
classical grammar and usage. This gives formal standard Mandarin structure a slightly different feel from that of street Beijing dialect.
In theory the Republic of China defines standard Mandarin differently, though in reality the differences are minor and are concentrated mostly in the
tones of a small minority of words.
Although Chinese speakers make a clear distinction between Standard Mandarin and the Beijing dialect, there are aspects of Beijing dialect that have made it into the official standard. Standard Mandarin has a
T-V distinction between the polite and informal versions of you that comes from Beijing dialect. In addition, there is a distinction between
"zánmen" (
we including the listener) and
"w'men" (
we not including the listener). In practice, the latter distinction is almost never used by most Chinese.
The national standard can be very different from a local Mandarin speech, to the point of being unintelligible. In addition, since standard Mandarin is spoken as a second language across most of
China, it is also very common for two people who both believe themselves to be speaking Chinese to require a translator. Nevertheless, efforts by the PRC, ROC, and Singapore to promote standard Mandarin as the standard tongue have greatly boosted the number of standard Mandarin speakers.
To the dismay of non-Mandarin speakers, the predominant role of standard Mandarin has led to the common misidentification of Mandarin as the only "
Chinese language". Although both Mainland China and Taiwan use standard Mandarin as the official language and Mainland China is keen to promote its nationwide use as a national language of communication, there is hardly any official intent in either location to have standard Mandarin replace local dialects, and as a practical matter, standard Mandarin still does not supplant the local dialects that are in use, particularly in the southern provinces of Mainland China or on Taiwan. Speaking only standard Mandarin in these areas is sometimes regarded as a significant social handicap; some Chinese language speakers there, particularly the elderly, while having no problem understanding do not speak standard Mandarin fluently. This situation appears to be changing, though, especially in large urban centers, as social changes, migrations, and urbanization take place.
In the predominantly
Han areas in
Mainland China, the interaction between standard Mandarin and the local Chinese dialects has generally not been controversial. Although the use of standard Mandarin is encouraged as the common working language, the People's Republic of China has attempted to be sensitive to the status of local dialects and has not discouraged their use. One example of this is
Mao Zedong himself, who often spoke in
Xiang, a category of Chinese that does not even fall within the wider category of regional
Mandarin dialects. Many native speakers of Chinese find Mao's spoken language to be largely incomprehensible, even when speaking in formal occasions.
Standard Mandarin, however, is used very commonly for logistical reasons in that it is often the only means of communications between people from different areas. In many parts of southern China, the linguistic diversity is so large that even people from neighboring cities find it difficult to talk to each other in the local form of Chinese, thereby requiring the use of a
lingua franca such as standard Mandarin. Curiously the use of standard Mandarin in the 20th century has supplanted the use of
pidgin English which was used as a common language in some parts of southern China in the 18th and 19th century.
In Taiwan, the relationship between standard Mandarin and local dialects, particularly
Taiwanese has been more heated. Until the
1980s the government discouraged the use of Taiwanese and other vernaculars, even portraying them as being inferior. This is all due to the
Kuomintang's control over Taiwan during the early days of their escape from losing to
Mao Zedong.
Kuomintang was composed of mainland Chinese people who could not speak any Taiwanese. Although they were the minority, because the mainland Chinese people were the only type of people in the early Republic of China government, they were able to setup laws and regulations to curb the speaking of
Taiwanese. For example in public places or in schools, the
Kuomintang forbid the speaking of
Taiwanese. This produced a backlash in the
1990s. Although some more extreme supporters of
Taiwan independence tend to be opposed to standard Mandarin in favor of Taiwanese, efforts to replace standard Mandarin either with Taiwanese or with a multi-lingual standard have remained stalled. However, currently in schools,
Taiwanese is being taught as an individual class, with its own textbooks and course material. The president,
Chen Shui-Bian breaks into
Taiwanese during his speeches. The former president,
Lee Teng-hui when interviewed in the media, also speaks
Taiwanese when replying to interviewers.
In Singapore, the government has heavily promoted a "Speak Mandarin" campaign to adopt a common language among its diverse Chinese population. The use of non-Mandarin dialects in broadcast media is prohibited and the use of dialect in any context is officially discouraged. This has led to some resentment, as Singapore's Chinese community is almost entirely of southern Chinese descent and thus considers Mandarin a foreign language.
Lee Kuan Yew, the initiator of the campaign, himself admitted that to Singaporeans, Mandarin was a "stepmother tongue" rather than a true mother language. Nevertheless, he saw the need for a unified Chinese language among the Chinese Singaporean community, and closed down the dialect-teaching Chinese schools and banned dialects from broadcast (except while he was campaigning politically).
[Lee Kuan Yew (2000). From Third World to First: The Singapore Story: 1965-2000. HarperCollins. ISBN 0060197765.]Note that while the term
Hàny" (漢語; simplified: 汉语), or "the
Han Chinese language", is sometimes used to refer to just standard Mandarin, it is more precisely used to refer to all variants of Chinese, since they are, after all, all spoken by
Han Chinese. Some speakers of
Hakka, for example, object that their own dialect should carry the name
Hanyu, as its grammar is closer to that of ancient texts.
See also:
*
Commission on the Unification of Pronunciation*
Mandarin Promotion Council*
Speak Mandarin CampaignAccents
Most Chinese (Beijingers included) speak Standard Mandarin with elements of their own dialects (i.e. their "accents") mixed in.
