Bopomofo

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Bopomofo
Type	Semi-syllabary (letters for onsets and rimes; diacritics for tones)
Spoken languages	Chinese languages, Formosan languages
Created by	Commission on the Unification of Pronunciation
Time period	1913 to the present, now used as ruby characters in Taiwan for Chinese, and as the principal script for Formosan
Parent systems	Oracle Bone Script Seal Script Clerical Script Bopomofo
Sister systems	Simplified Chinese, Kanji, Hanja, Chữ Nôm, Khitan script
ISO 15924	Bopo
Note: This page may contain IPA phonetic symbols in Unicode.

Jhuyin Fuhao, often abbreviated jhuyin, and colloquially Bopomofo^[1] is a phonetic system for transcribing Chinese, especially Mandarin, for people learning to read, write or speak Mandarin. This semi-syllabary is currently in wide use in Taiwan (see Uses). Consisting of 37 letters and 4 tone marks, it is a comprehensive system that can transcribe all the possible sounds in Mandarin.

Although often thought of as an alphabet, jhuyin is not based on consonants and vowels but on syllable onsets and rimes, based on the Chinese rime tables but with diacritics rather than separate rimes for the tones. As in an alphabet, the consonants (onsets) are represented by distinct letters. These constitute 21 of bopomofo's 37. However, excluding the medial glide, each rime also has a distinct letter, which conflates vowels, diphthongs, and final consonants. For example, luan is written ㄌㄨㄢ (l-u-an), where the last letter ㄢ represents the entire final -an. These finals constitute the other 16 letters of bopomofo. (However, final -p, -t, -k, which are not found in Mandarin, are written as subscript letters after a final that represents only the vowel.)

In everyday speech, jhuyin may also be referred to as bopomo, both this name and bopomofo name comes from the first letters in the alphabet (ㄅㄆㄇㄈ). In official documents, it is occasionally called the "Mandarin Phonetic Symbols I" (國語注音符號第一式), abbreviated as the "MPS I" (注音一式); however, this official name is almost never used in English. Either chu-yin or the Mandarin Phonetic Symbols (without the numeral suffix) is preferred in official translations. ^{[2] [3]} The Roman numeral serves to distinguish it from its lesser known counterpart, the MPS II, a romanization system invented around the same period but now defunct (c.f. Romanization of Chinese in Taiwan).

Contents 1 History 2 Modern uses 2.1 Input method 2.2 On-screen translations 3 Origin of the letters 4 Stroke order 5 Uses 6 Writing 7 Bopomofo vs. tongyong pinyin & Hanyu pinyin 7.1 Another comparison table 8 Other languages 9 See also 10 References 11 External links

[edit] History

The Commission on the Unification of Pronunciation, led by Woo Tsin-hang from 1912 to 1913, created a system called Guóyīn Zìmǔ (國音字母 "National Pronunciation Letters") or Jhùyīn Zìmǔ (註音字母 or 注音字母 "Sound-annotating Letters")^[2] which is based on Zhang Binglin's shorthands. For differences with the Zhang system, see Commission on the Unification of Pronunciation. 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.^[2] jhùyīn zìmǔ was renamed jhùyīn fúhào in April 1930. According to John DeFrancis in The Chinese Language: Fact and Fantasy:

The symbols were initially called Jhùyīn Zìmǔ ("Phonetic Alphabet"); later they were also called Guóyīn Zìmǔ ("National Phonetic Alphabet"). The fear that they might be considered an alphabetic system of writing independent of characters led in 1930 to their being renamed Jhùyīn Fúhào ("Phonetic Symbols").^[4]

The use of jhuyin continued after 1949 in the Republic of China on Taiwan. In mainland China, bopomofo was superseded by the pinyin system promulgated by the People's Republic of China, although the pronunciation of words in standard dictionaries are sometimes given in both pinyin and bopomofo.

Taiwan's Education Ministry has attempted for many years to phase out the use of jhuyin in favor of a system based on Latin characters (such as Hanyu Pinyin, which will be the only legal standard starting in 2009). However, this transition has been extremely slow due to the difficulty in teaching elementary school teachers a new Latin-based system.

[edit] Modern uses

[edit] Input method

Bopomofo 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.

another example of a bopomofo keypad for Taiwan

A typical keyboard layout for bopomofo on computers

[edit] On-screen translations

On-screen Chinese translation software can be used in several ways. For students learning Chinese, jhuyin is one way for them to learn how to pronounce Mandarin.

Compared to pinyin, jhuyin's more compact alphabet makes it easier for some students—without remembering special pronunciation rules. Since the bopomofo characters are similar, and sometimes identical to, Chinese characters, students learning bopomofo are also making incremental steps to learn reading and writing Chinese.

