Talk:Tongyong Pinyin

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"However, this difference is enough to make anti-unificationists satisfied (and declare it "Natural Pinyin" (自然拼音)), and yet make those Hanyu Pinyin supporters dissatisfied. "

This is not an issue as clear cut as having unificationists support Hanyu Pinyin and separatists favor Tongyong Pinyin. There are other reasons to oppose both or support both. It should be noted that part of the criticism w/ Tongyong is that it's confusing to have different sounds be assigned the same letter. This is not a simple political issue. --Jiang 22:22, 16 Aug 2003 (UTC)

Inaccuracy about "Natural Pinyin" (自然拼音) is removed. "Natural Pinyin" is derived from "Natural Input System" (自然輸入法), an input system that existed in Taiwan long before the arrival of Tongyong Pinyin. The two matters are unrelated. That is, the expression "Natural" (自然) in "Natural Tongyong Pinyin Input Method" (自然通用拼音輸入法) was there long before. It refers to an input method, not a romanization scheme.

"Around 90% of the Tongyong Pinyin syllables are spelled identically to those of Mainland China's Hanyu Pinyin, mainly with a few consonants changed."

I've corrected this to read "Around 80 percent"; Tongyong and Hanyu use the same spellings for 83 out of 410 Mandarin syllables.

I've also deleted "mainly with a few consonants changed" because about half of differently spelled syllables have vowel changes exclusively or as well. -- Taibeiren

[edit] On Taiwan

Tongyong Pinyin (通用拼音, literally "Universal/General Usage Sound-combining") is the current official romanization of the Chinese language adopted by the national government (although not all local governments) of the Republic of China (on Taiwan) since late 2000

What is "on Taiwan" meant to mean? This is a grammatical mistake, but I don't know what to correct it to. Lupin 10:02, 17 Jun 2004 (UTC)

It means the Republic of China is based on the island of Taiwan. Does that make sense, if not, ask User:Jiang, I copied this style off him. --Menchi 11:23, 17 Jun 2004 (UTC)
Wait, no, Jiang wrote that himself [1]. This is not a good thing I'm mistakening other people's edits with mine.... >_< --Menchi 11:27, 17 Jun 2004 (UTC)

The phrase "Republic of China on Taiwan" was already ubiquitous when I stumbled upon this site. I added it so people wouldnt get confused and think that this is the official romanization of the PRC (or rather, it would make those clueless people more confused so they would click on the links to learn). "Republic of China on Taiwan" is not an uncommon description, and was used by the Lee Teng-hui administration to describe ROC/Taiwan (it was used on UN membership resolutions). The Republic of China is the political entity; Taiwan is where the government is based and what it controls. Alternatively, we could use "Republic of China (Taiwan)", which is used by the current Chen Shui-bian administration to denote that the ROC is not merely on Taiwan, but it is Taiwan. There are basically a bunch of political intricacies involved here; the main purpose is to denote that "Taiwan" is somehow involved here for those without a clue. --Jiang 11:43, 17 Jun 2004 (UTC)

OK, I think I begin to understand now. However it's very confusing for people who don't know about these things. I suggest either
  1. Change "government of the Republic of China on Taiwan" to "government of Taiwan", since they have the same meaning (unless I still don't understand, which is quite possible) and talk about the political intricacies on the Taiwan page.
  2. Make a page Republic of China on Taiwan and link to that. Then confused people could click on that for an explanation.
The first option would be more easily understandable, I feel. Lupin 12:34, 17 Jun 2004 (UTC)
  1. This would require a change in the Wikipedia:Naming conventions (Chinese) and should be discussed there. IMO, it's not NPOV to say that Republic of China=Taiwan. It's the position of moderate supporters of Taiwan independence that this is the case and a slight snub for supporters of Chinese reunification. Technically speaking, it's like saying United Kingdom=Great Britain since Quemoy/Matsu Islands are neither part of the province nor the island. But on the other hand, everyones doing it, so Taiwan can be a "conventional short form" for the ROC.
  2. I'm not sure about sending people to a lecuture on the politics when theyre interested in the country/government. Rather, we should discuss at the beginning of the [Republic of China] and [Taiwan] articles the political controversy/status. I thought this was already done, but let me know if it still needs improvement. I plan to expand the article on Chinese Taipei (and rename it) to a discussion on the various monkiers and official designations for the ROC/Taiwan, but Im not sure how it would play into this.

