Thu, Sep 09, 1999 page4

• Chinese `spellings' spur debate

  ROMANIZATION For some, how to write Chinese for foreigners is an important question; others just don't care

  • By Christopher Bodeen / AP
  • • 
    • 
    • 

  Putting Chinese words down in the Roman alphabet has always been as much art as science, a fact perhaps no better illustrated than on Taiwan.

  Taiwanese use a bewildering variety of spelling systems -- sometimes creating two or three different spellings for the same street in the same city.

  Now the government wants to clear up the confusion by adopting a standard spelling system. But the decision has stirred up a controversy because officials chose the one used by China, Taiwan's counterpart from which the island is straining to assert a separate political and cultural identity.

  

  Local residents pass under a street sign written Shita Rd when it is actually pronounced in a completely different way. Chinese characters are represented on the island using a bewildering variety of spelling systems -- sometimes creating two or three different spellings for the same street in the same city.

  PHOTO: AP

  For Taiwanese like Lee Ying-yuan (李應元), a lawmaker for the DPP, adopting the Chinese mainland's system would blur the distinction between the two in the eyes of many foreigners. That spells nothing but trouble, he says.

  ``The US and Britain, for example, have different spellings for the same words. It's a natural way for them to show their differences,'' Lee says.

  The debate has come against the backdrop of heightened tensions with China following President Lee Teng-hui's (李登輝) affirmation of Taiwanese statehood in July, lending unusual sensitivity to a matter that most Taiwanese profess to give little thought to.

  Romanization ``is an issue that seems pretty peripheral to most Chinese speakers but is highly susceptible to political factors,'' says Hu Li-hwa, who teaches Chinese to foreigners at Taipei's China Language Institute.

  Taiwanese and foreign residents have debated over a Romanization system for years. But the issue heated up when Vice Premier Liu Chao-shiuan (劉兆玄) announced in July that Taiwan would begin using China's spelling system because it is the most recognized internationally.

  When some people complained about using Beijing's system, Liu answered that linguistic matters should be handled pragmatically and not be made a political issue.

  Many Taiwanese agree something needs to be done.

  Overlapping Romanization systems have created a hopeless mishmash of spellings on the island. A major boulevard in Taipei is identified on signs as Jenai Road and Renai Road. Signs spell the name of a town on the highway to Taipei's international airport alternately as Paku, Pagu and Bagu.

  The mainland has successfully enforced the Hanyu Pinyin　(漢語拼音) system as a standard that has also been adopted by the UN, and many scholars argue it best communicates the sounds of Chinese words. But the system was long taboo in Taiwan because of its association with the communists who drove Taiwan's Nationalist government out of China in 1949.

  Hanyu Pinyin would change many spellings in Taiwan, most notably by introducing the use of x, q and z to represent Chinese sounds. Hsinchu City, south of Taipei, would be spelled Xinzhu, and the main southern port of Kaohsiung would become Gaoxiong, although officials say some internationally known place names, such as Taipei, would retain their original spellings.

  While Taiwanese continue to use the long form traditional Chinese characters, China has devised a simplified version. Words common in modern parlance such as taxi, computer and Internet are different on opposite sides of the Taiwan Strait.

  Lee and other advocates for local culture warn of the Chinese system's political pitfalls, but also claim it wouldn't accurately Romanize sounds in the Taiwanese and Hakka languages that most Taiwanese speak in addition to Mandarin.

  That would make Romanization of words in those languages technically impossible, giving short shrift to an important component of local culture, they argue.

  While the argument rages in political circles, most Taiwanese pay little attention to Romanization, a fact born out in the sloppy spellings found around the island.

  ``For the old [Nationalists], anything introduced by the communists is anathema, and for the new Taiwan-identity people, anything from China has to be rejected,'' says Bo Tedards, a research fellow at Taiwan's Institute for National Policy Research. ``Most Taiwanese couldn't care less.''
• Most Popular

  • 1

    Palmeiras hopes for club cup win

  • 2

    US to deliver 10 new F-16s, source says

  • 3

    Taiwan blacklists Huawei and SMIC

  • 4

    Ma Ying-jeou’s forum speech regrettable, MAC says

  • 5

    Barring of Chinese officials justified, MAC says