CHANGES IN CHINESE LANGUAGE
59
Chinese attempt to romanize the Chinese script took the form of the above-mentioned National Romanization. Developed by Chinese linguists in 1925 as part of the Kuo-yü movement, this system received official recognition as a second form of the national alphabet in 1928. The long-term objectives of the National Romanization were: the eventual total adoption of the Latin alphabet, the use of words instead of ideographs as the basic unit of the language, the use of the Peking dialect as the basis of a common romanized script, and the use of the four tones to express different regional intonations.
Still another system of romanization was developed in 1928: the so-called La-ting-hua hsin wen-tzu, or latinized new script. This system resembles the National Romanization in all but two respects. It differs from the latter by using an alphabet similar to that used in Esperanto, by not basing itself exclusively on the Peking pronunciation and also by not indicating tones. This system allowed for different transcriptions of dialects and did not specify which dialect should be taken as the standard national language. In the late 1930's and early 1940's the Communists promoted this system, but without much success. In 1956, they finally replaced it by a new system of romanization.
This new system provides for an alphabet of 24 consonants and 6 vowels. It is interesting to note that structurally it greatly resembles the system developed at Yale University to take the place of the internationally used Wade-Giles system. The new system is based on the Peking dialect and uses the usual marks to indicate the four tones. Though already in use, it is still considered to be in an experimental stage. In primers and certain newspapers, it has been used side by side with the simplified characters. So far it seems to be used to supplement rather than to replace the characters. The complete substitution of the character script by a romanized alphabet thus remains an unattained goal.
1
CHANGES IN CHINESE LANGUAGE
59
Chinese attempt to romanize the Chinese script took the form of the above-mentioned National Romanization, Developed by Chinese linguists in 1925 as part of the Kuo-yü movement, this system received official recognition as a second form of the national alphabet in 1928. The long-term objectives of the National Romanization were: the eventual total adoption of the Latin alphabet, the use of words instead of ideographs as the basic unit of the language, the use of the Peking dialect as the basis of a common romanized script, and the use of the four tones to express different regional intonations.
Still another system of romanization was developed in 1928: the so-called La-ting-hua hsin wen-tzu †Ţ✨Ħ‡, or latinized new script. This system resembles the National Romanization in all but two respects. It differs from the latter by using an alphabet similar to that used in Esperanto, by not basing itself exclusively on the Peking pronunciation and also by not indicating tones. This system allowed for different transcriptions of dialects and did not specify which dialect should be taken as the standard national language. In the late 1930's and early 1940's the Communists promoted this system, but without much success. In 1956, they finally replaced it by a new system of romanization.
This new system provides for an alphabet of 24 consonants and 6 vowels. It is interesting to note that structurally it greatly resembles the system developed at Yale University to take the place of the internationally used Wade-Giles system. The new system is based on the Peking dialect and uses the usual marks to indicate the four tones. Though already in use, it is still considered to be in an experimental stage. In primers and certain newspapers, it has been used side by side with the simplified characters. So far it seems to be used to supplement rather than to replace the characters. The complete substitution of the character script by a romanized alphabet thus remains an unattained goal.
1
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