Talk:Zhuyin

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Contents 1 Bopomofo 2 Origins 3 removals: "Zhuyin's Mainlander equivalent is pinyin." 4 Etymology 5 Alphabetization 6 Usage 7 content for pages 8 minor correction regarding 幺 9 Note on "bopomofo" 10 Move to Zhuyin method 11 Usage in dialects other than Mandarin 12 ㄧ and 一 13 Zhuyin experts needed for Templates 14 Automated Translation

[edit] Bopomofo

• It is also known as Bopomofo (ㄅㄆㄇㄈ) for the first four syllables in the Mandarin Phonetic symbols.
• The first four symbols in the system are bo, po, mo, fo, hence Zhuyin is also known as bopomofo to some westerners.

The above two sentences are basically the same, so I deleted the second sentence. Menchi 06:58 Dec 23, 2002 (UTC)

[edit] Origins

What's the rationale behind ht echaracter shapes? Are they simplifications of something? Arbitrary? -- Error

Not all are arbitrary. Many have visible traces: ㄅ (b) ← 白 (bai), ㄆ (p) ← 波 (po). Can you see the "bones"?

But the creators (including Woo Tsin-hang) actually never published the origin I believe. And the "theories" I've read are post hoc.

--Menchi 03:34 12 Jul 2003 (UTC)

Added the origins of those symbols without dispute @ #Symbol origins. --Menchi 02:20, Aug 16, 2003 (UTC)

The Chinese version of this article has a good chart detailing the origins of all the symbols. I believe that is my source. --OneTopJob6 00:16, 31 December 2005 (UTC)

In the origins chart, some of the symbols were blank boxes, and some of the items didn’t make sense, so I plan to clean it up a bit. I rely on the authoritative 漢語大字典 Hànyǔ Dàzìdiǎn, and extensive reading of ancient through archaic graphical forms through various etymological works. I show here the earlier versions plus my planned imminent changes for your convenient comparison, to facilitate any discussion required. This is a big project so I am first posting some of the planned changes (worded as if already changed, so I don't need to alter every verb when I implement this) and the rationale, and once I've filled in all the items I will make all the changes if there are no well-informed objections.

original

ㄝ (e) ← 也 (yě); cp. ancient Seal form

new

ㄝ (e) ← 也 (yě)

Reason for deletion: The zhuyin symbol ‘’much’’ more closely resembles the modern 也 (just without the downward hook on the first, horizontal stroke) than it does the ancient seal form , so the inclusion of the "cp." reference isn't very useful to the average reader, even though the zhuyin symbol could in theory be distilled from either one. It also resembles, btw, this 信陽楚簡 bamboo graph from the Warring States period more closely than the seal form:

old

ㄞ (ai) ←[empty box was here] (hài); ancient form of 亥

new

ㄞ (ai) ← (hài); ancient form of 亥

The graph was missing. I have added the closest of the ancient forms I could find: from a middle Zhou dynasty bronze vessel, the 號季子白盤 Hào Jì Zĭ Bái Pán; it’s almost identical to ㄞ except for an extra stroke atop it. If anyone locates a closer form, please replace this of course.

old ㄟ (ei) ← 乁 (yí) [not 飞 (fēi)]

new ㄟ (ei) ← 乁 (yí, an obsolete graph meaning 移 yí, to move) [not 飞 (fēi)]

乁 (yí) is obsolete, and not a graph the layman will be familiar with, which is why many may jump to an assocation with the more familiar飞 (fēi). 漢語大字典 Hànyǔ Dàzìdiǎn p.20c confirms yí, an obsolete graph from Shuōwén, synonymous and homophonous with 移 yí, to move. I believe that adding a brief explanation as above will help clarify.

ㄉ (d) ← 刀 (dāo)

No changes; I merely note out of interest: the minor stylistic difference at the upper left is archaistic. Cf. OB and bamboo forms.

