Bopomofo

Bopomofo 注音符號 注音符号 （ㄅㄆㄇㄈ）
ㄅㄞˇ ㄎㄜ ㄑㄩㄢˊ ㄕㄨ 百科全書 百科全书 (encyclopedia) in Bopomofo
Script type	Semisyllabary (letters for onsets and rhymes; diacritics for tones)
Creator	Commission on the Unification of Pronunciation Introduced by the Beiyang government of the Republic of China
Time period	1918[1] to 1958 in mainland China (used supplement Hanyu Pinyin in all editions of Xiandai Hanyu Cidian from 1960 to present 2016 edition); 1945 to the present in Taiwan
Direction	left-to-right
Related scripts
Parent systems	Oracle Bone Script Seal Script Clerical Script Bopomofo 注音符號 注音符号 （ㄅㄆㄇㄈ）
Child systems	Taiwanese Phonetic Symbols, ,
Sister systems	Simplified Chinese, Kanji, Hanja, Chữ Nôm, Khitan script
ISO 15924
ISO 15924	Bopo, 285 , ​Bopomofo
Unicode
Unicode alias	Bopomofo
Unicode range	U+3100–U+312F Bopomofo U+31A0–U+31BF Bopomofo Extended
This article contains phonetic transcriptions in the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA). For an introductory guide on IPA symbols, see Help:IPA. For the distinction between [ ], / / and ⟨ ⟩, see IPA § Brackets and transcription delimiters.

Bopomofo (Chinese: 注音符號; pinyin: zhùyīnfúhào; Wade–Giles: chu⁴yin¹fu²hao⁴, or Mandarin Phonetic Symbols, also named Zhuyin (Chinese: 注音; pinyin: zhùyīn), is a major Chinese transliteration system for Mandarin Chinese and other related languages and dialects that is nowadays most commonly used in Taiwanese Mandarin. It is also used to transcribe other varieties of Chinese, particularly other varieties of Mandarin Chinese dialects, as well as Taiwanese Hokkien. Consisting of 37 characters and four tone marks, it transcribes all possible sounds in Mandarin.

Bopomofo was introduced in China by the Republican Government in the 1910s and used alongside the Wade–Giles system, which used a modified Latin alphabet. Bopomofo is an official transliteration system in Taiwan, widely used as the main electronic input method for Mandarin Chinese in Taiwan and in dictionaries and other documents.

Etymology[]

Bopomofo is the name used by the ISO and Unicode. Zhuyin (注音) literally means phonetic notation. The original formal name of the system was 國音字母; Guóyīn Zìmǔ; 'National Language Phonetic Alphabet' and 註音字母; Zhùyīn Zìmǔ; 'Phonetic Alphabet or Annotated Phonetic Letters'.^[2] It was later renamed 注音符號; Zhùyīn Fúhào; 'phonetic symbols'. In official documents, Bopomofo is occasionally called "Mandarin Phonetic Symbols I" (國語注音符號第一式), abbreviated as "MPS I" (注音一式). The system is often also called either Chu-in or the Mandarin Phonetic Symbols.^[2][3] A romanized phonetic system was released in 1984 as Mandarin Phonetic Symbols II (MPS II).

The name Bopomofo comes from the first four letters of the system: ㄅ, ㄆ, ㄇ and ㄈ.^[4] Similar to the way that the word "alphabet" is ultimately derived from the names of the first two letters of the alphabet (alpha and beta), the name "Bopomofo" is derived from the first four syllables in the conventional ordering of available syllables in Mandarin Chinese. The four Bopomofo characters (ㄅㄆㄇㄈ) that correspond to these syllables are usually placed first in a list of these characters. The same sequence is sometimes used by other speakers of Chinese to refer to other phonetic systems.^{[citation needed]}

History[]

Origins[]

The Commission on the Unification of Pronunciation, led by Wu Zhihui from 1912 to 1913, created a system called Zhuyin Zimu,^[2] which was based on Zhang Binglin's shorthand. It was used as the official phonetic script to annotate the sounds of the characters in accordance with the pronunciation system called "Old National Pronunciation" (Laoguoyin).^[5] 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] It was later renamed first Guoyin Zimu and then, in April 1930, Zhuyin Fuhao. The last renaming addressed fears that the alphabetic system might independently replace Chinese characters.^[6]

Modern use[]

Bopomofo is the predominant phonetic system in teaching reading and writing in elementary school in Taiwan. It is also the most popular way for Taiwanese to enter Chinese characters into computers and smartphones and to look up characters in a dictionary.

In elementary school, particularly in the lower years, Chinese characters in textbooks are often annotated with Bopomofo as ruby characters as an aid to learning. Additionally, one children's newspaper in Taiwan, the Mandarin Daily News, annotates all articles with Bopomofo ruby characters.

In teaching Mandarin, Taiwan institutions and some overseas communities such as Filipino Chinese use Bopomofo.

Bopomofo is shown in a secondary position to Hanyu Pinyin in all editions of Xiandai Hanyu Cidian from the 1960 edition to the current 2016 edition (7th edition).

Symbols[]

Table showing Bopomofo in Gwoyeu Romatzyh

Bopomofo in Regular, Handwritten Regular & Cursive formats

The Bopomofo characters were created by Zhang Binglin, taken mainly from "regularized" forms of ancient Chinese characters, the modern readings of which contain the sound that each letter represents. The consonants are listed in order of place of articulation, from the front of the mouth to the back, /b/, /p/, /m/, /f/, /d/, /t/, /n/, /l/ etc.