ellis@FLAIRMAX.UUCP (Michael Ellis) (09/23/83)
This is a fairly long response to Chris Hibbert's questions about the
spelling of Chinese (Mandarin) in the old (Wade-Giles) and new (Pinyin)
romanizations.
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Some Chinese respellings are simply a conversion from Wade-Giles to Pinyin,
as in:
(WG)Mao Tse Tung == (P)Mao Ze Dong
and some involve updating passe or incorrect western pronunciation as well
as a conversion to Pinyin, as in
(WG)Peking => (WG)Peiching == (P)Beijing
Adding to the confusion in Chinese romanization are the many
bastardizations of Wade Giles, and the other modern system called Yale. Then
there are all the dialects, which are really separate languages. Mandarin,
the standard, is all I'll deal with here.
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Before continuing, a few remarks about the spelling of foreign words
in our alphabet, and a couple of definitions.
One thing for English speakers who don't know better: nobody uses the roman
alphabet as idiotically or inconsistently as we do (except maybe Gaelic).
You can't even respell ENGLISH words sensibly with our `system'. For
example, there is no clear way to spell the `u' in put, or to distinguish
the sounds of `th' in thin/then. Also, we are lacking many sounds, such as
the vowels in French une, oeuvre, un, hom, or Russian's hard/soft consonant
distinction. It therefore makes no sense to try to respell foreign words
as English.
The spelling of Spanish (better yet, Esperanto) is a good base from which
to attempt pronunciation of foreign words. The letters c,h,j,q,w,x,y,z and
digraphs such as ch,th,sz,cz, however, always require knowledge of the
language. Such differences in usage are usually due to the phonetic needs
of the language, and reflect Latin's poverty in certain classes of sounds,
such as sibilants like sh and ch. And note that 5 vowels are simply
not enough for most languages.
Two definitions (phoneme & allophone):
A phoneme is a set of similar sounds (allophones) that can be considered as
contextual variants of each other. For instance, the different sounds of
`e' in egg, let, grey and the sound of a in dare (which might be spelled
phonemically \eg,let,grey,der\) can be considered allophones of the
English phoneme \e\, even though the actual sound is slightly different
in each case. I know these definitions suck -- flames to net.pacman...
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Chinese words are essentially monosyllables, or compounds of recognizable
monosyllabic forms. Traditional analysis of syllables is into initial
consonant (there are no clusters, like scr-) and finals, which consist of
an optional vowel glide (i, u, :u = umlaut u), a vowel, and an optional
final sound (n, ng, i, u). Only a very limited set of all possibilities
actually occur.
The remainder of this article attempts to describe the representation of
initials and finals in both Wade-Giles and Pinyin romanizations.
MANDARIN CHINESE INITIALS
The most noticeable changes in the recent Chinese respelling involve
discarding the apostrophe and the digraphs hs and ts; the letters
b,d,g,x,q are now used. The letters j,z,r are redefined.
Wade-Giles Pinyin Closest English Sound
p' p p*
p b b**
f f f
m m m
t' t t*
t d d**
n n n
ts' c ts in its*
ts z ds in lids**
s s s in sigh (never as in rose)
ch' ch halfway between tr in try and ch in choose*,+
ch zh halfway between dr in dry and j in jews**,+
sh sh halfway between shr in shrink and sh in shoes+
ch' (+i,:u) q ch in cheap*,++
ch (+i,:u) j j in jeep**,++
hs x sh in sheep++
k' k k*
k g g**
h h h
l l l
j r r, Barbara Walters' style++
Note:
* Aspirated unvoiced stops, as English initial p-, t-, k- . Aspiration
is the puff of air you can feel with your hand as you say `pie'
** Unaspirated, unvoiced sounds that don't exist in English as initials,
but sound much like our voiced stops b- d-, g- etc.
+ Retroflex sounds. The tongue is curled as though an american `r'
were embedded.
++ Palatized sounds, as though a consonantal `y' were embedded. Sometimes
in WG, you see ts', ts for palatized ch', ch (as in Ts'ing Tao beer)
i,u,u: when consonantal (spelled y, w, yu) are here treated as a special
case that occurs when the initial is absent.
MANDARIN CHINESE FINALS
The spelling of vowels has not changed much, but enough to be irritating.
Incidentally, Chinese vowels are difficult to transcribe into roman letters.
One problem is the elusive nature of vowel utterance to the western ear.
I think this is partly because of the strange limitations in the Chinese
phonemic scheme. For example, there is only one final in iXn, which means
a speaker can pronounce X with considerable freedom and still be understood.
Wade-Giles proponents heard this sound as `e', in Pinyin it is `a'.
Who's to say which is correct?
Another problem is that there no schva (the upside down e in dictionaries) in
our alphabet. Since Mandarin schva seems to be (almost?) allophonic with
\e\ and \o\, it can written either e or o. Very confusing.
Both romanizations use the umlaut u (here written `:u'), similar to the
French u. The same symbol is also employed as a semivowel, much the same
way as i, u are used for y, w. Umlaut u as a semivowel sounds like the u in
French `huit' or `nuage'.
Wade-Giles Pinyin Closest English Pronunciation
a a a in father
ai ai y in my
ao ao ow in how
an an on in pond
ang ang on in congress (not ang in hang!)
e,o e u in but
ei ei ay in say
ou ou o in go
en en un in bun
eng eng ung in hung
ia ia ya in yacht
iao iao yow in Zippy
ien ian yon in yonder (or is it ye in yet?)
iang iang y + ah + ng
ieh ie ye in yet
iu iou yo in yodel (or is it u in use?)
i i e in me
in in een in seen
ing ing ing in sing
ua ua wa in wander
uai uai why in why (if wh=w for you)
uan uan wan in wander
uang uang - w + ah + ng
uo,o uo wa in war (or is it wa in was?)
uei,ui ui,uei way in way
uen,un un,uen won in wonder (or is it oon in soon?)
u u oo in foo
ung ong - oo+ng, as Germans pronounce ung in Jung.
:uan :uan wan in wander (except use the :u glide for w)
:ueh :ue we in wet (except ")
:u :u - umlaut u
:un :un - umlaut u + n
:ung iong - umlaut u + ng
ih i ur in fur
zu i zzz,sss (a strange buzzing/hissing sound)
The last two vowels are treated as allophones of `i' in Pinyin (ie. normal
\i\ does not ever occur in their contexts) that seem to be a continuation
of the previous consonant. The r-like vowel appears only after retroflex
ch, zh, sh, and r (WG ch', ch, sh, j) and the z-like vowel only after
c, z, and s (WG ts', ts, and s - sometimes written tz'u, tzu, szu).
Note that when the initial consonant is absent, the preceding i, u, or :u
glide sound is respelt as an initial y, w, or yu. The syllables i,u,:u
are usually spelt yi,wu,yu. Another oddity when there is no initial is that
the sounds e, o retain their full sounds (e in let, aw in law). Other
graphic and phonetic variations occur.
Finally, there's an r-like suffix (WG -rh, Pinyin -r) that's often tacked
onto the end of syllables.
Several notes about diacritic marks:
1. Pinyin often drops the umlaut when normal `u' cannot appear in the given
context, such as after palatized sounds q,j,x,y. Some of the oddities
of Pinyin (eg. iong for :ung) may be due to the scarcity of printers
with this special character.
2. In Pinyin, a circumflex '^' over `e' indicates the sound of `e' in let,
otherwise the more common schva sound is implied. Wade-Giles reverses
the algorithm.
3. Wade-Giles places a chevron over `u' when it indicates the buzzing vowel.
-michael