Romanization issue resurfaces with no final decision made

After a month of silence, controversy over the choice of an official Romanization system for Mandarin was rekindled yesterday when Chinese-language newspapers reported that the proposal sent to the Executive Yuan from the Ministry of Education had been returned two weeks ago.

In spite of the preference of the Mandarin Promotion Council (MPC, 國語推行委員), a task force under the education ministry, for the Tongyong Pinyin system (通用拼音), Minister of Education Ovid Tzeng (曾志朗) suggested on Oct. 30 that the Executive Yuan adopt Hanyu Pinyin (漢語拼音) to be the standardized Mandarin Romanization system in Taiwan. However, this proposal was not acted upon and was reportedly sent back to the education ministry.

The choice of an official Romanized system for Mandarin has been debated for months. Supporters of the Hanyu Pinyin system say the system has already been accepted internationally, while those advocating the Tongyong Pinyin system, which was created by a group of Taiwanese linguists, say that it is more suitable for teaching native languages to the children of Taiwan.

The two systems are 85 percent similar.

"We [the Executive Yuan] consider it [the choice of a Mandarin Romanization system] a very pivotal issue, which deserves more discussion and consideration. Given that the new government is currently having to deal with various controversial matters, we do not see the necessity to finalize the decision over the Romanization system for the time being," Su Tzen-ping (蘇正平), director of the Government Information Office said.

Su said there had been no timetable set for a final decision on the matter, but said that the Executive Yuan would speak with Tzeng to come to an agreement in the near future.

Tzeng, who has been under fire by supporters of the Tongyong Pinyin system, returned to Taiwan yesterday from a visit to Vietnam and was immediately bombarded with questions.

He said that the proposal [to the Executive Yuan] had not been rejected. "What I received from the Executive Yuan was only notification that I should speak to more people about the issue and try to find more backing from the public," Tzeng said.

Yu Bor-chuan (余伯泉), an MPC member and one of the inventors of the Tongyong Pinyin system, told the Taipei Times that the return of the proposal came as no surprise since Tzeng had failed to provide the Executive Yuan with sufficient reasons for advocating the Hanyu Pinyin system in his proposal.

"Furthermore, from our [members of the MPC] understanding, the Executive Yuan has been under tremendous pressure from the public, both from residents in Taiwan and Taiwanese residing overseas, over Tzeng's choice. I believe it is this pressure that caused the [proposal] to be sent back," Yu said.

Chiang Wen-yu (江文瑜), another council member, told the Taipei Times that a resolution of the issue would depend on Tzeng's attitude.

"The fact that the proposal was rejected [by the Executive Yuan] shows that the issue still leaves room to be discussed. But what is more vital is whether Tzeng is willing to open up and discuss the situation," Chiang said.