Taiwan Today

But not only English speakers are daunted by the difficulties of learning Chinese. Taiwan's own children and young students are also faced with acquiring facility with one of the world's so-called "tough languages." Their task is made simpler by the Mandarin Phonetic Symbols (MPS) that are used in pre-school materials and primary school textbooks, a system also adopted by many foreigners studying the language.

The unknown often seems impossible. So it is with learning Mandarin and the systems used to make it more accessible to students, especially non-Chinese. In the following article, "Honorable Teacher" Shih gives a brief history of the MPS, and appends the results of recent research on the origins of each MPS symbol, facts not generally known by Chinese themselves.

From the 1950s through the 1970s, most beginning students of Chinese used the Yale system of romanization as a preparatory method of representing Chinese sounds on paper, and to learn Chinese pronunciation. In this system, the Chinese compound "English language," for example, is written ying yu.

By the late 1970s, however, the Yale system was largely replaced in U.S. educational institutions by the "pinyin" romanization system in general use in mainland China. The "pinyin" system is closely parallel to the Mandarin Phonetic Symbols (MPS) or chu yin fu hao. The main point of difference is the replacement of the [ㄓ], [ㄘ], [ㄑ] ,and [ㄒ] symbols of the MPS system, equiva­lent to [jr], [ts], [chi], and [syi] in the Yale system, with [zhi], [ci], [qi], and [xi].

It has been said that the "pinyin" system is easier for native speakers of English, because its closeness to the MPS encourages more accurate pronunciation. However, no matter which sys­tem is used, the Yale, "pinyin", or even the MPS, all involve the use of abitrary symbols. In fact, Chinese and English are two unrelated and extremely different languages, and their pronunciation systems are also totally different.

Chinese students, when first starting the study of English, sometimes try to use Mandarin Phonetic Symbols to represent the new English sounds to help with pronunciation. This practice is normally put to an abrupt stop, as in the case of this writer, once it is discovered by language teachers. Professional teachers of English to Chinese students usually stress that only the D. Jones (D.J.) or the J.S. Kenyon and T.A. Knott (K.K.) phonetic alphabets should be used to represent English language pronunciation, otherwise the English words will come out stiff and unpleasant to the ear—and with a distinct Mandarin flavor!

By the same token, foreigners studying Chinese should lay a good foundation in their new language by temporarily wiping their own alphabet and sound system from, their consciousness, and opening themselves up to a totally new linguistic and pronunciation system. This is always a good point for beginners to remember. It does not matter what phonetic system is used, just so one remembers that it is only a set of arbitrary symbols.

The only rationale behind using Roman letters as the symbols is because they are the most familiar and easy to remember for English speakers. The shortcoming of this method is that the learner will inevitably be influenced by the sounds of his native tongue when attempting to pronounce Chinese sounds, and this results in inaccurate pronunciation of the new language. For this reason, many teachers in Taiwan recommend learning the MPS from the beginning. This helps new language students avoid influence from their native language altogether, and also is a kind of intermediate step in learning to write Chinese characters.

If students have sincere, long-term interests in Chinese, they will find the Mandarin Phonetic Symbols indispensable when they begin to use a Chinese dictionary. The earlier they learn the symbols, the better. On the other hand, representing Chinese sounds with Roman letters is perhaps a worthwhile shortcut for students interested in gaining only rudimentary conversational ability in Chinese. This type of student, however, is usually in the minority, and not really the target of people seriously committed to teaching Chinese language.

Of course, the Mandarin Phonetic Symbols can be taught in conjunction with romanization, for students often have to know more than one system in order to read transliterations in various foreign texts and research materials. Whatever the case, knowing some of the history of MPS should have some value for students of Chinese, be they beginners or those long acquainted with the joys of learning one of the world's oldest languages.

Any discussion of the creation of the Mandarin Phonetic Symbols must begin with the great modern philosopher, Wu Chih-hui. He believed that exchanges of thought and culture were essential to human progress, and that both spoken and written language must be facilitated for these to take place in any significant degree, whether one refers to international communication or to that within one's own borders. China, with its vast territory and relatively undeveloped communications, fortunately has a unified written language.

But there are huge variations in the spoken language, which put great obstacles in the way of intellectual exchanges, dissemination of information, and build­ing of national unity. Recognizing this, Wu Chih-hui, as chairman of the Conference on Unification of Pronunciation, took the lead in establishing standard Mandarin pronunciation for the whole country. The conference members decided to adopt the phonetic symbols used in the process of establishing the standard pronunciations as a national phonetic alphabet.

On November 23, 1918, the Ministry of Education promulgated the Mandarin Phonetic Symbols, and on April 21, 1919, the Ministry of Education established a National Language Unification Commission. Wu returned to China from Europe at this time in order to undertake the tasks of establishing and promulgating a set order for the phonetic symbols and a calligraphic style for the phonetic alphabet. He also recommended adoption of a standard Mandarin dictionary he himself had edited. In 1944, the "National Phonetic Symbols Song" he wrote was promulgated by the Ministry of Education, and it played an instrumental role in the promotion of the national language.

