Gwoyeu Romatzyh
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Gwoyeu Romatzyh is a system for writing Standard Chinese using the Latin alphabet. It was primarily conceived by Yuen Ren Chao, who led a group of linguists on the National Languages Committee in refi
Lin Yutang, who first proposed tonal spelling, in 1939
Gwoyeu Romatzyh on a park sign in Taipei – Taytzyy (太子; Tàizǐ)
Yuen Ren Chao as a young man, c. 1916
Pinyin
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The Chinese Phonetic Alphabet, commonly called Hanyu Pinyin or simply pinyin, is the most common romanization system for Standard Chinese. Hanyu literally means 'Han language' — that is, the Chinese l
Gwoyeu Romatzyh
…from approaches used by other systems to denote tones, like the numerals used by the earlier Wade–Giles system, or the diacritics used by the later Hanyu Pinyin system. Despite support from linguists both in China and overseas—including some early proponents who hoped it would eventually replace Chinese characters…
A facade of a kindergarten in Zhengzhou, Henan, with writing using simplified characters and pinyin
A slogan written on a school wall featuring pinyin annotations without tonal marks or word grouping