ㄌ (l) ← 力 (lì)

No changes; I merely note that the stylistic difference at the upper left is common in calligraphy, in case anyone was wondering.

old ㄘ (c) ← [graph missing] (cī, now pronounced qī); ancient form of 七; '7'

new ㄘ (c) ← (cī, now pronounced qī); seal and semicursive forms of 七; '7'

Yes, the seal and semi cursive forms have the final, downward flick which the modern 七 lacks. The semicursive is not exactly ‘ancient’, either, btw.

old ㄅ (b) ← 勹 (bāo); ancient form of 包

new ㄅ (b) ← 勹 (bāo); top portion of 包

No, 勹 (in this graphic form) is emphatically not the ancient form of 包. It is, rather, quite clearly the ‘’extraction’’ of the ‘’modern top portion’’ of the ‘’modern’’ character 包. (The ‘’ancient’’ top portion was , not 勹. The former is the seal version of the latter, but they are not the ‘’same’’. Furthermore, is not the historical 包 graph, but rather the graphic extraction of its ‘package’ component by 許慎 Xŭ Shèn in 說文解字 Shuōwén Jiézì so that he could use it as a 部首 bùshǒu (section header). Forgive me if I split hairs, but philology demands precision.

To clarify on the seal forms, Shuōwén lists two graphs, and . The former corresponds to (i.e., is the seal form of the artificial graphic extraction or component) 勹 while the latter corresponds to 包. We cannot say that the obviously ‘’modern’’ 勹 is the ancient form of its complete character 包, which is what the original Wiki entry said. Nor is it ‘’safe’’ to say that is the ancient form of 包 because the former doesn’t appear, AFAIK, anywhere except in Shuōwén, and I strongly suspect that this was merely one of the many ‘graphic extractions’ by Xŭ Shèn for the purposes of building his section headers (部首 bùshǒu (classifiers)), rather than an actual character in use (please feel free to identify any actual example in use, outside of dictionaries quoting each other, if you disagree). The full character 包 was, rather, .

In sum, it only makes sense to refer to the modern zhuyin symbol of ㄅ as being equivalent to 勹 (bāo), which is the (modern) top portion of 包. Adding the seal form of 勹 does not help explicate the symbol ㄅ, nor is it meaningful to confound the whole seal form with its 部首 bùshǒu graphic extraction.

ㄨ (u) ← ㄨ (wǔ); ancient form of 五

Yes, I can confirm this. The ㄨ form, found on items as early as 二里頭 Èrlĭtóu and 小屯 Xiǎotún pottery, as well as on the oracle bones at 安陽 Ānyáng, is thought to be earlier* than the X form with bars top and bottom. It was also used as late as the Warring States period in the eastern regions, as evidenced by its inclusion as the inappropriately named 古文 in Shuōwén. * source: 趙誠 Zhào Chéng (1988) 甲骨文簡明詞典 – 卜辭分類讀本 ISBN 7-101-00254-4/H•22.

old ㄓ (zh) ← [graph missing] (zhī); ancient form of 之

new ㄓ (zh) ← (zhī); seal form of 之

Graph added. Yes, this form is based on some OB, stone, seal and bronze forms. The seal form adequately represents the ancient forms in this case.

old ㄋ (n) ←乃 (nǎi)

new ㄋ (n) ← and ; archaic forms (here seal and Warring States Chu silk manuscript) of 乃 (nǎi)

Graphs added. This is not so much an extraction from 乃 (nǎi) as the original Wiki entry implies. Rather, through much of its history, 乃 was written in a manner similar to ㄋ. I have selected the two most similar here, but the archaic form extends to the beginning, as illustrated in the oracle bone form .

old ㄒ (x) ← 丅 (xià); ancient form of 下

new ㄒ (x) ← 丅 (xià); a seal form of 下

More specifically one of the two seal forms given in Shuōwén. I write “a” seal form as it is not the only one. Another has a crooked tail, and a small horizontal stroke resembling the modern dot.

