Other transliteration systems?

[Bob161]

I was reading an article about some German tombstones they found in Qindao and they mentioned a German colonist who created a sort of German equivalent to the Wade-Giles system. I've seen the Wade-Giles system and, of course, the official pinyin. Does anyone know of any other transliteration systems that they tried, before Pinyin (and Wade-Giles before that)?

[renzhe]

You'll have to sort them according to dates, but there are:

Latin alphabet:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Legge_romanization

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_Postal_Map_Romanization

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wade-Giles

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Simplified_Wade

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gwoyeu_Romatzyh

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pinyin

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tongyong_pinyin

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mandarin_Phonetic_Symbols_II

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/EFEO_chinese_transcription

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Latinxua_Sin_Wenz

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yale_Romanization#Mandarin

Non-Latin alphabets:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zhuyin

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cyrillization_of_Chinese_from_pinyin

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xiao'erjing

This is for Mandarin only, look around the wiki for other dialects. Here is a comparison chart:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_Chinese_romanization_systems

[Bob161]

wow!

Quick and to the point!

Very nice! Thanks

[OneEye]

There's a good little book called "A Manual of Transcription Systems for Chinese/中文拼音手冊" by Ching-Song Gene Hsiao (Far Eastern Publications, Yale University) that has comparative tables for several different systems (Wade-Giles, Pinyin, Yale, Gwoyeu Romatzyh, and Zhuyin Fuhao). It's pretty handy when I run across something I'm unfamiliar with.

[Bob161]

after a quick review of the Wikipages, I'm not sure why the yale system didn't catch on. It seems pretty straight forward.

[chrix]

it's a great list, renzhe, but unfortunately neither was developed by Germans. Here's one that was developed by Germans, and it might be the one in question: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lessing-Othmer

[renzhe]

after a quick review of the Wikipages, I'm not sure why the yale system didn't catch on. It seems pretty straight forward.

...for Americans with zero training.

Pinyin beats it in basically every other aspect, like consistency.

[Jose]

Pinyin beats it in basically every other aspect, like consistency.

I think this is a very moot point. I actually find Yale more straightforward than pinyin (or zhuyin) in several aspects.

[chrix]

We seem to be running into this debate with any type of transliteration

I personally think that hanyu pinyin is not the best system, but we just need to face the reality of its predominance. I mean just because English spelling sucks, we won't just be able to use a reformed system if no-one follows...

[renzhe]

I think that many transcription systems beat Hanyu Pinyin in one or two aspects, but taken all the requirements as a whole, Pinyin is the best transcription system out there, IMHO.

Some things that are desirable:

- internal consistency

- ease of learning / intuitiveness

- writing economy

- correspondence to linguistic concepts of Mandarin, such as initials and finals

- consistent and intuitive treatment of tones

- few new graphemes

- wide range of applicability: from romanisation to input methods

- wide acceptance

You could say that Gwoyeu Romatzyh has an advantage because it doesn't require diacritics, but this is offset by a much steeper learning curve. You could claim that Zhuyin is more straight-forward once learned, but it can't romanise words. You could claim that Yale is easier for an untrained speaker of English, but it lacks the writing economy and correspondence to initials and finals of Pinyin (take for example jwan - jywan: either wan stands for two different finals or j for two different initials -- though pinyin is also odd here because üan is written as uan after j).

Basically, there are many trade-offs and, all things considered, Pinyin wins hands-down, IMO.

[Hofmann]

English spelling sucks

Or you can look at it from the point of view that English pronunciations sucks. Once upon a time, English speakers wouldn't say [oʊ] whenever they saw "o." e.g. 我是美國人 [woʊ ʃi mei gwoʊ ɻɛn]

[Bob161]

I don't think it's a matter of spelling or pronunciation sucking.

The same problems arise when one tries to transliterate from hebrew, or arabic or cyrillic or any other system. It's never going to be perfect when you're jamming unusual sounds into a preexisting system.

[atitarev]

The same problems arise when one tries to transliterate from Hebrew, or Arabic or Cyrillic or any other system.

If the transliteration was consistent, less people had doubts about how words are pronounced in the original languages. The city of Ярославль - Yaroslavl in Russian is romanised as Yaroslavl', Jaroslawl' or Iaroslavl', depending on which language is used. Челябинск - Chelyabinsk is worse (expand Translations tab).

The major advantage of Pinyin over these 3 - widespread acceptance. You hardly see any other transliteration in mainland China any more. Other Mandarin speaking places are catching up, even Taiwan and Singapore (still issues with place names).

[Bob161]

It's pretty handy to be able to say "This is the new way. No more anything else." And 1/6th of the world instantly says "what ever you say."

[atitarev]

It's pretty handy to be able to say "This is the new way. No more anything else." And 1/6th of the world instantly says "what ever you say."

Some lack of democracy works positively for a language like Mandarin, don't you agree. Imagine China split into hundreds of standard "hua" with their own transliteration and even writing systems? India and the Arab world are the examples of the opposite. More importantly, Hanyu Pinyin is generally accepted by Chinese learners overseas, they don't have to listen to the Chinese government.

[chrix]

atitarev, standardisation of language and democracy are not necessarily correlates.. Plenty of dictatorships have not cared about regulating their language, and many democracies have tightly regulated standards. Case in point: French, which has almost succeeded in weeding out all the dialects of the country, and this consistently through the ages, regardless of the political system.

So let's keep this strawman argument out of the debate...

[atitarev]

That's my humble opinion and observation, not a rule set in stone, Chrix, echoing what the previous post said. Do I have the right to express it? France wasn't so democratic in terms of destroying all dialects, even if it has been a democracy for a long time. My point is - a strict (read: harsh) language policy, not necessarily related to the political system.

[renzhe]

It's pretty handy to be able to say "This is the new way. No more anything else." And 1/6th of the world instantly says "what ever you say."

Don't you think that's a bit condescending towards the Chinese people?

Contrary to popular belief, not everyone in China is a mindless drone.

[atitarev]

Contrary to popular belief, not everyone in China is a mindless drone.

True. The other point is - language unification and standardisation is rather popular among people, not necessarily because the government says so.

[chrix]

yes atitarev, sure, you can express your opinion. Then let me express mine:

I personally find this line of reasoning not too ideal because:

- it sounds apologetic of dictatorships

- it sounds like it is opposed to the concept of cultural and linguistic diversity.

OK, let's not further derail this thread.