When the National Phonetic Symbols were first created in 1913, they included 39 "letters" based on radicals (meaning components) or ancient forms of Chinese characters chosen for their limited number of strokes, and for their ease of writing and recognition. Fifteen of these were adopted from an earlier system devised by the scholar Chang Ping-lin. Beginning in 1930, the National Government established a slightly adjusted set of National Phonetic Symbols consisting of 24 phonetic initials, 12 finals, and the retroflex "r" sound, for a total of 37 symbols. The origins of each of these symbols is summarized below; the pronunciations in brackets are the Wade romanization system used in most English publications printed in Taiwan; numbers refer to pronunciation tones.

ㄅ a radical, pronounced ㄅㄠ [paol], meaning 'package,' and now is written 包.

ㄆ a radical, pronounced ㄆㄨ [p'ul]; this is an alternate form of 攴, a popular form of 文 [wen2], meaning 'pattern, writing.'

ㄇa radical, pronounced ㄇ一ˋ[mi4]; the radical is generally written 冖 , and means 'to cover with a cloth.'

ㄈ a radical, pronounced ㄈㄤ [fangl], usually written ㄈ, and means 'a container.'

ㄉ the ancient form of the character for 'knife', now written 刀, pronounced ㄉㄠ [taol].

ㄊ the character ㄊ, meaning 'abrupt' and pronounced ㄊㄨˊ [t'u2].

ㄋ the ancient form of the character 乃, 'to be,' pronounced ㄋㄞˇ [nai3].

ㄌ the ancient form of the character力, 'strength,' pronounced ㄌ一ˋ [li4].

ㄍ from the character ㄍ, 'rivulets between fields,' pronounced ㄍㄨㄞˋ­ [kuai4].

ㄎ from the character ㄎ, 'retain for examination,' pronounced ㄎㄠˇ[k'ao3].

ㄏ from the character ㄏ, which is also a radical, meaning 'rocky cliff,' pronounced ㄏㄢ ˋ [han4].

ㄐfrom the character ㄐ, which is also a radical, meaning 'to tie,' pronounced ㄐ一ㄡ [chiul].

ㄑfrom the character ㄑ, 'a small stream,' pronounced ㄑㄩㄢˇ [chuan3].

ㄒ an ancient (chuan wen calligraphy) form of the character 下 , 'below,' pronounced ㄒ一ㄚˋ [hsia4].

ㄓ the original form of the character 之 , originally meaning 'to go,' but now a possessive particle, pronounced ㄓ [chihl ].

ㄔ from the character ㄔ, also a radical, meaning 'small steps,' pronounced ㄔˋ­ [chi'h4] .

ㄕfrom the character 尸, 'an unburied corpse,' pronounced ㄕ [shihl].

ㄖ from the character 日, 'sun,' also a radical, pronounced ㄖˋ [jih4].

ㄗ from the character ㄗ, pronounced ㄐ一ㄝˊ [chieh2], which was later replaced by the character 節. It is also a radical, and means 'section.'

ㄘ from the character ㄘ, pronounced ㄘ [tz'ul]; it is the original form of the character for the number 'seven,' 七, ㄑ一 [ch'il].

ㄙ from the character ㄙ, the original form of the modern character 私, pronounced ㄙ [szul], meaning 'operated by oneself.'

一 from the character for the number 'one' 一, also a radical, pronounced一 [yil].

ㄨ an ancient form of the character for the number 'five', 五, pronounced ㄨˇ [wu3].

ㄩ from the character ㄩ, pronounced ㄑㄩ [ch'ül], meaning 'a container for rice made of willow wood.'

ㄚ from the character ㄚ, 'a bifurcation,' pronounced 一ㄚ [yal].

ㄛ from the character ㄛ, pronounced ㄏㄛ [hol], 'difficulty in breathing.'

ㄜ modified to ㄜ from ㄛ, pronounced ㄜ[o1].

ㄝ originally an alternate form for the character 也, ㄝˇ [yeh3], 'also.'

ㄞ originally an alternate form of the character 亥, one in a series of Chinese ordinal symbols, pronounced ㄏㄞˋ [hai4] .

ㄟ from the calligraphic stroke known as 捺, pronounced ㄋㄚˋ[na4]; as a phonetic symbol, it is pronounced ㄟ [eil]

ㄠ originally a popular form of the character 么, pronounced 一ㄠ [yaol], 'one.'

ㄡ from the character ㄡ, pronounced 一ㄡˋ[you4], meaning 'again.'

ㄢ from the character ㄢ, pronounced ㄏㄢˇ [han3], meaning 'a plant that has not yet sprouted.'

ㄣ from the character a ㄣ, pronounced 一ㄣˇ[yin3], meaning 'same.'

ㄤfrom the character ㄤ, pronounced ㄨㄤ [wangl], meaning 'crooked lower leg' or 'lame.'

ㄥfrom the characterㄥ, an alternate form of the character 肱 , 'upper arm,' pronounced ㄍㄨㄥ [kungl].

ㄦ from the character ㄦ, an ancient form of 人 [jen2] , 'person.' Today it is a simplified form of the character for 'son,' pronounced ㄦ [erl].