ㄙ (s) ← 厶 (sī); ancient form of 私

Yes, the compound 私 sī meaning ‘grain’ was borrowed phonetically as a variant way to write its phonetic element 厶 sī, which meant ‘private, personal’ etc.. Eventually the variant form 私 supplanted 厶 and lost its meaning of ‘grain’. For the meaning ‘private’ of厶, I present the following evidence: 1) Xu Shen quotes the 韓非子 Hánfēizĭ as saying 自營爲厶, i.e., 厶 means 自營 zì yíng ‘self-profiting, selfish’. 2) In his SW commentary under ㄙ sī, 段育裁 Duàn Yùcái notes 公私字本如此, i.e., 私 meaning ‘private; selfish’ was originally written thusly, i.e., as ㄙ. ㄙ also appears contrasted with 公 in《藝文類聚》卷五十一引三國 吳環濟 《帝王要略》：爵有五等, 公者,無ㄙ也。 Dragonbones (talk) 15:39, 28 December 2007 (UTC)

I'm really sorry to have to say this, but isn't this original research?

Does the "漢語大字典 Hànyǔ Dàzìdiǎn...and various etymological works" contain anything specifically about the origin of zhuyin symbols? Is this your own conclusions based on the "漢語大字典 Hànyǔ Dàzìdiǎn, and extensive reading of ancient through archaic graphical forms through various etymological works", or is it based on already published research regarding the origin of zhuyin symbols? LDHan (talk) 18:36, 28 December 2007 (UTC)

Good question. I would answer as follows: For the most part, I'm merely adding illustrations to support the origins of zhuyin symbols as already present on the Wiki page. These are drawn from published works; the graphs are faithfully reproduced by hand and overlaid in Photoshop to ensure no significant variance, in order to produce copyright free images. When Wiki says 'ancient form of x graph', I merely go find the a relevant illustration based on a published work which I've cited. For the most part, I'm not concluding anything about the origins of zhuyin symbols not already present on the Wiki page. Furthermore:

a) I refer to the Hanyu Dazidian and Shuowen for the fact of the existence of two seal forms of 丅 (xià); a seal form of 下 (and not for the fact of this being the origin of the bopomofo symbol, which is already stated on the existing Wiki page). The suggestion to add "a" is editorial clarification. That does not constitute original research.

b) I refer to the Hanyu Dazidian for the definition of 乁 (yí, an obsolete graph meaning 移 yí, to move). The suggestion to add its definition isn't original research; it's editorial clarification, as is the more specific identification of it as the seal rather than just any old ancient form. Looking up info in an established, authoritative text isn't original research.

c) Removing the reference to the seal form in "::ㄝ (e) ← 也 (yě); cp. ancient Seal form " is editorial change for clarity, as the consulting of the established textual authority demonstrates that it bears little resemblance to the zhuyin symbol. The addition of "cp. ancient Seal form" will only confuse. This is not original research.

d) Filling in the missing graphs, when the kind of graph is already stated on the existing Wiki page, isn't exactly original research either. When it says "[graph missing] ancient form of 亥", one can refer to a spread of ancient forms in an etymological dictionary, and see the corresponding form or a variety of corresponding forms from different periods. Adding an illustration of the already stated fact isn't original research any more than adding a picture of a lawnmower is, in an article thereupon. If I were to state that no, ㄝ is based not upon 也 but upon 乜 mie1, THAT would be original research. If we can find a published article specifically stating that the creators were looking at the bronze form on a particular vessel, of course, that is better than me picking the closest version I can find. But me picking the closest version I can find, by way of illustration, is not original research establishing the fact of the ㄞ graph being based on 亥, which is the crux of the matter. My "extensive reading of ancient through archaic graphical forms through various etymological works" is not being used to support changes to the proposed origins of the zhuyin symbols; it is, rather, helpful to me in knowing what published sources to go to and how to read them. Perhaps I should have omitted that statement. Anyway, this is my interpretation of the rule, and I of course welcome discussion and disagreement. Perhaps in the 亥 case, rather than "::ㄞ (ai) ← (hài); ancient form of 亥", it would be safer to write "::ㄞ (ai) ← ancient form of 亥 (hài); cf. mid-Zhou bronze graph " ?? This way the illustration is by way of comparison rather than definitively from this particular example. Are others more comfortable with this approach? In the case of ㄘ, providing the two illustrations is a bit safer, since they do exactly match the zhuyin graph, and again, they are merely illustrative of the fact already stated on the page, rather than my own establishment of that fact.

