Go Hanyu Pinyin, No Tongyong Pinyin (old page)

(See also a more Mature version of this page.)

[Photo: Taiwan Daily News header]

Above: 1999.4.5 p.1, Taiwan Daily News: Dan Jacobson pushes Hanyu Pinyin for street sign romanization...

Education policy recommendations

Aside from removing Dr. Yu's inbred clutter from road signs, I recommend

  1. Hanyu Pinyin for all levels of place names:

    Taipei -> Taibei, Kaohsiung -> Gaoxiong.

  2. Introduce middle school students to Hanyu Pinyin:

    Johnny, do you know how to spell your name?

Endless argument

Go Hanyu Pinyin, no Tongyong Pinyin. I wish market forces would prevent similar incidents from happening again. Anyways, schemes to interfere with human communication will fail in the end.

[Photo: In front of Taibei City Government]

Photo: Me and "Tongyong Pinyin" perpetrator Yu Boquan, 1998. We are both thumbs up over the spelling of his "ShiFu Rd." sign. But wait: now he wants to climb back up and add an "h" but mayor Ma won't let him. note.

Thanks Taibei mayor Ma for listening to we "foreigners", unlike his 2002 opponent Li Yingyuan.

(However in 2007 Ma objected to changing postage stamps to say "Taiwan". So he is not that wonderful.)

We foreigners, to learn Chinese, spend countless hours memorizing Hanyu Pinyin, just like one has memorized numerals 123..., and use it for many years. When along comes a clown and clown government, to crack jokes and play games. Taking the system that we spent so much time ingraining into our brains, and making a phony look alike, disorganizing the deep layers of the brain, like as if they redefined the meaning of red/green traffic lights.

You see, the those in charge (of the federal government) here in Taiwan have a hard time accepting the Hanyu Pinyin Chinese romanization system for bilingual street signs, because that system reminds them of China perhaps. Therefore they must add their "value added services", Tongyong Pinyin, which amounts to mangling a few letters of Hanyu Pinyin.

[Photo: Deng Yingyu, Dan Jacobson, Yu Boquan] Photo: that day in 1998 when Yu Boquan invited me and my wife to Xinguang Tower. Enlargement of Yu Boquan suitable for most wanted posters.

Q: What were you doing taking snapshots with the "Tongyong" mastermind, might you be one of his co-conspirators?

A: That was our first meeting. He tried to get me to become one of his followers.

What about finally using "2004" etc. instead of "ROC 93" year names? Why doesn't the Taiwan government fix that first?

Chronology

2005: Yu BQ now works at a university in Luzhu, Taoyuan County. After getting excused or whatever from Academia Sinica, he sued them for excusing him...
2003.6 They wanted to lynch Dr. Yu.
2003.6
2003.4.20 "" "Shihcyu"
2003.1.25 City and county will be called "Chiayi"

Bzzzt. Guess again, fools. It's right there on your Tongyong chart too.

2003.1.15 Fun to ensue after Mandarin Board reorg. [Chinese]
2002.10.4 Yu changes the name Tongyong Pinyin to Taiwan Pinyin

He has changed the name before. He'll change it back in a few days.

2002.8.14

Mainly I'm saying that Tongyong Pinyin is anti-love, anti-human. They are taking a good idea: saying no to the current government of China, and mistakenly turning it against the people: we Hanyu Pinyin users, causing even supporters of Taiwan Independence like me, to wish for another switch of ruling parties.

This is because in their narrow experience, ethnic groups, passports, and language, all must be connected. So like Nazi doctors they create a cruel twisted form of linguistics.

Guess what, we "foreigners" spent lots of time memorizing Hanyu Pinyin before coming to Taiwan.

Ok, Ok, I must admit:

Actually, it was I who influenced many of Tongyong Pinyin's critical changes

Like when Yu Boquan first started hanging street signs in 1998, I told him that the same phonetic initial should not have both the letters C and Q assigned to it, otherwise real linguists would laugh. Although he didn't agree to it on the spot, all I know is that he went back and sure enough before long he did what I said.

