THE FATHER OF PINYIN

Every once in a while, Google celebrates a person I’ve never heard of. Today is one of those days – they celebrate the 112^th birthday of Zhou Youguang, the Chinese “economist, banker, linguist, sinologist, publisher and supercentenarian, known as the “father of Pinyin.” (I had to look up that supercentenarian – it means he lived over 100 years – he lived exactly 111 years, to be exact.) This man was a polymath, as one can guess from the range of his expertise, and he lived through some very turbulent times.

Google gives this brief definition of Pinyin, taken from Wikipedia. (And what would the curious mind do without those two?) The definition also gives the various ways to pronounce pinyin, which means “spell sound.” There’s the reason for my interest: pronunciation, actually, pronunciation versus spelling.

Pinyin

Language writing system

Hanyu Pinyin, often abbreviated to pinyin, is the official romanization system for Standard Chinese in mainland China and to some extent in Taiwan. It is often used to teach Standard Chinese, which is normally written using Chinese characters. Wikipedia

Yale Romanization: Pingyām [developed in the 1940's to help G.I.s communicate with their Chinese counterparts]

Canton Romanization: Ping yem

Bopomofo: ㄆㄧㄣ ㄧㄣ   [a phonetic script]

Wade–Giles: P‘in-yin [the old pronunciation system used in the west]

Jyutping: Ping jam   [Cantonese pronunciation]

Hokkien POJ: peng-im/pheng-im [pronunciation in most of China's southeast]

I’ve always wondered why the Latinized spelling of Chinese words, at least the spellings we use today, too often doesn’t match the sound of the word. The western world used the Wade-Giles pronunciations up until the late 1970s. In 1955, the Chinese government set about revising their language to increase literacy. They charged Youguang with the task of revising the way the language is represented using the Latin alphabet. They changed Peking, the Wade-Giles spelling and pronunciation, to Beijing. O.K. they could do that.

Beijing is pronounced bei (bay) jing – spot on

Guangzhou is pronounced guang zhow – close

Feng Shui is pronounced fung schway – not close at all

So, that I what I learned in the hour or so since I turned on my PC this morning. I’m still wondering why some spellings aren’t closer to their pronunciation, but now I know that pronunciations vary within China, as they do here in America, and I know who gets the blame: Zhou Youguang. I can still learn a lot in my old age.