--- In qalam@yahoogroups.com, Weiben Wang <weibenw@...> wrote:

> Re Bopomofo and Pinyin:
> As I understand it Pinyin, either Hanyu or Tongyong,
> were intended for use by foreigners who can't read
> Chinese characters, ie for street signs and mailing
> addresses; it was never intended to replace Bopomofo
> as used by Taiwanese.
>
> Bopomofo, or Zhuyinfuhao, is far too pervasive to be
> replaced by decree. It's taught to every
> schoolchild,is widely used in children's books to ease
> them into readying Chinese, and every adult recognizes
> it, and uses it when they need to write Chinese
> phonetically. Almost no one understands Pinyin in
> either form. Among other things, typing in Bopomofo
> is the most commonly used method for Chinese character
> input on a computer, and is used for entering SMS
> messages on cell phones.

I have a question about this. I teach ESL to 10 - 12 year olds and
they can all input Chinese characters on a computer quickly using
Pinyin. They are from all over China. They use njstar or the
Windows Pinyin IME and they seem to know how to do it without
training. They google sites in Chinese on topics we are studying in
English. I thought that this was a fairly common way to input in
Chinese.

> AFIK, Pinyin was intended to rectify the chaotic
> Romanization system, or rather non-system, previously
> in use. Simplified Wade-Giles was the official
> standard, but since WG is intuitive to almost nobody,
> nobody used it correctly, with the end result that
> everyone essentially invented a Roman spelling on the
> spot if they needed one. This led to the absurd
> situation that you could see three spells for the same
> street name standing on one street corner; for
> instance, you might see Nanking, Nanching, or Nanjing
> based on the whim of the signmaker. I was heartend to
> see those signs replace by standard Hanyu Pinyin the
> last time I was in Taipei (Taibei?).
>
> Unfortunately, the story doesn't end there. Since
> Hanyu Pinyin is used on the Mainland, many in Taiwan
> reflexively think that Taiwan must use something else,
> even though Romanization is intended for foreigners,
> who are familiar with Hanyu PY if they're familiar
> with anything, and so promulgated a slightly modified
> version of Hanyu Pinyin which they dubbed Tongyong
> Pinyin. I haven't read any news on this recently, but
> a few years ago this led to raging debate, including
> street demonstrations, over which standard to adopt.
> The last I heard, this led to a new absurdity, with
> Taipei city officially adopted Hanyu PY and the
> Taiwanese national government adopting Tongyong. I
> don't know how this morass shook out in the end, but I
> fear that they will once again end up with no single
> standard, everyone will still be confused, and they'll
> be right back where they started.
>
> Sorry, I think I went on a tangent, but you touched on
> a sore spot. ;)
>
> P.S. A quick Google search turned up the following:
>
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tongyong_Pinyin
>
> -Weiben Wang
>
>