Typical on-screen software translation tool from Chinese to bopomofo (bopomofo)

[edit] Origin of the letters

The jhuyin letters were created by Zhang Binglin, and mainly taken from ancient or cursive Chinese characters, or parts of such characters, the modern readings of which contain the sound that each letter represents.

Origin of jhuyin symbols

Jhuyin		Origin
ㄅ	b	From 勹, the top portion 包 bāo
ㄆ	p	From 攵, the combining form of 攴 pū
ㄇ	m	From 冂, the archaic form of the radical 冖 mì
ㄈ	f	From 匚 fāng
ㄉ	d	From the archaic form of 刀 dāo. Compare the bamboo form .
ㄊ	t	From the upside-down 子 seen at the top of 充
ㄋ	n	From /𠄎, ancient form of 乃 nǎi
ㄌ	l	Calligraphic form of 力 lì
ㄍ	g	From the obsolete character 巜 guì/kuài" 'river'
ㄎ	k	From 丂 kǎo
ㄏ	h	From 厂 hàn
ㄐ	j	From the archaic character 丩 jiū
ㄑ	q	From the archaic character ㄑ quǎn, graphic root of the character 巛 chuān (modern 川)
ㄒ	x	From 丅, a seal form of 下 xià.
ㄓ	zh	From /㞢, archaic form of 之 zhī.
ㄔ	ch	From the radical 彳 chì
ㄕ	sh	From the character 尸 shī
ㄖ	r	A semi-cursive form of 日 rì
ㄗ	z	From the radical 卩 jié, dialectically zié
ㄘ	c	Variant of 七 qī, dialectically ciī. Compare semi-cursive form and seal-script .
ㄙ	s	From the old character 厶 sī, which was later replaced by its compound 私 sī.
ㄧ	i, y	From 一 yī
ㄨ	u, w	From 㐅, ancient form of 五 wǔ.
ㄩ	ü, yu, iu	From the ancient character 凵 qū, which remains as a radical
ㄚ	a	From 丫 yā
ㄛ	o	From the obsolete character 𠀀 hē, inhalation, the reverse of 丂 kǎo, which is preserved as a phonetic in the compound 可 kě.[5]
ㄜ	e	Derived from its allophone in Standard Mandarin, ㄛ o
ㄝ	e, eh	From 也 yě. Compare the Warring States bamboo form
ㄞ	ai	hài, bronze form of 亥.
ㄟ	ei	From 乁 yí, an obsolete character meaning 移 yí "to move".
ㄠ	ao	From 幺 yāo
ㄡ	ou	From 又 yòu
ㄢ	an	From the obsolete character ㄢ hàn "to bloom", preserved as a phonetic in the compound 犯 fàn
ㄣ	en	From 乚 yǐn
ㄤ	ang	From 尢 wāng
ㄥ	eng	From 厶, an obsolete form of 厷 gōng
ㄦ	er	From 儿, the bottom portion of 兒 ér used as a cursive form
ㄭ	ih	(, and inverted ㄓ) Perhaps 市, in addition to ㄓ. It is the minimal vowel of ㄓ, ㄔ, ㄕ, ㄖ, ㄗ, ㄘ, ㄙ that is spelled "ih" in Tongyong Pinyin and Wade-Giles and "i" in pinyin.

The jhuyin characters are represented in typographic fonts as if drawn with an ink brush (as in Regular Script). They are encoded in Unicode in the bopomofo block, in the range U+3105..U+312D.

[edit] Stroke order

Note that ㄖ is written with three strokes, unlike the character from which it is derived (日, Hanyu Pinyin: rì), which has four strokes.

[edit] Uses

These phonetic symbols sometimes appear as ruby characters printed next to the Chinese characters in young children's books, and in editions of classical texts (which frequently use characters that are uncommon in modern writing). In advertisements, these phonetic symbols are sometimes used to write certain particles (e.g., ㄉ instead of 的); other than this, one seldom sees these letters used in mass media adult publications except as a pronunciation guide (or index system) in dictionary entries. Bopomofo letters are also mapped to the ordinary Latin character keyboard (1 = bo, q = po, a = mo, and so forth) used in one method for inputting Chinese text when using a computer.

Bopomofo remains the main phonetic system used for teaching reading and writing in elementary school on Taiwan. Grade one textbooks of all subjects (including Mandarin) are entirely in bopomofo. After that year, Chinese character texts are given in annotated form (as a phonetic guide next to hanzi. Around grade four, presence of bopomofo annotation is greatly reduced, remaining only in the new character section. Schoolchildren learn the letters so that they can decode pronunciations given in a Chinese dictionary, and also so that they can find how to write words for which they know only the sounds.