e) In the case of "old ㄅ (b) ← 勹 (bāo); ancient form of 包" and "new ㄅ (b) ← 勹 (bāo); top portion of 包", I rely on the established published authorities of Hanyu Dazidian and Shuowen to show what the ancient form of 包 looks like. It doesn't take a genius to see that (the ancient form of 包 according to both books) does not equal 勹, which is a modern kaishu-styled bushou element. So, using published, authoritative works, it is easy to show this. That is not original research. Now, whether or not is the original form of would be problematic, if that were relevant to the change being proposed, as my original research leads me to believe that it is not the original, and merely a graphic extraction. However, I have stated this merely as an interesting aside to readers of the commentary page. I.e., even if one accepts that is the original form of based on Xu Shen's assertion to this effect (and two other minor works that parrot the assertion, with no supporting textual evidence in sight), the published fact is not that "勹 (bāo) is the ancient form of 包" but that is the original form of . No one would dispute that 勹 is the modern structural and stylistic rendering of . Clearly then, "new ㄅ (b) ← 勹 (bāo); top portion of 包" is unobjectionable.

f)The remainder of my comments above are either confirmation of the existing wiki page, in which case whether or not they are original research isn't very relevant, since no changes are being proposed, or they are similar identification of appropriate illustrations based on established, published sources. In the instance of ::old ㄋ (n) ←乃 (nǎi), I merely add the historical version(s) of nai3 which obviously correspond to the zhuyin symbol. I don't see how that's objectionable.

If there are any specific instances not already addressed here re: whether or not original research is involved I'd be happy to discuss it further. Dragonbones (talk) 09:12, 29 December 2007 (UTC)

[edit] removals: "Zhuyin's Mainlander equivalent is pinyin."

Removed: "Zhuyin's Mainlander equivalent is pinyin." Pinyin is a romanization system, which is often employed for different purposes. (No signs in Taiwan are in zhuyin!) --Jiang

• But pinyin and zhuyin are equivalents in terms of use in dictionaries and textbooks. And yes, there are some sign annotations in zhuyin in Taiwan, especially at educational exhibits in museums and the like. Just because one kind of item (street signs) isn't in zhuyin doesn't mean the two systems aren't basically equivalent in purpose. Dragonbones (talk) 07:02, 27 December 2007 (UTC)

I think the mere fact that pinyin is a romanization and zhuyin is not would indicate that the two systems are not basically equivalent in purpose, despite the fact that the two systems are both used to show the pronunciation of Chinese characters in dictionaries and textbooks. LDHan (talk) 14:42, 27 December 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Etymology

五: This 五, means "5". My source is Habein and Mathias Complete guide to Everyday Kanji. There it decribes this character as being a pictogram of a bobbin, used first as phonetic element, then replacing a character consisting of five strokes.

The etymology as "Ying, yang, Heaven and Earth" must be considered to be at least "disputed", though I'm aware that zhongwen has the Ying, yang etymology. Personally, I find the etymology there has the feel of folk etymology. I find Habein and Mathias more convincing.

I propose removing the etymology, as it digressional and disputed. Zeimusu 12:16, 2004 Apr 30 (UTC)

It is unlikely that the character in question objectifies a bobbin as its usage dates back to as early as the Shang Jiaguwen, a period in which bone scriptures were used to forecast future events. The Wuxing was the central ideology behind this as they were believed to have spawned all things tangible and intangible within the universe, which were in turn given to rise by Yin and Yang. The character is likely, then, to be a derivative of this notion. Furthermore, as the book of your mentioning deals with Kanji and not Hanzi (synonymous yes, but only in the sense of what is written), the character etymology may not be consistent with the ancient Chinese form. --Taoster 00:19, 1 May 2004 (UTC)

I'm not sure I follow the reasoning here. That this character is very old is not disputed, but I don't see why that should be seen as evidence against it having, originally, a mundane meaning. I don't see why, even given the central importance of wuxing to the ancient people, that this makes it likely that this character is derived from wuxing.

Then again I wonder how this character came to have the meaning "5". Habein and Mathias claim it is a case of homonynomy.

