Tongyong Pinyin a mistake
The Ministry of Education Man-darin Promotion Council's recent decision to recommend that Taiwan adopt the Tong-yong Pinyin Romanization system over the internationally adopted Hanyu Pinyin system is tragically flawed ("Tongyong Pinyin the new system for Romanization," July 11, page 3). If the council is serious about promoting Man-darin, then they need to consider the following factors and reverse their recommendation.
First, the use of any Romanization system is primarily to benefit foreigners living in Tai-wan. It is inconceivable to think that the opinions of foreign residents, students or professionals were reflected in the council's decision. Rather than be helped by the Tongyong Pinyin system, foreigners will either be further confused, or forced to learn a second Roman-ization system simply to read the street signs.
Second, the decision to recommend Tongyong Pinyin is educationally unsound. Many Mandarin students who, like myself, come to Taiwan to fulfill language requirements for degree programs, are expected to use Hanyu Pinyin in their home universities. It makes no sense to study a textbook in Hanyu Pinyin in the US and then have to learn another system in order to study in Taiwan.
If students who want to study Mandarin encounter these kinds of obstacles when trying to study in Taiwan, they will consider going to China instead.
Such a mass exodus of students would adversely affect the local economy, universities and language centers, and leave many of the private English schools short of native speakers to fill their teaching vacancies. Furthermore, this kind of exo-dus would cripple President Chen Shui-bian's (陳水扁) recent resolve to raise the English level of students and professionals by allowing foreigners to teach English in public schools.
Finally, the adoption of Tongyong Pinyin will not facilitate the linguistic competency of foreigners who need to do business in Taiwan and China. Whether the council likes it or not, foreigners who reside or study Mandarin in Taiwan are not isolated from China.
The recommendation to adopt Tongyong Pinyin is a politically motivated, reactionary and isolationist recommendation that will be counterproductive to many of the government's goals and priorities. For this reason, I urge all concerned parties to contact the council at mandr@mail.moe.gov.tw and register your protest.
Timothy Conkling
Taipei
Regarding the Pinyin issue, consistency is very important. Tai-chung's Wenhsin (Hanyu Pinyin: Wenxin; 文心) Road has at least three spellings, none of which follow any standard of Pinyin I know. These spellings include, but are not limited to: Wen-shin, Wen-sin and Uen-shin.
When consistency can't even be maintained on a single street, it's hard to fathom that Taiwan's politicians could ever make a decision consistent with international standards.
Taiwanese kids don't need Tongyong Pinyin in order to learn how to read, write, or speak Mandarin, Hoklo, Hakka or any of the native languages of Taiwan. In fact, they don't need Pinyin at all if they are taught these languages from childhood. So far, they seem to have done just fine without it.
But most foreigners who visit Taiwan do need Pinyin and it would probably be a good idea to use a form which is already used the world over. If Taiwan-ese people hope to communicate with any of them or to ease the visits of these foreign visitors, I'd recommend Hanyu Pinyin.
If Taiwan insists on remaining separated from the world by its "cultural sovereignty," then go with Tongyong Pinyin and let Yu Bor-chuan (余伯泉) -- whose name I'd never be able to correctly pronounce by looking at the Pinyin spelling -- go down in the history books with the 10 "experts" who made this highly politicized, dreadful decision.
Andrew Hokanson
Taichung
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