Bopomofo

Bopomofo, also called Zhuyin () or Mandarin Phonetic Symbols, is the major Chinese transliteration system for Mandarin Chinese and other related languages and dialects which is nowadays most commonly used in Taiwanese Mandarin. It is also used to transcribe other varieties of Chinese, particularly other varieties of Standard Chinese and related Mandarin dialects, as well as Taiwanese Hokkien.

Zhuyin Fuhao and Zhuyin are traditional terms, whereas Bopomofo is the colloquial term, also used by the ISO and Unicode. Consisting of 37 characters and four tone marks, it transcribes all possible sounds in Mandarin. Zhuyin was introduced in China by the Republican Government in the 1910s and used alongside the Wade–Giles system, which used a modified Latin alphabet. The Wade system was replaced by Hanyu Pinyin in 1958 by the Government of the People's Republic of China, and at the International Organization for Standardization (ISO) in 1982. Bopomofo is an official transliteration system in Taiwan, being used in Guoyu Jianbian Cidian, Guoyu Chongbian Cidian and other documents. It is widely used as the main electronic input method for Mandarin Chinese in Taiwan (ROC). Taiwan adopted Hanyu Pinyin as one of the official romanization systems for Mandarin Chinese in 2009, but the system is not commonly used in electronic input.

Name
Similarly to the way that the word "alphabet" is ultimately derived from the names of the first two letters of the alphabet (alpha and beta), the name "Bopomofo" is derived from the first four syllables in the conventional ordering of available syllables in Mandarin Chinese. The four Bopomofo characters () that correspond to these syllables are usually placed first in a list of these characters. The same sequence is sometimes used by other speakers of Chinese to refer to other phonetic systems.

The original formal name of the system was  and . It was later renamed .

In official documents, Zhuyin is occasionally called "Mandarin Phonetic Symbols I" (), abbreviated as "MPS I" 

In English translations, the system is often also called either Chu-in or the Mandarin Phonetic Symbols. A romanized phonetic system was released in 1984 as Mandarin Phonetic Symbols II (MPS II).

History

Origins 

The Commission on the Unification of Pronunciation, led by Wu Zhihui from 1912 to 1913, created a system called Zhuyin Zimu, which was based on Zhang Binglin's shorthand. A draft was released on July 11, 1913, by the Republic of China National Ministry of Education, but it was not officially proclaimed until November 23, 1928. It was later renamed first Guoyin Zimu and then, in April 1930, Zhuyin Fuhao. The last renaming addressed fears that the alphabetic system might independently replace Chinese characters.

Modern use 

Bopomofo is the predominant phonetic system in teaching reading and writing in elementary school in Taiwan. It is also the most popular way to enter Chinese characters into computers and smartphones and to look up characters in a dictionary.

In elementary school, particularly in the lower years, Chinese characters in textbooks are often annotated with Bopomofo as ruby characters as an aid to learning. Additionally, one children's newspaper in Taiwan, the Mandarin Daily News, annotates all articles with Zhuyin ruby characters.

In teaching Mandarin, Taiwan institutions and some overseas communities such as Filipino Chinese use Bopomofo.

Bopomofo is shown in a secondary position to Hanyu Pinyin in all editions of Xiandai Hanyu Cidian from the 1960 edition to present 2016 edition (7th edition).

Etymology

The Zhuyin characters were created by Zhang Binglin, taken mainly from "regularized" forms of ancient Chinese characters, the modern readings of which contain the sound that each letter represents. The consonants are listed in order of place of articulation, from the front of the mouth to the back, /b/, /p/, /m/, /f/, /d/, /t/, /n/, /l/ etc.

Writing

Stroke order
Zhuyin is written in the same stroke order rule as Chinese characters. Note that  is written with three strokes, unlike the character from which it is derived (), which has four strokes.

 can be written as a vertical line () or a horizontal line (); both are accepted forms. Traditionally, it should be written as a horizontal line in vertical writing, and a vertical line in horizontal writing. The Republic of China almost exclusively uses horizontal writing, so the vertical form has become the standard form there. Language education in Taiwan generally uses vertical writing, so most people learn it as a horizontal line, and use a horizontal form even in horizontal writing. In 2008, the Taiwanese Ministry of Education decided that the primary form should always be the horizontal form, but that the vertical form is accepted alternative. Unicode 8.0.0 published an errata in 2014 that updates the representative glyph to be the horizontal form. Computer fonts may only display one form or the other, or may be able to display both if the font is aware of changes needed for vertical writing.

