This Is Not Japanese but it’s Chinese | The Earliest “Pinyin” in History

[@bobjones1999]

I didn't know that there was an alternative to pinyin thanks! I think it would be really cool, if more Chinese loan words were written out in Bopomofo, sort of like Japanese. 🤷‍♂🤷‍♂

[@jawijawijawi5047]

Sure! it's easier to spell many loanwords.

[@bobjones1999]

@@jawijawijawi5047 Yeah, and its consistent to.

[@sanneoi6323]

Yea exactly. Japanese use Katakana for transliteration, and we could easily use bopomofo for that, although I don't know about using it for all loanwords as that would leave spots of bopomofo all over our writing and make it look like we're not, well, not needing a supplement to make the characters work in our language.

[@mckendrick7672]

It would be preferable to the current way of transcribing loanwords with Hanzi, but Zhuyin suffers from being extremely different from Hanzi in terms of space while still being extremely similar to Hanzi in terms of shape. For every single syllable full size Hanzi character you need at least two full size Zhuyin characters (but usually more like four including the tone marker). This makes Zhuyin difficult to read in-line with Hanzi. Japanese doesn't have this problem because Hiragana is probably roughly 50% or more of regular Japanese script, and makes up pretty much all of the script for inflections and grammar. Katakana is more similar to Kanji in shape, but also fulfils a similar role to Kanji but for modern loanwords. On the other hand, using Zhuyin for Chinese script would be hard to read at an instant because it would be such a tiny portion of Chinese script as a whole while being too similar in shape to Hanzi, and lacking the overall density of Hanzi. Korean Hangul would actually be a pretty good fit for a phonetic script in Chinese - it was originally designed with Chinese transcription in mind, but has a very different shape to Hanzi while maintaining similar density. This would make it differentiable enough to easily spot at an instant while fitting within the flow of Chinese script.

[@ragerDuane]

Chinese language derives meaning from its characters, unlike Japanese in which the vocabulary has inherent meaning. Therefore, Chinese must use characters to convey meaning.

[@descalzitao6779]

I stumbled by chance upon the hold house of Zhang Taiyan a few days ago in the Northwest of Hangzhou, had no idea he was the guy that created Zhuyin !

[@piggletimpact]

Thank you for the information on Chinese languages it is very interesting 👍

[@jas7256]

很有趣，我原來不知道客家和粵語有用注音！

[@sanneoi6323]

闽南话也用注音，其实，闽南话有很漂亮的注音字。

[@Aleksey_Krotov]

Pinyin is a good one. But I like Zhuyin more.

[@robinharwood5044]

I used to be able to read bopomofo very slowly. Forgotten now. I also like the Gwoyeu Romatzyh because it doesn't need tone marks.

[@Hampter-m7r]

Both Chinese must use more zhuyin like katakana!

[@mdahsenmirza2536]

Just like how every word cannot be used in hiragana/kataka, Chinese words cannot be written in zhuyin

[@Hampter-m7r]

@mdahsenmirza2536 No not mean all words but only borrowed word like Miller[ㄇㄧㄌㄜ]. You know katakana is used for borrowed words.

[@mdahsenmirza2536]

@@Hampter-m7r the thing with Chinese is that there is an extreme amount of similar sounding words. I only know a bit of Chinese and I can list out possibly a very long list of different characters that all have the same pronunciation down to the same tones being used. That is why chinese cannot be written down in either pinyin or zhuyin. As for phonetic names, chineese already uses set characters for phonetic transliterations, like 馬 is used for transliterating the sound "ma". for example, marcopolo is 馬可波羅， mark is 馬可, etc. As you see, with the han characters, you have the freedom to choose which characters can represent your name. Maybe, a supposed mark does not want his name to mean "horse permission" so he instead uses the characters 瑪恪 that means something like "Beauty in diligence" because everything he does, he does with dilligence and beauty. + Also, zhuyin is limited to taiwan i guess so that eaves a lot of people that don't know/ can't use zhuyin

[@kekevids134]

@@Hampter-m7ras a chinese person, no we do not, unfortunately

[@Hampter-m7r]

​@mdahsenmirza2536 Writing foreign pronunciation as hanzi feels like so stubborn. Korean and Japanese even don't that.

