Pinyin Discussion

After some time away from the forums, I have been reading this thread and I think the point raised by Weiming is an interesting one. While I disagree with Weiming's idea that non-Latin systems of transcription are necessarily better, I have to agree that hanyu pinyin is not a perfect system, at least for us foreign learners of the language.

I think when people say that hanyu pinyin is a perfect system, what they mean is that it is a consistent system, inasfar as it represents all the sounds of Mandarin Chinese in an unambiguous way. This is true, but it is also true of all the major transcription systems. I don't think hanyu pinyin is perfect, however. In fact, there are at least five features of the system that, in my opinion, are very misleading for the student of Chinese:

1. The finals "you", "wei" and "wen" are written as "-iu", "-ui" and "-un" after a consonant.

I think Weiming is right that pinyin can be misleading in these cases. Of course, people who are extremely knowledgeable in Chinese and in pinyin, like the users of this forum, will think that this is clear and obvious to everyone, but, in my experience, it isn't. I have come across students of Chinese who pronounce the syllables "diu", "dui" and "dun" as a sort of "dyoo", "dwee" and "doon". Now the question is, if these syllables were spelt "dyou", "dwei" and "dwen" would these students pronounce them in the same way? Probably not. The sound in the Chinese character 对 will, of course, be the same whether we choose to represent it as "dui", "tui", "dwei", "dwee", "dway", or "jxhcrtyfg" for that matter. But the point is that the choice in romanisation can actually affect a student's perception of a sound. That happens to me at least.

2. You write "-o" after b, p, f and m, and "-uo" after all other consonants.

This rule creates an artificial difference in what is essentially the same vowel. Students of Chinese can be misled into thinking that there may be a *"muo" syllable different from "mo" or that there may be a syllable *"no" different from "nuo". Of course, Chinese speakers will never make that mistake because they instinctively know the inventory of syllables in their native tongue. Here I agree with Weiming again. Native speakers will never think that there may be "bo" and *"buo" or *"lo" and "luo" as distinct syllables, but a foreign learner may not realise straight away that -o and -uo are essentially the same vowel.

I think this difference is a legacy from bopomofo (zhuyin fuhao), which comes to show that the latter is not an optimal system of transcription either.

3. "-i" stands for a pure "ee" vowel as in "yi" after b, p, d, t, j, q, l, m, n and x. It stands for a completely different sound, the so-called empty rhyme, after zh, ch, s, sh, c, z, and r (a slightly different allophone for the last three ones).

Again, this can be misleading to the foreign student, who has to look at the preceding consonant to know how to pronounce i.

4. The vowel ü is written simply as u in the syllables yu, ju, qu and xu.

This is a similar case of a use of a vowel with two different values, as in 3 above. The rules of hanyu pinyin say that because these consonants are never followed by the "u" (as in "wu") vowel, the two dots can be left out for economy. This may be fine for native speakers, but it is misleading for foreign students, who need to keep in mind that yu, ju, qu and xu are to be read as yü, jü, qü and xü, with the same vowel as in lü and nü.

5. The double use of "i" and "u", as explained in 3 and 4 above, conceals the fact that "j", "q" and "x" are mere allophones, and not distinctive phonemes of the language.

This is an interesting issue, and I think I may start a new thread on the subject at some point. Basically, I think "j", "q" and "x" are not real phonemes, but just allophones, as these consonants are only used with the front vowels "i" and "ü". In fact, "j" can be seen as a merged allophone of "z" and "zh" (and historically "g") preceding a front vowel; "q" can be seen as a merged allophone of "c" and "ch" (and historically "k"), and "x" can be seen as a merged allophone of "s" and "sh" (and historically "h"). Significantly, older systems like Gwoyeu Romatzyh and Latinxua Sinwenz do not have separate letters for these sounds. Wade-Giles only differentiates "x", which it represents as "hs", a much wiser choice as it shows more clearly that it is merely a variant of the s/sh pair. In hanyu pinyin, the choice of three completely different consonants for these allophones may make the student of Chinese think that there are more distinctive sounds in the language that there really are. Again, here hanyu pinyin is as misleading as bopomofo, from which it probably takes the idea of giving a separate status to these allophones.

Those are my main criticisms of the hanyu pinyin system. Some of them, like the use of qu for qü, would be very easy to correct. But then, this is mainly an academic discussion. The fact is that hanyu pinyin has become the sole international standard for Chinese romanisation, and it makes sense to adhere to it. I just think students should be warned about some of its potentially misleading features, like the ones I have tried to describe above.

Thanks to Jose for your very clear explaination - that's really helped my understanding of pinyin! I'd say that mapping the same roman characters to different sounds for different languages is no problem. It's just something you have to learn. But the inconsistencies that Jose has pointed out have caused me a few extra troubles in the learning process.