Pinyin, on the other hand, is multipurpose. Besides being a pronunciation notation, pinyin is used widely in publications in mainland China. Some books from mainland China are published purely in pinyin with not even a single Chinese character. Those books are targeted to minority tribal groups or Westerners who know spoken Mandarin but have not yet learned written Chinese characters. There are also many books, which have both hanzi and pinyin (as a phonetic guide). Pinyin is the sole standard in mainland China for romanising Chinese (mainly Mandarin-speaking) geographical and personal names, the pinyin-based romanisation of most Chinese names has become standard in English as well.

Bopomofo is also used to write some of the aboriginal languages of Taiwan, such as Atayal [2], Seediq [3], Paiwan [4], or Tao [5]. For these it is a primary writing system, not an ancillary system as it is for Chinese.

For non-native speakers of Mandarin Chinese, bopomofo can be useful as a learning tool. Because it does not use romanization, confusion over "Latin alphabet" sounds and "Chinese" sounds is not an issue. As well bopomofo's formation of initials and finals to form syllables is more straightforward than pinyin's. However, for one not familiar with bopomofo, it can be more difficult to first understand the proper pronunciations. With its own keyboard layout, it is also less easily used to enter Chinese by people using a standard Latin-based keyboard.

It is also the basis for Chinese Braille.

[edit] Writing

Bopomofo letters are written like Chinese characters, including the general order of strokes and positioning. They are always placed to the right of the Chinese characters, whether the characters are arranged vertically or horizontally. Technically, these are Ruby characters. Very rarely do they appear on top of Chinese characters when written horizontally as furigana would be written above kanji in a Japanese text. Because a syllable block contains usually two or three bopomofo letters (which themselves fit in a square format) stacked on top of each other, the blocks are rectangular.

Here is an example with the word "bottle".

瓶 ㄆ ㄧ ㄥˊ 子 ˙ ㄗ

or

ㄆㄧㄥˊ ㄗ˙ 瓶 子

The tone marks were taken up by Hanyu Pinyin, except that the first tone has no tone marker and the neutral tone is denoted with a dot, while Hanyu Pinyin has a first-tone mark and generally omits the dot. (Tongyong Pinyin on Taiwan uses identical tone marks to bopomofo.) The neutral-tone dot is the only mark to be placed on top of the vertical bopomofo syllable block; the remaining three are in a vertical strip to the right of the character.

Tone mark symbols used in Bopomofo: <ˊ> 2nd tone, <ˇ> 3rd tone, <ˋ> 4th tone, <˙> 5th or neutral tone.

The tone marks are sometimes given in Regular Script style, matching the associated Chinese characters, and have the same basic shape as do those of the pinyin tone symbols. However, they vary in detail. The thickened end of bopomofo's second (rising) tone is always at the lower left, whereas the second tone mark in the pinyin system is a straight line of uniform width. The third tone mark displays the greatest variation.

Bopomofo's tone symbolization was used in the ROC-sponsored romanizations created by the Mandarin Promotion Council. The tone symbols in that system were identical with the bopomofo tone symbols, except that they were not in Regular Style calligraphy, but in a Western font face and so resemble the tone symbols used in pinyin.

Most bopomofo letters are written in the same stroke order as Chinese characters. However, because they are an alphabet, some are written faster^{[citation needed]}. For example, both zh (ㄓ) and r (ㄖ) are written in three strokes. ( ; )

[edit] Bopomofo vs. tongyong pinyin & Hanyu pinyin

Bopomofo and pinyin are based on the same Mandarin pronunciations, hence there is a mostly 1-to-1 mapping between the two systems. In the table below, the 'bopomofo' and 'pinyin' columns show equivalency.

【】represents the form used in combination with other letters.

A comparison between pinyin and bopomofo for Standard Mandarin can also be done by comparing the transcription of various syllables at Comparison of Chinese Phonetic Systems.

Equivalence bopomofo-pinyin, by phonetic similarities.

[edit] Another comparison table

Non-sibilant consonants

IPA	p	pʰ	m	fəŋ	fʊŋ	tiou	tuei	tʰ	ny	ly	kəɻ	kʰ	xə
Pinyin	b	p	m	feng		diu	dui	t	nü	lü	ger	k	he
Tongyong Pinyin	b	p	m		fong	diou	duei	t	nyu	lyu	ger	k	he
Wade-Giles	p	p'	m	fêng		tiu	tui	t'	nü	lü	kêrh	k'	ho
Zhuyin	ㄅ	ㄆ	ㄇ	ㄈㄥ		ㄉㄧㄡ	ㄉㄨㄟ	ㄊ	ㄋㄩ	ㄌㄩ	ㄍㄜㄦ	ㄎ	ㄏㄜ
example	玻	婆	末	封		丟	兌	特	女	旅	歌儿	可	何