For example, natives of Beijing, add a final "er" () — commonly used as a
diminutive — sound to vocabulary items that other speakers would leave unadorned ('音/儿音; pinyin: éryīn).
On the other hand, speakers from northeastern and southern China as well as Taiwan often mix up zh and z, ch and c, sh and s, h and f, and l and n because their own home dialects often do not make these distinctions.
See
List of Chinese dialects for a list of articles on individual Chinese dialects and how their features differ from Standard Mandarin.
From an official point of view, standard Mandarin is theoretically something like a
lingua franca — a way for speakers of the many mutually unintelligible
Han Chinese dialects/languages, as well as the Han and
non-Han ethnic groups to communicate with each other. The very name of "Putonghua", or "common speech", reinforces this idea. In practice, however, due to standard Mandarin being a lingua franca and a "public" language, other languages or dialects, both
Han and non-Han, have shown signs of losing ground to standard Mandarin, to the chagrin of many local culture proponents.
On Taiwan,
Guoyu (national language) continues to be the official term for standard Mandarin. The term
Guoyu is rarely used in
Mainland China, because declaring a Beijing-dialect-based standard to be the national language would be deemed unfair to other Chinese dialects and ethnic minorities. The term
Putonghua (ordinary speech), on the contrary, implies nothing more than the notion of a
lingua franca. However,
Guoyu does persist among many older Mainland Chinese, and it is common in U.S. Chinese communities, even among Mainlanders. Some in Taiwan, especially proponents of
Taiwan independence, also object to the term
Guoyu to refer to standardized Mandarin, on the grounds that the "nation" referred to in the name of the language is China and that Taiwan is or should be independent. They prefer to refer to Mandarin with the terms "Beijing dialect" or
Zhongwen (writing of China). As with most things
political in Taiwan, some support the name for precisely the same reasons that others oppose them.
In December
2004, the first survey of
language use in the
People's Republic of China revealed that only 53% of its population could communicate in Standard Mandarin.
(China Daily)*
Mandarin (linguistics)*
Beijing dialect*
Chinese grammar*
Mandarin slang* Anon,
Reform of the Chinese Written Language, Foreign Languages Press, (Peking), 1958.
* Chao, Y.R.,
A Grammar of Spoken Chinese, University of California Press, (Berkeley), 1968.
* Chappell, H., "The Romanization Debate",
Australian Journal of Chinese Affairs, No.4, (July 1980), pp.105-118.
* Chen, P., "Phonetization of Chinese", pp.164-190 in Chen, P.,
Modern Chinese: History and Sociolinguistics, Cambridge University Press, (Cambridge), 1999.
* DeFrancis, J.,
Nationalism and Language Reform in China, Princeton University Press, (Princeton), 1950.
* Hsia, T.,
China's Language Reforms, Far Eastern Publications, Yale University, (New Haven), 1956.
* Ladefoged, Peter; & Maddieson, Ian. (1996).
The sounds of the world's languages. Oxford: Blackwell Publishers. ISBN 0-631-19814-8 (hbk); ISBN 0-631-19815-6 (pbk).
* Ladefoged, Peter; & Wu, Zhongji. (1984). Places of articulation: An investigation of Pekingese fricatives and affricates.
Journal of Phonetics,
12, 267-278.
* Lehmann, W.P. (ed.),
Language & Linguistics in the People's Republic of China, University of Texas Press, (Austin), 1975.
* Lin, Y.,
Lin Yutang's Chinese-English Dictionary of Modern Usage, The Chinese University of Hong Kong, 1972.
* Milsky, C., "New Developments in Language Reform",
The China Quarterly, No.53, (January-March 1973), pp.98-133.
* Norman, J.,
Chinese, Cambridge University Press, (Cambridge), 1988.
* Ramsey, R.S.(1987). The Languages of China. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. ISBN 069101468X
* San Duanmu (2000)
The Phonology of Standard Chinese ISBN 0-19-824120-8
* Seybolt, P.J. & Chiang, G.K. (eds.),
Language Reform in China: Documents and Commentary, M.E. Sharpe, (White Plains), 1979.
* Simon, W.,
A Beginners' Chinese-English Dictionary Of The National Language (Gwoyeu): Fourth Revised Edition, Lund Humphries, (London), 1975.
* Stalin, J.V., "Concerning Marxism in Linguistics",
Pravda, Moscow, (20 June, 1950), simultaneously published in Chinese in
Renmin Ribao, English translation: Stalin, J.V.,
Marxism and Problems of Linguistics, Foreign Languages Press, (Peking), 1972.
* Wu, Y., "Report on the Current Tasks of Reforming the Written Language and the Draft Scheme for a Chinese Phonetic Alphabet", pp.30-54 in Anon,
Reform of the Chinese Written Language, Foreign Languages Press, (Peking), 1958.
* Zhou, E., "Current Tasks of Reforming the Written Language", pp.7-29 in Anon,
Reform of the Chinese Written Language, Foreign Languages Press, (Peking), 1958.
* Zhou, E., "The Immediate Tasks in Writing Reform", pp.228-243 in Seybolt, P.J. & Chiang, G.K. (eds.),
Language Reform in China: Documents and Commentary, M.E. Sharpe, (White Plains), 1979.
*
How is Chinese written in braille?
