Pinyin

Pinyin (??, p?ny?n) literally means "join (together) sounds" (a less literal translation being "phoneticize", "spell" or "transcription") in Chinese and usually refers to Hàny? P?ny?n (????, literal meaning: "Han language pinyin"), which is a system of romanization (phonemic notation and transcription to Roman script) for Standard Mandarin. Pinyin was approved in 1958 and adopted in 1979 by the government in the People's Republic of China. It superseded older transcriptions like the Wade-Giles system (1859; modified 1912) or Bopomofo. Similar systems have been designed for other Chinese spoken variants and non-Han minority languages in the PRC.

Tones

The Pinyin system also incorporates suprasegmental phonemes to represent the four tones of Mandarin. Each tone is indicated by a diacritical mark above a non-medial vowel. Many books printed in China mix fonts, with vowels with tone marks rendered in a different font than the surrounding text, a practice that tends to give such Pinyin texts a typographically ungainly appearance. This style, most likely rooted in early technical limitations, has led many to believe that Pinyin's rules call for this practice and also for the use of "{{Unicode|?}}" (with no curl over the top) rather than the standard style of the letter "a" found in most fonts. The official rules of Hanyu Pinyin, however, specify no such practice. Note that tone marks can also appear on consonants in certain vowelless exclamations.

Related Topics:
Suprasegmental - Phoneme - Tones of Mandarin - Vowel

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• The first tone is represented by a macron (?) added to the pinyin vowel:
• :
  {{Unicode|(??) ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ?}}
• The second tone is denoted by an acute accent (?):
• :
  {{Unicode|(??) á é í ó ú ? Á É Í Ó Ú ?}}
• The third tone is symbolized by a caron (?, also known as a reverse circumflex). Note, it is officially not a breve (?, lacking a downward angle), although this misuse is somewhat common on the Internet.
• :
  {{Unicode|(??) ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ?}}
• The fourth tone is represented by a grave accent (?):
• :
  {{Unicode|(??) à è ì ò ù ? À È Ì Ò Ù ?}}
• The fifth or neutral tone is represented by a normal vowel without any accent mark:
• :
  {{Unicode|(?) a e i o u ü A E I O U Ü}}
  

:(In some cases, this is also written with a dot before the syllable; for example, ·ma.)

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Since most computer fonts do not contain the macron or caron accents, a common convention is to postfix the individual syllables with a digit representing their tone (e.g., "tóng" (tong with the rising tone) is written "tong2"). The digit is numbered as the order listed above, except the "fifth tone", which, in addition to being numbered 5, is also either not numbered or numbered zero, as in ma0 (?/?, an interrogative marker).

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These tone marks normally are only used in Mandarin textbooks or in foreign learning texts, but they are essential for correct pronunciation of Mandarin syllables, as exemplified by the following classical example of five characters whose pronunciations differ only in their tones:

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The words are "mother", "hemp", "horse", "admonish" and a question particle, respectively.

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Rules for placing the tone mark

The rules for determining on which vowel the tone mark appears are as follows:

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• If there is more than one vowel and the first vowel is i, u, or ü, then the tone mark appears on the second vowel.
• In all other cases, the tone mark appears on the first vowel

(y and w are not considered vowels for these rules.)

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The reasoning behind these rules is in the case of diphthongs and triphthongs, i, u, and ü (and their orthographic equivalents y and w when there is no initial consonant) are considered medial glides rather than part of the syllable nucleus in Chinese phonology. The rules ensure that the tone mark always appears on the nucleus of a syllable.

Related Topics:
Diphthong - Triphthong - Medial - Syllable nucleus - Phonology

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