Also, the argument that Habein and Mathias is a Kanji book, and therefore may not be consitent with hanzi is false. The period we are discussing (as you say, as early as Shang Jiaguwen, and before) predates the introduction of chinese characters to Japan. So the etymologies discussed are the etymologies of the character in China, so there is no hanzi/kanji distiction. Habein and Mathias reference Western, Japanese and Chinese authors in their bibliography.

Either, one or both of these etymologies is wrong, or there were two characters, identical in form but differing in meaning in ancient China.

In any case, the original meaning of this character is of marginal importance to the development of Zhuyin, and on that basis alone I think the remark should be removed.

Zeimusu 15:26, 2004 May 1 (UTC)

Duly noted, but realize that the character is composed of four strokes and not five. Also, there IS a distinction between Hanzi and Kanji IF the etymology as described in the book is based on any of several post Seal Script forms, however delineated. I think the real dispute here is whether the character is a logograph or a pictograph. --Taoster 00:29, 2 May 2004 (UTC)

That's true. -- I have removed the etymology as per my last paragraph, and I'll go look at the image page of and see if there is a more appropriate place for character etymology. Zeimusu 12:35, 2004 May 2 (UTC)

I hadn't noticed this discussion before. I just checked my giant etymological dictionary. According to it, the jiagu records were either "X" or "X" with bars top and bottom. A bronze-script alternative was five horizontal strokes -- which could get confusing in a line of numbers. Another reason given for favoring the "barred X" form was that 1, 2, 3, and 4 were viewed as one mini-series, and 6, 7, 8, and 9 were viewed as a second mini-series, and the double-ended format of "X" suggested a connecting link between similar series. P0M 00:17, 18 Mar 2005 (UTC)

• To continue this aside on the etymology of ㄨ and 五, (this directed at Taoster) there is no evidence of Wuxing philosophy shaping the OB (jiagu) characters, and rather than the characters having fundamental abstract meanings, it is widely believed by etymologists that they tend to be based on the concrete and that which is easy to depict. Such graphs for concrete forms were then borrowed, often much later, in order to write more abstract notions. So readings of abstract, Yinyang notions into etymology tend to be BS, even when written by someone as influential as 許慎 Xŭ Shèn. Thus, regarding the 'bobbin' or 'spool' theory (by 丁山 Dīng Shān, I think), it is based on the notion of the word for 'five' (now wu3) being homophonous with an old word for 'spool', the character for which was later written 互 plus 竹 atop it, pronounced hu4. That graph is obsolete now. Note that 互 is also almost identical in graphic form to the 五 graph. The homography and homophony are strong evidence for this theory. (The modern, colloquial term for 'spool' is now different: 絞絲器 jiǎosīqì, lit. 'silk winding tool'.) The 互/五 (or rather, the graphic ancestor of both these) was borrowed for 'five' and also later for 'mutual', with the two eventually diverging graphically.
• This is one theory. Another is that the X form is just an arbitrary symbol. As for the OB form of five, there are basically four: a bare ㄨ (X), an X barred top and bottom with the bars not extending past the diagonals (like a black widow's hourglass), an X barred top and bottom with the bars extending past the diagonals (like the Roman numeral) and five horizontal strokes. Acc. to 趙誠 Zhào Chéng, the bare form is considered, based on current archaeological evidence, to be earlier than the barred form. The barred form is more common. The only evidence of its meaning in the OB is as 'five'. Just FYI. (Source: 趙誠 Zhào Chéng (1988) 甲骨文簡明詞典 – 卜辭分類讀本 jiǎgǔwén jiǎnmíng cídiǎn – bǔcí fēnlèi dúbĕn. 中華書局 Zhōnghúa Shūjú, ISBN 7-101-00254-4/H•22).
• Regardless, we can safely say that the zhuyin symbol ㄨ wu is from one of the OB forms of its homophone 五 wu3. Dragonbones (talk) 08:21, 27 December 2007 (UTC)

• How about ㄅ (b) ← from 包 (bao), another Chinese character more similar. Briston 10:23, 6 Sep 2004 (UTC)

That seems more plausible, judging from the Chinese version of this article and the explanations on this page from a linguist in Taiwan (in Traditional Chinese): http://olddoc.tmu.edu.tw/chiaushin/marker.htm

