Sun, Jan 09, 2000 page8

• Romanization must strike a balance

  • Hwang Hsuan-fan, Chiang Wen-yu, Lo Seo-gim and Cheng Liang-wei
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  On April 6 last year, the Ministry of Education sponsored a national conference in Taipei on Mandarin Romanization systems. Four competing systems were presented for deliberations at the conference: the Wade Giles (WG) System (威妥瑪|?/CHINESE>), Mandarin Phonetic Symbols II (MPS-II) (注-?G|?/CHINESE>), China Hanyu Pinyin (漢語拼-?/CHINESE>) and Taiwan Tongyong Pinyin (3q用拼-?/CHINESE>).

  Of these, the Wade Giles system is the most traditional and, until very recently, the most widely used. But it has now lost its appeal largely because a total of 136 syllables require additional phonetic signs or diacritic marks, making it a fairly cumbersome system for printing and typing. As a consequence, a consensus emerged at the conference that the WG system should be rescinded from the list of potential systems for future deliberations.

  The remaining three systems represent three different models of thinking. What underlines MPS-II is the credo that Taiwan should say no to whatever system China comes up with; adoption of the Hanyu Pinyin system, on the other hand, represents a contrary belief that there is little rational basis for going against a system that is already enjoying international currency. Finally, Taiwan Tongyong Pinyin was developed to achieve an optimal balance between internalization and national autonomy.

  On June 21, the Ministry of Education, having decided to dump the MPS-II, proposed a still-newer system -- Guoyu Pinyin (國語拼-?/CHINESE>). On July 6, the Cabinet vetoed Guoyu Pinyin and introduced the concept of an Improved Modular System (IMS) for Mandarin Romanization (模2掤“翵}漢語拼-?/CHINESE>). Both Guoyu Pinyin and IMS can also be understood as an attempt to achieve an appropriate mix of internalization and national autonomy. This means that the avowed goal implicit in Taiwan Tongyong Pinyin was beginning to be embraced by the central government.

  Six county commissioners and a dozen or so legislators from both sides of the aisle soon endorsed a proposal for the Executive Yuan to strive for a Romanization system which embodies the idea of internalization and national autonomy.

  On July 26, the government, in a surprise move, announced the use of China's Hanyu Pinyin System for the Romanization of street names throughout the island, a move seen by many as a blatant disregard of the fact that the system is currently used in Beijing and could therefore suggest to the world that Taiwan is part of PRC.

  Thereupon, 14 county commissioners and a number of prominent educators and linguists openly voiced strong opposition to the policy change, including Paul Jen-Kuei Lee (李?癸), director of the Institute of Linguistics at Academia Sinica; Robert Cheng (鄭良偉), professor of East Asian Languages and Literatures at University of Hawaii; Chen Chi-nan(3祠銕n), a former member of the Committee on Educational Reform and Dean of College of Humanistics and Social Sciences at National Chiaotung University; and Lo Lung-cheng (?隆?thorn>), chairman of the ROC Educational Reform Association.

  On Sept. 16, legislator Weng Chin-chu (翁金珠) called on Deputy Premier of the Executive Yuan Liu Chao-hsuan (劉兆玄), and both agreed, in a joint announcement, that a Mandarin Romanization system being worked on for Taiwan should not be tied to China's Hanyu Pinyin.

  Since the concept of IMS is nearly equivalent to that which underlies Tongyong Pinyin, it behooved us to consider in some detail the differences between Guoyu Pinyin and Taiwan Tongyong Pinyin. Basically, they boil down to two issues: One has to do with the way the zero-initial is handled. In Tongyong Pinyin, one single value is applied to all of the syllables with the same zero-initial. Thus the morpheme "翁" (?ㄥ) is represented as "wong" and "東 " (ㄉ?ㄥ), which contains the same syllable ?ㄥ, is represented as "dong." In Guoyu Pinyin, 翁 is "weng," whereas "東" is "dong." While there is no denying of a phonological basis for the way these and other syllables are represented in Guoyu Pinyin, the Tongyong Pinyin System has the virtue of being more consistent in this regard. Furthermore, "ong," rather than "eng" is also a closer approximation to the phonetic value of the morphemes in the dialects spoken in Taiwan.

  A second difference between Guoyu Pinyin and Tongyong Pinyin pertains to the issue of dentals and palatals.In Guoyu Pinyin, "?ㄔㄍ" and "ㄐㄑㄒ" are in complementary distribution, and the symbols used are j, ch, sh respectively. In Tongyong Pinyin "ㄗㄘㄙ" and "ㄐㄑㄒ" are in complementary distribution and the symbols used are z,c, s respectively. While these are equally plausible phonemic analyses, Tongyong Pinyin would argue that palatalization from "ㄗㄘㄙ toㄐㄑㄒ" is much more widely observed across languages of the world; while the "?ㄔㄍ" series, in relation to "ㄗㄘㄙ," is generally recognized as an unnatural class of sounds and should therefore be treated as such by giving them separate representation symbols, as is done in Tongyong Pinyin. The letter "j" used in Guoyu Pinyin for "?," an inheritance from the MPS-II era, would be in direct conflict with Hanyu Pinyin where it is used to represent "ㄐ" instead. In Guoyu Pinyin, the syllable ?ㄤ is "jang," and the syllable ㄐㄧㄤ is "jiang," but their phonetic differences, so represented, would be nearly indistinguishable to the normal ear. It would be desirable to have a system of Romanization that differentiates them in a way that is more indicative of the actual phonetic values. The representations "zhang" and "ziang" seem clearly to have the desired effect.

  It is important to note that Tongyong Pinyin has joined hands with inventors of the Natural Input Method (|蛣M輸?J法) in developing an input software program whereby computer users can, under the same mode, key in Chinese characters using either Tongyong Pinyin or Hanyu Pinyin, resolving in one stroke any possible conflicts between the two systems and enhancing the competitive edge of Tongyong Pinyin in either character input or pedagogical effectiveness. The software, called National Input Method 99, is being donated to schools at all levels, city and county governments, and educational institutions.

  To sum up briefly, we believe that any Mandarin Romanization system developed for Taiwan should ideally strive for a principled balance between internalization and national autonomy as suggested above and that the Taiwan system should, therefore, contain distinctive features that sets it apart from China's Hanyu Pinyin. It is our hope, however, that the two systems may learn to accommodate each other in a productive symbiosis.

  Hwang Hsuan-fan is director of the Graduate Institute of Linguistics at National Taiwan University; Chiang Wen-yu is associate professor of the Graduate Institute of Linguistics at National Taiwan University; Lo Seo-gim is a professor in the department of Chinese at National Changhua University of Education; and Robert Liang-wei Cheng is a professor in the department of East Asian languages and literatures at University of Hawaii in Manoa.
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