Re: Bopomofo and pinyin

On Thu, 20 Jan 2000, FFlores wrote:

> You wouldn't believe this. I was helping my mother in
> the small library where she works (while her cousin,
> the owner, is on vacation) and among a pile of old,
> obviously impopular books (at $2 each) I found a book
> of Chinese lessons in English. Mainly drills and patterns,
> but interesting nevertheless.
>
Care to describe it a little closer? Is the binding red?

> So far I've seen two styles: the one used in the book,
> where the name of China is written "Junggwo", and another
> one where it's "Chungkuo" and apparently aspirated stops
> are marked with an apostrophe (as in "T'ang"). Which one
> is Pinyin, and what is the other?
>
I guess the first is Gwoyeuh Romaneutz (although I'm sure I've spelled
it wrong - it's very interesting as a system, since it spells the
tones with letters, instead of accents), the second Wade-Giles.

When I first came across Pinyin I thought it was so nice and clean
that I immediately made a conlang that was transcribed with a
similar system.

Bopomofo is still used in Taiwan, where in children's books unfamiliar
characters are transcribed in bopomofo. I don't know of any on-line
resources, but most Taiwanese dictionaries have a bopomofo table. I
believe it's also part of Unicode.


Boudewijn Rempt  | http://www.valdyas.org