[edit] Alphabetization

Why does this page have the Chinese Romanization template? There is perfectly good reason to have all those articles about representing Chinese words phonetically conveniently linked to from here, but labeling Zhuyin as a Romanization scheme is just plain incorrect since it doesn't use the Roman alphabet. [[User:Livajo|力伟|т]] 06:03, 27 Sep 2004 (UTC)

[edit] Usage

QUote: Zhuyin will probably never replace Traditional Chinese just as hiragana has never replaced characters in Japanese texts even though it substituting hiragana for characters is always an option. Not only are the characters valued for esthetic and other axiological reasons, but (once they have been learned) reading characters required fewer eye fixations and eliminates the ambiguities in any alphabetic or syllabic writing system caused by the immense number of homonyms in Chinese. (Reading Chinese in a phonetic representation is like trying to understand a spoken English sentence containing a string of homonyms such as: "For afore Forry called four 'Fores!'..." because almost any spelled-out "word" maps to more than one Chinese character. In English, we use different spellings of one sound such as "for" to differentiate the intended meanings. In zhuyin -- minus the word "called" -- that would look something like the following ㄈㄡㄦㄚㄈㄡㄦㄈㄡㄦㄧ... ㄈㄡㄦㄈㄡㄦㄗ.) end quote

This statement seems to have missed the fact that tonal marks are (or can be) used to show the difference between tones...

True, but the addition of tone marks has not been enough to make reading any non-character rendering comfortable for readers who know hanzi.

Even with tones, there are still hundreds of homonyms.-- Baoluo 05:50, 27 July 2006 (UTC)

If Hanzi was replaced by an alphabetic or syllabic writing system, then written Chinese would change, eg less use of single syllable words etc. If it can be understood read aloud then it can be written down with an alphabetic or syllabic writing system without any confusion at all. LDHan 11:38, 27 July 2006 (UTC)

response to top most comment in this section- just use special accent marks to show the different tones and homonyms..... —Preceding unsigned comment added by 162.84.131.194 (talk) 22:02, 31 May 2008 (UTC)

[edit] content for pages

Anyone thought of putting Zhuyin onto various chinese related article pages next to the pinyin and Wade-Giles representations?

Better put your comment into Wikipedia talk:China-related topics notice board because a consensus should be reached prior doing so. -- G.S.K.Lee 14:06, 26 August 2005 (UTC)

[edit] minor correction regarding 幺

The article originally said that 幺 is an entirely obsolete character. But besides being used as the simplified version of "mo" (as in shemma, etc.), it shows up when Googled in many kinship terms, "my father was the 'little' son of the family", etc. It occurs in a couple of compounds in the Guo2 yu3 ci2 dian3, including one that means "second-rate prostitute". So it is not "entirely obsolete." P0M 06:07, 23 August 2005 (UTC)

Haha, 幺 as used for "second-rate prostitute" is a native Shanghainese word. I've never heard it used for Mandarin though. --Mamin27 06:26, 3 December 2006 (UTC)

么 pronounces as "ma2" (simplified version as in shenma (什麼 → 什么), but usually pronounces as shenmo) and 幺 pronounces as "yao1" (explanation see above). Many texts get messed up by these two words due to their similar shapes. --✉ Hello World! 18:49, 31 August 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Note on "bopomofo"

"Bopomofo", the colloquial name of Zhuyin, are also the first four syllables of the official Hanyu pinyin scheme. As a result, it is also sometimes colloquially used to refer to Pinyin in mainland China (instead of Zhuyin, which has all but disappeared in mainland China). To avoid confusion, that name should be used sparingly. --Sumple (Talk) 07:03, 22 September 2006 (UTC)

The term "zhuyin" is not correct either. In Taiwan the informal way that people who are not teachers (or pedants?) refer to it is "bo po mo fo". The term you will find in the dictionary is 注音符號 or NPA (national phonetic alphabet). P0M 03:13, 21 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Move to Zhuyin method

Should this article be moved to "Zhuyin method" to be consistent with Pinyin method and Cangjie method? Leon math 21:35, 20 January 2007 (UTC)

This comment was originally at the top of the page. P0M 03:13, 21 January 2007 (UTC)