My attitude all along was that he shouldn't bother doing "Tongyong Pinyin", but since he insists on doing it, well there are some things that one shouldn't make too laughable. My linguistic training is mainly from casually sitting in on classes and I bet Yu Boquan has even less. At the time I also gave Yu quite a few Hakka language suggestions, many of which I have surely forgot by now. Anyways, Yu always wanted me to sign his infamous supporters lists. Even share the "honor" of being one of his Hakka plan co-authors. I said are you nuts? I'm here to steer you right, not to support you. Indeed, I appear luckily to have never ended up on those supposed supporters lists of his. (I remember Xie Guoping: "My name is Xie, a character with many strokes. How did I end up in such a high position on your "supporters" list?" What an embarrassment.)

Mainly I reminded Yu over and over about the need for systemization of the phonetic initials, or else he was going to get laughed out of the place even earlier. I told him don't have Hanyu Pinyin's JQX sometimes represented by JQX, sometimes by ZCS, and best of all would be a return to pure Hanyu Pinyin. Well, sure enough not long after I told him that he indeed drove JQX out of his scheme, using instead ZCS to represent both Hanyu Pinyin's ZCS and JQX. Later he apparently realized that this was going overboard, and let J back in. Unfortunately I don't have enough energy to track in just what state poor J lies in today.

After being released from the "shadows of Q and X", Yu et al. were now free to use their "worried about the comfort of foreigners facing unfamiliar letters" slogans. One thing I didn't influence was Jh, as it appeared after I stopped talking to Yu. However, it does reflect the systemization I so emphasized with him earlier. I also told him about beng peng meng feng vs. bong pong mong fong. I said pick one set or the other, don't mix and match. Apparently he never took this advice of mine. By the way, Yu's pre-1998 stuff I didn't influence, as I hadn't met him by then. Indeed, I don't think he appeared on the "pinyin scene" here in Taiwan much earlier.

If what you say is true, then you've made it possible for a lot of key players to be able to stomach Tongyong.

Well, if they stomach it now they can stomach anything anyway.

T-Pinyin: Hanyu Pinyin Taiwan style.

Quality Pinyin Links from the Truth Team

Hanyu Pinyin definition

Tongyong Pinyin: we foreigners' point of view: Were the ones who use pinyin, not them. Imagine if someone ordered that the meanings of the numbers "7" and "8" be swapped, and for no good reason. It would be painful to have to get used to their new meanings.

[Photo: Dan J. and Yu Boquan 1998.7.18]

I got to thank the guy responsible for Taibei's romanized street sign mess, the jumbled Yu Boquan, because now's my chance to get Hanyu Pinyin on those signs. Can you believe the same things that were in his scheme one year, he calls press conferences with legislators to protest against the next year: 1999-7-22 Xuan; Xia; Xiao; Xi legislator Li Yingyuan helps Yu protest against Communist "X" letter even while some of Yu's X's are still hanging...

Photo: 1998.7.18 with Yu Boquan, Taibei. Other photos.

Even more of Dan Jacobson's valuable opinions are tossed into this junk pile file.

Will Pinyin take hold? China News 1999.4.5, by me.

Mandarin Promotion Board files:

From: M.T. Ko Nov 29, 2000

I happen to browse your home page.

Thank you

I think it is impolite to spell Dr. [Yu Boquan]'s name in Han-Yu Ping-In.

Hanyu Pinyin

He has his English name Yu Bo-Chyuan. You must respect his

[I argue [in Chinese] that his own name's spelling changes as often as his "Tongyong Pinyin", and I gave up on keeping track, etc.]

own right to spell his name like I will respect you use your chinese name [jidanni]

[I mention I've used [jidanni] since the 1980's without changing it once.]

2003/7: I notice Bo on Yu's name card has grown an "r".

More photos (of me, of course)

Taiwanese and Hakka languages

( Taiwanese is also called Southern Min, and Amoy. Hakka is also called Kejia.)

"Using Hanyu Pinyin to Romanize Taiwanese and Hakka"

My 2001 attitude: let them spell Taiwanese and Hakka however they choose, just give me Hanyu Pinyin road signs.