I think when people say that hanyu pinyin is a perfect system, what they mean is that it is a consistent system, inasfar as it represents all the sounds of Mandarin Chinese in an unambiguous way. This is true, but it is also true of all the major transcription systems. I don't think hanyu pinyin is perfect, however. In fact, there are at least five features of the system that, in my opinion, are very misleading for the student of Chinese

I agree the irregular spellings in pinyin can be confusing, they really need to be explained to students of Chinese. I’m not sure that most teachers are even aware of them, most textbooks don’t seem to mention it, you have to look in a book that is specifically about pinyin.

1. The finals "you", "wei" and "wen" are written as "-iu", "-ui" and "-un" after a consonant.

The reason given is that these are spelling convention used to separate syllables, if all the syllables in pinyin were written separately then they wouldn’t needed. "You", "wei" and "wen" are actually “iou”, “uei” and “uen”, eg “wenyan” is actually “uenian”. “Y” and “w” in pinyin don’t represent sounds.

But that seems to suggest “you” (iou) and “liu” (liou) should rhyme, I’m not sure they do.

2. You write "-o" after b, p, f and m, and "-uo" after all other consonants.

I still don’t understand the reason for this.

3. "-i" stands for a pure "ee" vowel as in "yi" after b, p, d, t, j, q, l, m, n and x. It stands for a completely different sound, the so-called empty rhyme, after zh, ch, s, sh, c, z, and r (a slightly different allophone for the last three ones).

5. The double use of "i" and "u", as explained in 3 and 4 above, conceals the fact that "j", "q" and "x" are mere allophones, and not distinctive phonemes of the language.

This is an interesting issue, and I think I may start a new thread on the subject at some point. Basically, I think "j", "q" and "x" are not real phonemes, but just allophones, as these consonants are only used with the front vowels "i" and "ü". In fact, "j" can be seen as a merged allophone of "z" and "zh" (and historically "g") preceding a front vowel; "q" can be seen as a merged allophone of "c" and "ch" (and historically "k"), and "x" can be seen as a merged allophone of "s" and "sh" (and historically "h"). Significantly, older systems like Gwoyeu Romatzyh and Latinxua Sinwenz do not have separate letters for these sounds. Wade-Giles only differentiates "x", which it represents as "hs", a much wiser choice as it shows more clearly that it is merely a variant of the s/sh pair. In hanyu pinyin, the choice of three completely different consonants for these allophones may make the student of Chinese think that there are more distinctive sounds in the language that there really are. Again, here hanyu pinyin is as misleading as bopomofo, from which it probably takes the idea of giving a separate status to these allophones.

I’m not sure "j", "q" and "x" can be descibed as allophones, they are definitely phonemes, eg “ji”, “qi” and “xi”, if you change the “j” in “ji” to “q” it’s a completely different word.

Hi, zixingche. Thanks for your comments.

I completely agree with what you say about pinyin often not being explained to students well. That happened to me when I started studying Chinese a long time ago. If i had had a teacher who had told me, for example, that xu is pronounced xü, that would have saved me maybe a couple of years of mispronunciations.

I particularly wanted to comment on:

I’m not sure "j", "q" and "x" can be descibed as allophones, they are definitely phonemes, eg “ji”, “qi” and “xi”, if you change the “j” in “ji” to “q” it’s a completely different word.

My point was not that these sounds are allophones of one another, but that they can be regarded as allophones of other sounds.

For example, in the case of "x", this sound can be regarded as an allophone of both s and sh. Under hanyu pinyin this would seem to be refuted by the groups si/shi/xi, su/shu/xu, sun/shun/xun and suan/shuan/xuan. But this is due to the double value of i and u in pinyin. To see what I mean, I will modify pinyin for the sake of this discussion by adopting the following convention:

1. I will use ø for the empty rhime, and keep the i just for the "ee" sound. This means that in my modified system pinyin bi, pi, ci, zi, chi, zhi, ji, qi di, ti, li, mi, ni, ri, si, shi, xi now become bi, pi, cø, zø, chø, zhø, ji, qi, di, ti, li, mi, ni, rø, sø, shø, xi.

More complex finals like -ia, -ie, -i(o)u, -ian, -iang, -iong would of course keep the i.

2. I will consistently use u for the wu sound and ü for the "French u" sound. This means that pinyin bu, pu, cu, zu, chu, zhu, ju, qu, du, tu, fu, gu, ku, hu, lu, lü, mu, nu, nü, ru, su, shu, xu, wu, yu now become bu, pu, cu, zu, chu, zhu, jü, qü, du, tu, fu, gu, ku, hu, lu, lü, mu, nu, nü, ru, su, shu, xü, wu, yü

If we consider more complex finals, like -ue and -uan, we would also get jüe, qüe, xüe, yüe and jüan, qüan, xüan, yüan, differing from pinyin.