Oops, sorry. Leon math 16:33, 21 January 2007 (UTC)

If there is an article called Zhuyin method, it should be linked to zh:注音輸入法. -✉ Hello World! 18:49, 31 August 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Usage in dialects other than Mandarin

Should that be languages rather than dialects? For example, Taiwanese, Hakka, and Mandarin are all mutually UNintelligible, making the proper classification among them as distinct languages rather than dialects of the same language. ludahai 魯大海 11:58, 11 February 2007 (UTC)

regardless of mutualy inteligibility, they are all descended from a common chinese language and are classified as dialects.... —Preceding unsigned comment added by 162.84.131.194 (talk) 21:55, 31 May 2008 (UTC)

Common descent is not an allowable scientific criterium for dinstinguishing dialects from languages. Historically, varieties such as Cantonese and Hakka have been called dialects for socio-political reasons and because the concept of a dialect in Chinese is not 100% the same as that in English. Not that English itself is consistent here, in some English speaking countries, "dialect" is used for anything that's not English. Anyway, the Chinese word for a dialect is 方言, a "regional speech". So the concept of dialect in Chinese is based more on the distinction between a regional and an over-regional variety. The popular interpretations of the word dialect in English aside, regionality is not commonly accepted as a scientific criterium and on the whole, only the degree of mutual intelligibility is.

If common ancestry were such a criterium, we would not have French and Italian but only Romance, Russian and Serbian would be Slavonic and Japanese and Korean would be Altaiic... not very practical or scientific.

It's also not true that all authors use the term dialect when referring to Cantonese, Hakka etc. Many Chinese authors writing in Chinese use 方言 as a technical term, and for a variety of reasons they often prefer "dialect" when writing in English. But overall the picture is varied. Using Cantonese as an example K. Tong and G. James in the Colloquial Cantonese (1994) course use the term language (for the above reasons), as does Siu-hing So in A Glossary of Common Cantonese Colloquial Expressions (2002), Ying-Ping Lee in Current Cantonese Colloquialisms (1998), C. Au Scott in Communicate in Cantonese (1994), Kwan Choi Wah in The Right Word in Cantonese (1996) and so on. I actually have to go back to the 50s to find frequent references to Cantonese as a dialect, for example Chan Yeung Kwong Everybody's Cantonese (1947).

Even mainland chinese books today often use 语 "language" rather than 话 (dialect) when talking about Cantonese, for example 杨明新 简明粤英词典 (1999) as opposed to 李榮 廣州方言詞典 (2000) (although the latter arguable deals with the Cantonese dialect of Canton rather than Cantonese overall).

I think the modern scientific usage (at least in English) is definitely in the language camp rather than the dialect camp. Akerbeltz (talk) 10:35, 1 June 2008 (UTC)

[edit] ㄧ and 一

The article consistently uses 一 to represent yi (i), but half of my fonts show this character as a vertical stroke ㄧ. I suppose they could be variants intended for vertical and horizontal writing. But according to Unicode 一 (U+4E00) is the Chinese character for "one", different from U+3127. The appearance doesn't matter to me as much as the correct encoding. Should all occurrences of 一 be changed to ㄧ? MJ 11:21, 7 August 2007 (UTC)

Vertical Chinese texts use horizontal glyph and horizontal Chinese texts use vertical glyph. However, none of the computer fonts support this kind of variation. Simplified Chinese fonts always give vertical form and traditional Chinese fonts always give horizontal form. so in rare cases when distinction is important, we have to use a horizontal line (I think an en dash is better than hanzi) or a vertical line to substitute it. -✉ Hello World! 18:49, 31 August 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Zhuyin experts needed for Templates

Someone suggested we add Xiao'erjing and Bopomofo into Template:Chinese. The person had the IP 132.205.44.5. I don't know where this person went? Can we get some more expert at Template talk:Chinese on how these can be added into the template? Thanks. Benjwong 03:44, 21 August 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Automated Translation

Gymshaw (talk) 00:26, 29 April 2008 (UTC) Software that provides instant Chinese (Traditional or Simplified) to Zhuyin translation can be helpful for people learning Chinese--especially those with roots in Taiwan.