ㄖㄨㄟ ㄙㄡ ㄙㄡ ㄒ一 ㄉㄡ ㄒ一

[wontonsoup]

i was looking at lyrics for a jay chou song called 晴天

and in the middle of the lyrics it says

ㄖㄨㄟ ㄙㄡ ㄙㄡ ㄒ一 ㄉㄡ ㄒ一

re sou sou xi dou xi

ㄌㄚ ㄙㄡ ㄌㄚ ㄒ一 ㄒ一 ㄒ一 ㄒ一 ㄌㄚ ㄒ一 ㄌㄚ ㄙㄡ

la sou la xi xi xi xi la xi la sou

(*note: there is no translation for these two lines, they're merely a musical scale such as do re mi fa so la...)

i get they don't have meaning, but are these characters chinese? or japanese?

and i don't understand how the pinyin underneath matches the characters up top.

[Ding Yiyi]

This is a type of "Romanization" of sorts called Zhuyin also known as "Bopomofo" (after the first four characters in the standard sequence). Hope that helps!

[wontonsoup]

i've just read about zhuyin, now i understad how the pinyin links to the characters

but are these of chinese origin or jap?

[Ding Yiyi]

They're Chinese, it's the official romanization scheme for Taiwan (Republic of China).

[wontonsoup]

are they maybe also used by te japanese too?

and also, before the japanese started using some chinese characters, did they have a writing system?

or do they addopt zhuyin as well as kanji from the chinese at the same time?

[pandaxiongmao]

Not the same - Japanese Katakana is not the same as Chinese Zhuyin. Some of them look the same (though with different phonetics) because they are both based on pieces of Chinese characters. They are both based off of the sounds of the characters they resemble in their respective languages.

Japanese Katakana was invented long before Chinese Zhuyin, in the 9th century. Buddhist monks used it to make it easier to read Chinese texts by noting the pronunciation in Katakana. Now it is used for foreign loan words, quoting people, and for onomatopoeia. Japanese Hiragana is used today to show the pronunciation of Chinese characters in modern texts. It is also the written language for Ainu speakers (a minority group in Japan).

Chinese Zhuyin Fuhao wasn't invented until the early 20th century, and wasn't finalised until 1918. It is the phonetic system used in Taiwan (rather than Pinyin). It is also used to write the indigenous languages of Taiwan, with some additions for phonetics that do not exist in Mandarin Chinese.

Japanese hiragana is also based off of Chinese characters, though it came a little after katakana. I am not aware of the Japanese having any writing system prior to the introduction of Chinese characters in Japan.

[Gulao]

It's not romanization. It is a Chinese phonetic orthography. It is used in Taiwan, primarily.

[atitarev]

That's right. Romanisation is based on "Roman" or Latin letters, using letters A, B, C, etc.

Zhuyin Fuhao - Hanyu Pinyin comparison:

http://www.pinyin.info/romanization/bopomofo/basic.html

http://www.pinyin.info

[Ding Yiyi]

Sorry, I used "Romanization" instead of "Phoneticization" thinking that no one would get too nit-picky.