National Languages Committee

The National Languages Committee, formerly Mandarin Promotion Council (traditional Chinese: 國語推行委員會; simplified Chinese: 国语推行委员会; pinyin: Guóyǔ Tuīxíng Wěiyuánhuì) was established by the Ministry of Education of the Republic of China, commonly known as "Taiwan", with the purpose of standardizing and popularizing the usage of Mandarin in the Republic of China.

It was created as the Preparatory Commission for the Unification of the National Language (國語統一籌備會; Guóyǔ Tǒngyī Chóubèi Huì) by the Republic (then still based in Nanjing) on April 21, 1919. On December 12, 1928, the Commission was renamed to the Preparatory Committee for the Unification of the National Language (國語統一籌備委員會; Guóyǔ Tǒngyī Chóubèi Wěiyuánhuì), headed by Woo Tsin-hang and had 31 members. The Committee was revived in 1983 as the Mandarin Promotion Council based on Taiwan.

The decisions reached by the Council include:

Changing the first- and second-grade textbook titles from Guowen (國文 "National Script") to Guoyu (國語 "National language"), on January 24, 1920
Publishing the Guoyin Zidian (國音字典 "National Pronunciation Dictionary") edited by Woo Tsin-hang, on December 24, 1920. The Guoyin Zidian later became the Guoyu Cidian (國語辭典), a comprehensive online^[1] and CD-ROM Traditional Chinese Mandarin dictionary.

The Committee for National Language Romanization (羅馬字母拼音研究委員會) under the Council selects and modifies Romanization Systems. The official romanization systems in the Republic of China have been:

Gwoyeu Romatzyh (1928–1984)
MPS II (1984–2002)
Tongyong Pinyin (2002–2008)
Hanyu Pinyin (starting on January 1, 2009)

Other projects include:

Researching mainland Chinese Mandarin usages
Researching aboriginal Taiwanese languages.
Researching other varieties of Chinese or languages like Hakka, and Taiwanese Hokkien

References

^ "教育部重編國語辭典修訂本". 中華民國教育部. 1994. http://dict.revised.moe.edu.tw/. Retrieved 2010-05-16.

National Languages Committee

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External links