Controversy over the choice of an official Mandarin Romanization system shows no signs of subsiding as the educational minister yesterday lashed out at a signature drive launched by supporters of Tongyong Pinyin (通用拼音), saying that taking such a measure to resolve an academic issue is irrational.
Minister of Education Ovid Tzeng (
DPP lawmaker Wong Chin-chu (翁金珠), who has endorsed the signature drive, was quick to denounce Tzeng's statement. "We live in a democratic society, and this is just a way of expressing our point of view. How can he say we are trying to mount a coup?" she said.
The politically-charged selection of a Chinese Romanization system has been the focus of media attention for months, with supporters and opponents of both systems unwilling to compromise.
The two systems refer to Hanyu Pinyin -- used in China and other Mandarin-speaking countries like Singapore and also the already internationally accepted system -- and Tongyong Pinyin, a system similar to Hanyu but pitched as being able to more accurately reflect Taiwan's linguistic idiosyncrasies. The two systems are supposedly 85 percent similar.
Tzeng had recommended to the Executive Yuan on Oct. 30 that the government implement the Hanyu Pinyin system, against the advice of an advisory group his ministry appointed to review the issue.
The ongoing battle between the two sides reached another climax on Sunday after the Chinese-language press reported that the proposal sent by Tzeng had been returned to his ministry on Nov. 5, requesting Tzeng seek more consensus nationally before the proposal is discussed in the Executive Yuan.
Regarding the demand, Tzeng said he did not know with whom to communicate, and that taking to the street to push Tongyong was not a good form of communication.
"It is he who never shows sincerity and repeatedly and groundlessly attacks Tongyong pinyin," Yu Bor-chuan (余伯泉), one of the inventors of Tongyong, said.
Yu told the Taipei Times that Tzeng openly endorsed Tongyong in 1998 at a conference.
"In the future our children will learn a new set of rules, and this will be Tongyong Pinyin, which will be used to help them learn Hokkien and Hakka ? We should not consider Hanyu at the moment. We should think about how to use Tongyong because Tongyong is more suitable for the learning of our native languages ? I appreciated your [inventors of the Tongyong system] efforts," Yu said, citing what the now education minister had said at the conference.
He added that when he advocated Tongyong in 1998, the system was endorsed across party lines.
"It is the `fourth link' with China, on the grounds that Tongyong and Hanyu are totally compatible yet not completely identical. It is the most suitable system for Taiwan. Ethnic tension would only be stirred if the minister insisted on the adoption of Hanyu," Yu said.
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