The government plans to make Hanyu Pinyin (漢語拼音) the standard system of Romanization nationwide starting on Jan. 1, an official with the Ministry of Education said yesterday.
Government agencies will be compelled to adopt Hanyu Pinyin, a Chinese Romanization system developed by the People’s Republic of China, Chen Hsuch-yu (陳雪玉), executive-secretary and senior inspector of the ministry’s National Languages Committee (NLC), said in a telephone interview.
While the public will be widely encouraged to use the system, individual preferences on which Romanization system to use will be respected when it comes to personal matters such as the spelling of their surnames, Chen said.
To facilitate the change, “we will refer the Guidelines of Using Chinese Phonetic Spelling (中文譯音使用原則) to the Executive Yuan for review within a month,” Chen said.
The guidelines, enacted by the former Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) government in 2002, stipulate that the official Romanization system for Chinese in the country is Tongyong Pinyin (通用拼音), but its use is not mandatory.
Chen said the ministry would soon convene a meeting of local governments and central government agencies to sort out rules and regulations that would need to be revised to conform to the change. These include rules on naming roads and passport regulations, among others.
The move came after a proposal that Hanyu Pinyin be adopted was approved at a Cabinet meeting convened by Minister Without Portfolio Ovid Tzeng (曾志朗) on Tuesday.
Tzeng said the ministry made the proposal in line with the government’s aim to enhance the country’s international competitiveness.
An official with the Research, Development and Evaluation Commission quoted Tzeng as saying at the meeting that the change should not be a problem and has the support of Premier Liu Chao-shiuan (劉兆玄), who is expected to ratify the proposal after the intergovernmental meeting.
The NLC said it would provide a Hanyu Pinyin guide on its Web site to show the equivalent pronunciation in the traditional phonetic system.
“The guide can help the public and civil servants learn how to use Hanyu Pinyin at a glance,” Chen said.
So far, Taipei City, Hsinchu City and Kinmen County are the only three municipalities that use Hanyu Pinyin.
“We know there might be objection to using the Hanyu Pinyin system,” Chen said, “but we ask the protesters to realize that this would enable Taiwan to become better connected with the rest of the world.
“It would also help foreigners in Taiwan, who would only need to learn one transliteration system,” she said.
ADDITIONAL REPORTING BY JENNY W. HSU
A video allegedly featuring retired general Kao An-kuo (高安國) calling on Taiwanese military officers to surrender to China and overthrow the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) government has sparked outrage and calls for him to be charged with treason. The video, titled “A message to Taiwanese military officers,” allegedly shows Kao saying: “I call on commanding officers of our military troops to stand up for Chinese nationalism, to take up this duty under heaven’s mandate to save Taiwanese from oppression and terrible suffering.” Dressed in military fatigues and a beret, the lieutenant general called on officers to overthrow the “fraudulent DPP regime,”
HASTY REVIEW CLAIMS: Medigen’s vaccine, which is to start phase 3 clinical trials later this year, should not have received emergency use authorization, Hau said Former Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) vice chairman Hau Lung-bin (郝龍斌) is to appeal the Food and Drug Administration’s (FDA) authorization of Medigen Vaccine Biologics’ COVID-19 vaccine, he said yesterday. The administration on July 19 granted Medigen emergency use authorization, even though the drugmaker had not yet completed phase 3 clinical trials. The government should not authorize the use of a vaccine that has not completed phase 3 trials, Hau said in Taipei on the sidelines of an event to distribute boxed meals with former president Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) and Broadcasting Corp of China chairman Jaw Shaw-kong (趙少康). Hau said the government had politicized
HOUNDED ONLINE: Two Chinese firms said they would not extend their contracts with Little S, while another terminated its agreement following an Instagram post A high-profile Taiwanese TV host found herself the latest to draw fire from Chinese Internet users after referring to Taiwan’s Olympians as “national competitors.” Dee Hsu (徐熙娣) — better known as “Little S” — made the comment in an Instagram post on Sunday during the women’s singles badminton final between Tai Tzu-ying (戴資穎) of Taiwan and Chen Yufei (陳雨菲) of China. The post drew an angry reaction in China, where nationalist Internet users often police the comments of celebrities and companies for views that clash with the Chinese Communist Party’s official narrative that both sides of the Taiwan Strait are part
NEW NUMBERS: No deaths were reported yesterday, but there were 12 local cases and two imported cases — people who had returned from Thailand and the US The Central Epidemic Command Center (CECC) yesterday said that COVID-19 restrictions are expected to remain in place after Monday next week, as it reported 12 local infections and two imported cases. Minister of Health and Welfare Chen Shih-chung (陳時中), who heads the center, said the 12 local cases are 10 men and two women aged 10 to 80 who began experiencing symptoms between Thursday and Saturday. Six tested positive during isolation or upon ending it, he said, adding that the sources of infection have been identified in nine cases, while three remain unclear and would be investigated. Taoyuan reported five cases, all family
RSS