Now I started by saying that "x" could be regarded as an allophone of "sh" or "s" (take your pick), and this is clearly seen now because x is always followed by either i or ü, whereas s and sh can only be followed by ø and u.

Schematically:

Middle and back vowels                   front vowels

sa     se     [...]   sø    su   

                                         xi   xü  
                                   /
sha    she    [...]   shø    shu    

In the above graphical representation we can see how the contrast between the two sounds s and sh simply goes away in front of the vowels i and ü. So, whereas when saying a sibilant consonant in front of "a" one needs to be able to distinguish between sa and sha, when uttering a sibilant consonant in front of i or ü, a Chinese listener will always interpret that as xi and xü, no matter how accurate your pronunciation. This is good news for the student of Chinese: You can pronounce x as an English s, as an English sh or anything half-way betwen those two sounds, and what you say will sound like xi or xü. If you get the vowel right, there is no possible confusion.

In fact, we could even get rid of the x altogether and write the affected pinyin syllables as shi, shü, shian, shiang, shiong, shüan, shüe (or si, sü, ..., if you prefer). The system would be perfectly consistent and, in my opinion, would have more logical simplicity. Learners who want to sound like natives should just remember that the articulation of the s/sh consonant is nearer the front of the mouth when followed by these two front vowel sounds. Somehow the articulation is pushed forward by the need to pronounce a vowel at the front of the mouth, which makes sense.

Something similar happens with j and q. Because j is non-aspirated and q aspirated they can be seen as matches of the z/zh and c/ch pairs respectively. Again, we can represent this schematically:

Middle and back vowels                   front vowels

za     ze     [...]   zø    zu   

                                         ji   jü  
                                   /
zha    zhe    [...]   zhø    zhu    


ca     ce     [...]   cø    cu   

                                         qi   qü  
                                   /
cha    che    [...]   chø    chu    

Again, with this modified form of pinyin it would be perfectly plausible to get rid of j and q altogether and write the affected pinyin syllables with zh and ch or with z and c. The learner aiming at phonetic perfection would need to remember to bring forward in the mouth the articulation of these two consonants when a front vowel follows.

An interesting point is that the consonants h, g and k are never followed by i or ü. Apparently syllables like hi, hü, gi, gü and ki, kü have existed historically and exist in other Chinese dialects, but in Mandarin they have merged with xi, xü, ji, jü and qi, qü. To my ears, these sounds are extremely different form x, j and q, but this may not have been so in the past or in other forms of Chinese. This explains why the "hi" syllable in names like Hillary or Hitler becomes "xi" in the Chinese renderings of such names.

With this last observation in mind, we can enlarge the previous graphic representations to include h, g and k as well:

Middle and back vowels                   front vowels

sa     se     [...]   sø    su   

sha    she    [...]   shø   shu    --    xi   xü  
                                   /
ha     he     [...]         hu    


za     ze     [...]   zø    zu   

zha    zhe    [...]   zhø   zhu    --    ji   jü  
                                   /
ga     ge     [...]         gu    


ca     ce     [...]   cø    cu   

cha    che    [...]   chø   chu    --    qi   qü  
                                   /
ka     ke     [...]         ku    

The above explanation sums up what I meant in my fifth criticism of pinyin in my previous post in this thread, namely, that j, q and x are not essential phonemes of the language, since they can be regarded as variants of other phonemes when followed by the front vowels i and ü. Both hanyu pinyin and zhuyin fuhao assign three different symbols to these three sounds, which, in my opinion, may be confusing for learners, especially when teachers and textbooks tend not to explain these correspondences between sounds at all.

Hi Jose,

Wow! That’s an amazing post.

My point was not that these sounds are allophones of one another, but that they can be regarded as allophones of other sounds.

Sorry I misunderstood what you wrote, I think I know what you are getting at. I’m not a linguistics graduate, I only studied it for half a year. I just got out my copy of “Chinese” by Jerry Norman, on page 140 there is a short section: “Phonemic status of the palatals” (j, q, x). He wrote, “this has posed one of the classic problems of phonemic analysis”, then mentions 3 works (1944-1957) which considered them to be allophones. So it seems this “problem” has been around for some time.

I have that book by Jerry Norman too, and I think it is a great book. Another similar book I would recommend is "Modern Chinese" by Ping Chen. It also deals with sociolinguistic aspects of the language. Both are high on the list of my favourite books about the Chinese language.

Have split the above posts out of the original Pinyin epic, as I think they deserve a bit more attention.