Talk:Zhuyin

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[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)

[edit] removals

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

[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)

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)

[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)

[edit] Symbol origins

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)

[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)

[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 dielects of the same language. ludahai 魯大海 11:58, 11 February 2007 (UTC)

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