[@tktyga77]

Might there uses for it beyond learning purposes such as where Han characters wouldn't quite capture the situations and/or extensions for Formosan languages like how kana is used for Ainuic & other ones in the case of katakana, also including Joseongul/Hangul extensions for others like (R)Yukjin & Jeju languages (as well as Koryo-Mar)?

[@SebxTeaHouse2.0]

I remember Min nan language or be called taiwanese also uses bopomofo.

[@tktyga77]

To clear things up, I mean by Formosan leeds/languages the Taiwanese First Nations ones

[@titan941234]

​​​@@tktyga77As a Taiwanese, I hope I can somewhat explain: 1. Except learning Chinese, it also used in typing(Though there are other Chinese typing methods, many Taiwanese, including me, simply typing in Zhuyin). 2. Though it can be use to record the sound of Taiwanese(you can see it as a branch of Min language, or like many Taiwanese nationalists, claim it as a new developed language) and Hakka, but it's rarely used that way nowadays. Mostly, people(especially those nationalists) use Latin alphabets to record those languages, and actually, their are several Latin systems you can choose. 3. If you refer to "Indiginous" Formosan Languages, it's impossible. Because they are Austronesian languages, their phonology and grammar are way too different from Chinese Languages. So they use Latin alphabets to write their languages. Of course, we can use Chinese Characters to translate some of their personal or geographical names, making Han Chinese/Taiwanese easier to pronounce; but beside those exceptions, it's still basically impossible(or at least very inconvenient) to use either Chinese Characters or Zhuyin to completely record their own languages.

[@titan941234]

​​@@tktyga77 4.Oh, if you wander why Korean or Japanese can adopt Chinese Characters(even with different phonology and grammar), while Indigenous Formosan don't, here are some possible reason: 4-1.Japan, Korea and Vietnam all being influenced by ancient China for nearly 2,000 years. When they start their own civilization and want to learn more, China was the most advanced, powerful civilization they could easily contact. On the other hand, even Indigenous Formosan had trade with other parts of the world for millennia, the first "reliable" Chinese record (and indeed, any written record from outside our island) about Taiwanese Indigenous people, was written only in 1603, called "record of Eastern Barbarians(東番記)". There's only two short and suspicious Chinese expedition records before. Even in that article(it's a classical article in our textbooks), the author wrote: "How strange! sailing from Lesser Kinmen for one day can reach Penghu Islands, and one day more can reach this place(Taiwan), it's pretty close from Mainland China. But here still has people live without proper calendar, government officials(some indigenous groups actually have those, like Paiwan or Rukai people), clothing or writing system...but they enjoy their lives and eat full, do they really need any clever men to civilize them?" So basically, China (and other major ancient civilizations with writing systems)strangely ignored our island, for very long time. Although they could also adopt Brahmic script systems from Southeast Asia, but they seems not very interested either. 4-2.Even until 17~19th century, outsiders like Dutch, Spain, and China, didn't really care about this island. I mean, compare with China, India or Spice Islands, Taiwan isn't a wealthy place, and most of the island is covered by mountainous jungle, hard to govern, let alone those indigenous people still not really impressed by writing system, either Latin, Chinese or Japanese. Only when the massive immigration made assimilation nearly inevitable, and by the power of religion (like Christian missionaries trying to introduce Latin system), so they finally accept writing; although at this point, many traditional cultures also have disappeared or massively changed. And this process still took 200 years. So as you can see, writing records or not is kind of a choice. Although without it may make you more likely lose cultural competition, but like the Celtic druids in ancient Europe, some groups of people may just have their own reason not to do so. 4-3.And there's geography and climate cause: even they choose to adopt/invent writing system, the humid tropical climate and frequent natural disasters, will make preserving paper records harder than most parts of the world. Even carving on stones, bones or wood barks may last longer, but a large earthquake or landslide, can still destroy your greatest steles. 4-4.Also, we have dozens of indigenous groups, and they are pretty diverse. You can look up wikipidia: most Austronesian language branches can only be found in Taiwan, while nearly ALL other Austronesians, from Malay, Hawai'i to Maori, belong in a single branch(Malay-Polynesian). Which means, they are barely intelligible(probably, since I'm ethnic Han). So If a Seediq person write something, it can hardly be understood by Siraya, Tsou or Puyuma readers, making writing less useful. 4-5.Finally, until these few decades, the purpose of most outside rulers that introducing writing systems, is to force the indigenous learn their official languages (like Chinese or Japanese), or even the outsider's culture; not helping them to learn their native tongues. According to my own experience(being forced to learn English), that could discourage indigenous people to adopt writing systems even more.