I think User:Roadrunner is responsible for the [[Republic of China]] on [[Taiwan]] text I first stumbled on. Since then, I've also used [[Republic of China]] (Taiwan) and [[Republic of China|Taiwan]]. Are those similarly confusing? --Jiang 14:50, 17 Jun 2004 (UTC)

[[Republic of China]] (Taiwan) looks OK to me. [[Republic of China|Taiwan]] looks utterly confusing: there are already articles Republic of China and Taiwan, and clicking a link which says Taiwan and ending up at Republic of China might make me think that they are exactly the same entity. Or at least confuse me a bit :) Lupin 18:42, 17 Jun 2004 (UTC)
I've been telling everyone that "Republic of China on Taiwan" is a grammatical error (see Talk:Republic of China) but nooooo, nobody will listen to me because Lee Teng-Hui said it, so of course its holy writ to the current administration and all their supporters! I can't believe that guy was allowed to graduate from Cornel with grammar like that! --Sumple (Talk) 00:27, 25 June 2006 (UTC)
"Republic of China on Taiwan" is grammatical because in English we can use on with names of islands (e.g. "King Kong was discovered on Skull Island"). The phrase has been used for decades to avoid implying that Taiwan is a country. The word "in" would imply that Taiwan is a country. {Bubbha 04:33, 3 October 2006 (UTC)}
Yep, so the other day I landed on Britain, and thought, wow, I wish I was on Madagascar instead. So I smuggled my way down and stayed on Sardinia for a couple of days. Eventually I ended up on Tasmania.
Catch my drift? You only use "on" for things called Blah Island, or for very small rocks. --Sumple (Talk) 22:28, 18 January 2007 (UTC)

It seems in Taipei that Han Yu Pin Yin is becoming popular since the street signs, most buses and mrt now use it. Han Yu Pin Yin is the international standard, Taiwan should use it too. -Anonymous

[edit] Meng becomes mong?

Dajia hao! Hi everyone, my name is Vijay. I just wanted to point out a certain inconsistency on this page. The article claims that "meng" is changed to "mong," but none of the links seem to support this claim.--70.112.164.32 23:30, 25 June 2006 (UTC)Vijay

No one has objected to the above comment for more than a month. For this reason, I have changed the portion of the article dealing with "eng." In case anyone has an objection, however, I include the original text below:

"eng becomes ong after b-, p-, m-, f-, w- (蹦、碰、孟、奉、瓮)"--70.112.164.32 22:49, 27 July 2006 (UTC) Vijay

I'm curious as to why some of the labial initials are followed with -eng and others with -ong when they all have the same rhyme (whether the speaker rhymes them with "teng" or not). I wonder the same about "ben" "pen" "men" "fen" and "wun". This seems an inconsistency with the way Standard Mandarin is pronounced in Taiwan. Those with heavy Taiwanese accents (as opposed to Standard Mandarin) would say "wun" or even "?wun" (? being a glottal stop), but the same people would say "hun" instead of "fen". {Bubbha 04:42, 3 October 2006 (UTC)}

[edit] "Xe" and "qe" ?!?

In the "Features" section, under the "Spelling" subsection, the article includes this statement:

"Hanyu x and q...become s and c...before front vowel (i and e)."

Shouldn't that just be "...before i"? When does x or q appear before any vowel other than i or u in Hanyu Pinyin? Has anyone ever seen "xe" or "qe"?

I'm going to change "before front vowel" to "before i." If anyone has any objections, please discuss them here. --Kuaichik 16:54, 18 January 2007 (UTC)

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