Sibilant consonants

IPA	tɕiɛn	tɕyʊŋ	tɕʰɪn	ɕyɛn	ʈʂə	ʈʂɚ	ʈʂʰə	ʈʂʰɚ	ʂə	ʂɚ	ʐə	ʐɚ	tsə	tsuɔ	tsɨ	tsʰə	tsʰɨ	sə	sɨ
Pinyin	jian	jiong	qin	xuan	zhe	zhi	che	chi	she	shi	re	ri	ze	zuo	zi	ce	ci	se	si
Tongyong Pinyin	jian	jyong	cin	syuan	jhe	jhih	che	chih	she	shih	re	rih	ze	zuo	zih	ce	cih	se	sih
Wade-Giles	chien	chiung	ch'in	hsüan	chê	chih	ch'ê	ch'ih	shê	shih	jê	jih	tsê	tso	tzŭ	ts'ê	tz'ŭ	sê	szŭ
Zhuyin	ㄐㄧㄢ	ㄐㄩㄥ	ㄑㄧㄣ	ㄒㄩㄢ	ㄓㄜ	ㄓ	ㄔㄜ	ㄔ	ㄕㄜ	ㄕ	ㄖㄜ	ㄖ	ㄗㄜ	ㄗㄨㄛ	ㄗ	ㄘㄜ	ㄘ	ㄙㄜ	ㄙ
example	件	窘	秦	宣	哲	之	扯	赤	社	是	惹	日	仄	左	字	策	次	色	斯

Tones

IPA	ma˥˥	ma˧˥	ma˨˩˦	ma˥˩	ma
Pinyin	mā	má	mǎ	mà	ma
Tongyong Pinyin	ma	má	mǎ	mà	må
Wade-Giles	ma1	ma2	ma3	ma4	ma0
Zhuyin	ㄇㄚ	ㄇㄚˊ	ㄇㄚˇ	ㄇㄚˋ	ㄇㄚ・
example (traditional/simplfied)	媽/妈	麻/麻	馬/马	罵/骂	嗎/吗

Table showing Bopomofo in Gwoyeu Romatzyh.

[edit] Other languages

Jhuyin is used to write several varieties of Chinese, as well as some Formosan languages^{[citation needed]}.

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

Char	Pinyin
ㄪ	v
ㄫ	ng
ㄬ	ny

In addition, diacritics were used to create new letters for Min-nan and Hakka.

Extended bopomofo

Char	Pinyin		Char	Pinyin		Char	Pinyin		Char	Pinyin
ㆠ（）	bb*		ㆦ（）	oo [ɔ]		ㆬ（）	syllabic m		ㆲ（）	ong
ㆡ（）	zz*		ㆧ（）	onn [õ]		ㆭ（）	syllabic ng		ㆳ（）	Inn[citation needed]
ㆢ（）	jj*		ㆨ（）	ir [ɨ]		ㆮ（）	ainn [aĩ]		ㆴ（）	Final p
ㆣ（）	gg*		ㆩ（）	ann [ã]		ㆯ（）	aunn [aũ]		ㆵ（）	Final t
ㆤ（）	ee [e]		ㆪ（）	inn [ĩ]		ㆰ（）	am		ㆶ（）	Final k
ㆥ（）	enn [ẽ]		ㆫ（）	unn [ũ]		ㆱ（）	om		ㆷ（）	Final h [ʔ]

Tones

Char	Tone Value	Unicode
˪ (└)	Chao number "11", depicts 低平"low, level tone" (陰去聲 "upper departing") in Taiwanese Minnan	U+02EA
˫ (├)	Chao number "33", depicts 低平"mid, level tone" (陽去聲 "lower departing") in Taiwanese Minnan	U+02EB

[edit] See also

Look up bopomofo in Wiktionary, the free dictionary.

• Furigana
• Zhuyin table
• Chinese language
• Mandarin Chinese
• Standard Mandarin
• Pinyin
• Chinese input methods for computers
• Ruby character
• Taiwanese Hokkien
• Extended Bopomofo for Taiwanese (EBT, Chinese: 台灣方言音符號)

[edit] References

[edit] External links

• Unicode reference glyphs for bopomofoPDF (69.6 KB) & extended bopomofoPDF (61.6 KB)
• Bopomofo annotations Adds inline and pop-up annotations with bopomofo pronunciation and English definitions to Chinese text or web pages.
• Mandarin Dictionary (need Chinese font for Big5 encoding)
• Chinese Phonetic Conversion Tool - Converts between Pinyin, Jhuyin and other phonetic systems
• Chinese Romanization Converter - Convert 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 [6] )
• Bopomofo to Pinyin converter and reverse
• bopomofo syllable chart, with Hanyu Pinyin equivalents
• Pinyin Annotator Add 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.
• [7] online keyboard for bopomofo which can turn it into Chinese characters