Tonal marks 

As shown in the following table, tone marks for the second, third, and fourth tones are shared between bopomofo and pinyin. In bopomofo, the first tone mark is usually omitted but can be included while a dot above indicates the fifth tone (also known as the neutral tone). In pinyin, a macron (overbar) indicates the first tone and the lack of a marker usually indicates the fifth (light) tone.

Unlike Hanyu Pinyin, Zhuyin aligns well with the hanzi characters in books whose texts are printed vertically, making Zhuyin better suited for annotating the pronunciation of vertically oriented Chinese text.

Zhuyin, when used in conjunction with Chinese characters, are typically placed to the right of the Chinese character vertically or to the top of the Chinese character in a horizontal print (see Ruby characters).

Below is an example for the word "bottle" ():

Erhua transcription
Erhua-ed words merge as a single syllable, which means  is attached to the precedent syllable (like  ). In case the syllable uses other tones than 1st tone, the tone is attached to the penultimate syllable, but not to  (e.g.  ;  ;  ).

Comparison

Pinyin 
Zhuyin and pinyin are based on the same Mandarin pronunciations, hence there is a one-to-one correspondence between the two systems:

1 Not written.

2  is written as  after , , , or .

3 / is written as / after /, /, /, /.

4  is pronounced  (written as ) when it follows an initial.

Chart

Use outside Standard Mandarin

Three letters formerly used in non-standard dialects of Mandarin are now also used to write other Chinese varieties. Some Zhuyin fonts do not contain these letters; see External links for PDF pictures.

In Taiwan, Bopomofo is used to teach Taiwanese Hokkien, and is also used to transcribe it phonetically in contexts such as on storefront signs, karaoke lyrics, and film subtitles.

Computer uses

Input method

Zhuyin can be used as an input method for Chinese characters. It is one of the few input methods that can be found on most modern personal computers without the user having to download or install any additional software. It is also one of the few input methods that can be used for inputting Chinese characters on certain cell phones.

Unicode

Zhuyin was added to the Unicode Standard in October 1991 with the release of version 1.0.

The Unicode block for Zhuyin, called Bopomofo, is U+3100–U+312F:

Additional characters were added in September 1999 with the release of version 3.0.

The Unicode block for these additional characters, called Bopomofo Extended, is U+31A0–U+31BF:

Unicode 3.0 also added the characters U+02EA and U+02EB, in the Spacing Modifier Letters block. These two characters are now (since Unicode 6.0) classified as Bopomofo characters.

See also
Chinese input methods for computers
Fanqie
Furigana
Ruby character
Taiwanese Phonetic Symbols
Zhuyin table

References

External links

The Manual of The Phonetic Symbols of Mandarin Chinese 
Unicode reference glyphs for   and  
Bopomofo annotations – adds inline and pop-up annotations with bopomofo pronunciation and English definitions to Chinese text or web pages.
Mandarin Dictionary – needs Chinese font for Big5 encoding
 Chinese Phonetic Conversion Tool – converts between Pinyin, Zhuyin and other phonetic systems
Chinese Romanization Converter – converts between Hanyu Pinyin, Wade–Giles, Gwoyeu Romatzyh and other known or (un-)common Romanization systems
Bopomofo -> Wade-Giles -> Pinyin -> Word List
NPA->IPA National Phonetic Alphabet (bopomofo) spellings of words transliterated into the International Phonetic Alphabet. The vowel values have been verified against the official IPA site. See IPA help preview, SIL International website. See IPA help preview, SIL International website. (Accessed 23-12-2010).
Bopomofo to Pinyin converter and reverse
bopomofo syllable chart, with Hanyu Pinyin equivalents
Pinyin Annotator – adds bopomofo (bopomofo) or pinyin on top of any Chinese text, prompts alternative pronunciations to homonyms, has the option of exporting into OpenOffice Writer for further editing
 – online keyboard for bopomofo which can turn it into Chinese characters
 Online Zhuyin-Bopomofo Input Method Editor 

Category:Writing systems
Category:Mandarin words and phrases
Category:Auxiliary and educational artificial scripts
Category:Ruby characters
Category:Chinese scripts
Category:Transcription of Chinese
Category:Han character input
Category:Scripts encoded in Unicode 1.0
Category:Writing systems introduced in 1913