[@tktyga77]

@@titan941234 so with all of those in mind, even though there does seem to be an alphabet for the Formosan leeds, any sort of communication between them would have to be something like a sign language and/or a kind of logographic writing done in an akin way to the Han writing or some kind of lingua franca if not taking into account the official ones being the one for intercultural communication uses? Another concern regarding places to put writing in such as mud or wood plus paper are susceptible to termites, which happens to be a big part of why records on premodern Africa from the inside are hard to find

[@笨蛋-p1f]

infact, the are many previous romanisation and simplification systems that were circling around before Zhuyin !! Most notably, Wang Zhao’s Guanhua Zimu was rather influential within the late Qing Dynasty before being discredited after the proposal of regional dialect formatting. Guanhua Zimu, despite its influence, is obscure and frustratingly hard to find on the Chinese Web, let alone Western Sites. Along with this, other systems, such as standardised cursive scripts and modified Latin scripts were apparent during that period, but are now mostly lost to time.

[@leonardosy9511]

注音符號不能失傳

[@ErinaBee.sMoney]

I can read zhuyin.

[@RealTianweiZhang2nd]

ㄨㄛˇ更ㄒㄧˇㄏㄨㄢ 注音。

[@mikethegamedev]

Zhuyin Fuhao

[@Morso8]

I hate that the latinization that happened to most of the world's scripts, so many beautiful scripts lost

[@ragerDuane]

Well good thing Chinese hasn't been latinized. Pinyin is just a pronunciation symbol system. It didn't replace Chinese script.

[@user-pi8pd9wc5y]

Might seem beautiful but it causes needless headaches in the current world of globalism. Most people would not be able to write English in these comments if their native language wasn't with a latinized alphabet. Yeah, you have Google Translate, but that isn't accurate, and it isn't a substitute in any way. (e.g. try using that for Chinese. It will fail quickly)

[@TalaySeedam]

More efficiant and correct than hanyu pinyin that nobody can read correctly. Its still used in the Republic of China.

[@sanneoi6323]

It's prettier. I always think of Pinyin as romanisation system, which it does better than its predecessors.

[@ragerDuane]

It's actually not more efficient for pronunciation. Zhuyin cannot combine vowels to make a separate compound final. For instance, the final "ian" is not "i" plus "an", it is distinct. But zhuyin cannot make that a distinct final, it can only write that as "i" plus "an". ㄧㄢ

[@ragerDuane]

And what are you talking about no one can read it correctly? The PRC has more accurate pronunciation the ROC.

[@lightsxxdeath9116]

What? Zhuyin is taiwanese bro and pinyi is chinese

[@SebxTeaHouse2.0]

Chill my bro, the word Chinese in my video means Chinese language, also known as the standard Mandarin. In language, Taiwanese is typically 台語 ㄊㄞˊ ㄩˇ or can be called Tâi-gí / Tâi-gú.

[@tommarnt]

37th sub

[@takenname7348]

Traditional Chinese is for true mandarin speakers. Change my mind.

[@lichang-l3m]

the two systems clearly indicate we are two different countries !

[@ronaldbolibol470]

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