From Dylan Sung 11/2000: I guess you've not seen mainland publications of Hakka dictionaries, because there are already schemes for romanising Meixian (Moiyen) dialect. If you are able, you might like to acquire a copy of Zhang WeiGeng's "Kejiahua Cidian", 1995, from Guangdong Renmin Chubanshe. Its romanisation was created as early as 1960. In fact, Hainanhua, Chaozhou and Guangzhouhua were also romanised at around the same time. It is mentioned in Hashimoto's The Hakka Dialect.

Dan says: I have Hashimotos's book. I have seen various schemes to adopt hanyu pinyin to the 'dialects', a nasty looking one is that fat dictionary from Xiamen Univ. for Minnanyu. So I too tried my hand at it with the result being my 1997 paper. However, this is not an active area I'm fighting about anymore, as of course the key out of trouble here in Taiwan is getting hanyu pinyin in place on the road signs. As far as the 'dialects' are concerned, I'll let the professors fight it out amongst themselves. Indeed, their envisioned target: school kids, don't really pay attention to romanization clues in their one hour per week 'mother tongues' classes.

Dongshi (Taizhong County) Hakka language

Po-Feng Yang 11/30/00 > What I am interested is your view on mu3 yu3 jiao1 xue2 and all the phonics systems out there. That would be great if you can elaborate on these topics.

From: CY 12/12/00: dear Dan, I can't enter the characters spelled nu:3 and lu:4 Dan says: I bet you are using Micro$oft; try using nv and lv ...:-)

"Amazing" Chinese-English "coincidences" that I "discovered"

Notes for ShiFu Rd. photo:

Not only this sign, Yu wants to change 1/3 of the versions he originally hung, e.g. this one he wants to add an "h": ShihFu Rd. otherwise it is too like China or something.

Wasn't it Shih in the original Wade scheme? Back to where we started, no? P.S.: regarding the words on the building. We'll get that changed to "Taibei" one day too.

There also is a fine point: the capitalization of the second character's romanization: the Fu in Shifu. Shifu is probably more wear-resistant than ShiFu, but I was thumbs up anyway, as at least this sign of his could be considered Hanyu Pinyin. [If you pass "ShiFu" thru a chain of 10 people like in those games, it is most likely to become "Shifu", so, if we start with "Shifu", we don't have to worry about data loss. It's the same philosophy behind why we don't put tone marks or IPA on street signs, it is striking a balance, we want the information reproducible in even say, Morse code transmission circumstances. Yes, when I first thought about the problem I felt real bad about the loss of information involved [ShiFu->Shifu], but, gotta strike a balance.] The U.S. Post Office uses all capital letters.

Presidential Adviser Liang Rongmao wrote in the Taiwan News newspaper 2001/07/03: Foreigners should respect Taiwan's choice. Uh huh.

Taiwan News newspaper 2001/08/01 editorial was "We proudly choose Tongyong Pinyin".

The Tongyong team promises relief from Hanyu Pinyin's Q damage to typists' left pinky, but doesn't the right pinky still have to hit Enter? Reminds one of Dr. Evil pinky habits.

Longitude is counted from London, but that doesn't bother us Americans. Though we declared independence from Britain, we still use and call the language English, and the spelling differences are minor.

"On December 15, 1809, William Lambert presented to the House of Representatives ... "the calculation of longitude from the meridian of a foreign nation implied a "degrading" "dependence", and was "a shackle of colonial dependence" ...

Using capital letters in the middle of words proven bad

Yu Boquan's only contribution to the landscape left behind was the putting of capital letters in the middles of words ... [Chinese] 3/2003 writes:

XiAn St. XIAN ST.

05/29/2003 The drooling Tongyong revisionists stooges will be rejected by the Taiwanese people and meet their punishment. :-)

Programs

CPAN, mandarintools etc. sites have pinyin related software.

Taizhong bus romanization

By the way,

Taiwan English postal addresses

Post Office translation table really official?

Ending words

The value of Hanyu Pinyin is in its large user base. Phonetic details aren't important anymore. If it is unfamiliar, then study it. Also one hopes Hanyu Pinyin will stay frozen and not change with the language. A fixed indexing system, like English.

Foreigner turns to Pinyin fortunetelling

Taiwan street sign pinyin changes so often, might as well install reprogrammable eclectic sign boards.

Dan Jacobson

Last modified: 2010-01-05 03:00:51 +0800