Re: USAGE: Yet another try at Pinyin-compatible tonal spelling for Mandarin

At the risk of sounding pedantic, to summarize:

Taiwan and Taipei in Pinyin, Wade-Giles, Gwoyeu Romatzyh, and John Cowan (I'll use
numbers for tone marks in Pinyin):

PY: Tai2wan1 Tai2bei3
WG: T'ai2-wan1 T'ai2-pei3
GR: Tair'uan Tairbeei
JC: Taiwaan Taibeeih

And John's original sample sentence (and I won't even attempt WG, the least
intuitive of these systems, IMHO):

JC: (Cong) waihbiaan jinhlaile yi ge ren liaangh ge hong yaanhjing, yi fuh dah
yuan liaanh, daih zhe yi ge xiaaoh maohzi, taa xingh Xiah.

PY: (Cong2) wai4bian1 jin4lai2le yi1ge ren2 liang2ge hong2 yan3jing1, yi1fu4 da4
yuan2 lian3, dai4zhe yi1ge xiao3 mao4zi, ta1 xing4 Xia4.

GR: Waybian jinnlairle ige ren leangge horng yeanjing, ifuh dah yuan lean, dayje
ige sheau mawtzy, ta shinq Shiah.


In GR, I had a little trouble spelling everything correctly, but I don't have any
trouble reading it. However, I shudder to think how Chinese names would come
out if you printed the GR spelling in an English newspaper.

Does anyone still use Yale?

-WW

On Thu, 20 September 2001, John Cowan wrote:

>
> Adam Walker wrote:
>
> > Umm.  same "tai" in both cases.  Perhaps you meant Taibei.  But like I said
> > earlier.  I don't think the official names of "well known" places will
> > change.
>
>
> *ARRGH*  /me swats skull
>
> --
> Not to perambulate             || John Cowan <jcowan@...>
>     the corridors               || http://www.reutershealth.com
> during the hours of repose     || http://www.ccil.org/~cowan
>     in the boots of ascension.  \\ Sign in Austrian ski-resort hotel