Letters:

End linguistic quarantine

Daily communication is one of the biggest problems for foreigners doing business in Taiwan. Not only do few Taiwanese speak English well, but signs and addresses are often incomprehensible to foreign businesspeople. As foreign investment in Taiwan shrinks, romanization has become a significant economic issue. Adopting a romanization that foreigners can understand is important to Taiwan's economic vitality.

Unfortunately, romanization has a long history of confusion in Taiwan. In recent years there has been a drive to standardize romanization. The business community has consistently lobbied for the government to adopt Hanyu Pinyin romanization, the international standard. But after endless meetings and discussions, Taiwan's romanization mess is still as confused as ever. Romanization is vitally important to the foreign business community. Visiting buyers and investors rely on romanized Mandarin for the most basic types of communication: writing addresses on envelopes, reading name cards, and comprehending the island's maps and street signs.

Romanization is a vital tool for business. Considering the economic significance of romanization, the central government's continued failure to adopt Hanyu Pinyin has left Taiwan's foreign business community irritated and dismayed.

Taiwan has two main romanization systems. Taipei City uses Hanyu Pinyin for street signs and addresses. All of the street signs in Taipei have been changed over to Hanyu Pinyin, much to the delight of the foreign business community. Members of ECCT have personally congratulated Taipei Mayor Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) for handling the romanization problem so efficiently. Ma deserves public recognition for his sound leadership on this issue.

On romanization policy, the central government is a sad contrast. Despite years of consistent lobbying for Hanyu by the foreign business community, the central government nevertheless continues to promote Tongyong. No one outside of Taiwan uses Tongyong, and foreigners find it odd and incomprehensible. Even so, many street signs outside of Taipei are being switched over to Tongyong. As a result, foreigners cannot read street signs in areas outside of Taipei. Tongyong is putting Taiwan under linguistic quarantine, cutting us off from the rest of the world.

The problem with Tongyong is simple: no one can read it. More than 98 percent of the world's Chinese speakers live outside Taiwan and all of them use Hanyu Pinyin. It is not just standard; it is universal. It is the system used by the UN, the International Organization for Standardization (ISO), and governments and universities around the world.

Although less than than 2 percent of the world's Chinese speakers live on Taiwan, the government has invented a completely new system for romanizing Mandarin. Residents of Taiwan's ivory tower claim that foreigners will bother to learn an obscure new system. Of course this is absurd. Foreigners will ignore the system, and Tongyong will become an endless source of misunderstanding between Taiwan and the rest of the world.

The central government has handled the romanization issue very strangely. Instead of asking the foreign community which romanization system they prefer, government agencies have turned to so-called local experts to decide which system is best for foreigners to use.