Calls grow for use of Hanyu Pinyin system

Yu Bor-chuan (余伯泉), the leader of the group who invented the Tongyong Pinyin (通用拼音) system, appears to be struggling on alone as the language war rages all around him and as an official of the Ministry of Education once again openly expressed his preference toward China's Hanyu Pinyin (漢語拼音) system.

"Though most officials at the Ministry of Education tend to favor the Tongyong Pinyin system, I still don't think the Hanyu Pinyin system should be excluded as an option," Minister of Education Ovid Tzeng (曾志朗) said at a Legislative Yuan meeting in response to questions posed by lawmakers.

Since the announcement made last Saturday by the education ministry's Mandarin Promotion Council to assign the Tongyong Pinyin system as the country's official Romanization system of Mandarin, Tzeng has repeatedly made public his personal stance, which is out of step with the agreement reached by the department he is in charge of.

Tzeng said yesterday that what should be taken into consideration is whether the system could help Taiwan become a closer part of the global village and if communication between Taiwan and the rest of the world could be enhanced through use of the system.

"I will honestly express my standpoint to the Executive Yuan because I am acting for the sake of the people," Tzeng said, adding that he did not think he would have to step down from his post for his honesty.

In related news, independent lawmaker Josephine Chu (朱惠良) yesterday held a press conference, along with a language instructor and a couple of foreign residents in Taiwan, to voice their support for the Hanyu Pinyin System.

At the meeting, Chu called on the authorities to put a halt to making policy out of political consideration, because "the language policy to adopt Hanyu Pinyin had been settled in June 1999 by the Executive branch. The new government should not rashly alter the already confirmed decision due to a discrepancy of ideological and political viewpoints."

Teng Shou-hsin (鄧守信), a professor and director of the Institute of Chinese as a Second Language, a division of National Taiwan Normal University, told the media that Taiwan would be excluded from the international community if it selected a system that was in contradiction with the one already widely accepted in the rest of the world.

"We must be in accord with the global trend," Teng said. "In the past, our traditional phonetic system could not be popularized overseas because it is useless for Mandarin learners when they return to their native countries. Mandarin outside of Taiwan is always represented by the Hanyu Pinyin system. How can we go against the trend?" Teng said.

Richard Hartzell (何瑞元), an American who has lived in Taiwan for over 25 years, said that the Hanyu system was widely recognized all over the world, and Taiwan would isolate itself if it employed a different system because the disparity would make searching Chinese documents at libraries or over the Internet very cumbersome.

The language war has also created mounting tension between the central and local governments. Having continuously demonstrated their dissatisfaction at the education ministry's decision, King Pu-tsung (金溥聰), director of Taipei City Government's Department of Information, yesterday made another stern remark, darkly saying children of Taipei City would have to learn both systems in order not to be excluded by international society.