The former State Administration of Surveying and Mapping, Geographical Names Committee and former Script Reform Committee of the

People's Republic of China China, officially the People's Republic of China (PRC), is a country in East Asia. It is the world's List of countries and dependencies by population, most populous country, with a Population of China, population exceeding 1.4 billion, slig ...

have adopted several romanizations for Chinese, Mongolian,

Tibetan Tibetan may mean: * of, from, or related to Tibet * Tibetan people, an ethnic group * Tibetan language: ** Classical Tibetan, the classical language used also as a contemporary written standard ** Standard Tibetan, the most widely used spoken diale ...

and Uyghur, officially known as

pinyin Hanyu Pinyin (), often shortened to just pinyin, is the official romanization system for Standard Mandarin Chinese in China, and to some extent, in Singapore and Malaysia. It is often used to teach Mandarin, normally written in Chinese fo ...

, Regulation of Phonetic Transcription in Hanyu Pinyin Letters of Place Names in Minority Nationality Languages and Orthography of Chinese Personal Name in Hanyu Pinyin Letters. These systems may be referred to as SASM/GNC/SRC transcriptions or SASM/GNC romanizations. These romanization systems have been used for foreign translations of Chinese personal names and toponyms since 1978.国务院批转《关于改用汉语拼音方案作为我国人名地名罗马字母拼写法的统一规范的报告》 All schemes except

have a strict form and a broad form, where the broad form is used in general. In the case of pinyin, tone marks are omitted in practice.

Chinese

Hanyu Pinyin is used for the romanization of Chinese; however, the tone marks are omitted in the broad sense and included in the strict sense.

Mongolian

Scheme

Though Mongolian script is listed within the standard, it is still a

phonetic transcription Phonetic transcription (also known as phonetic script or phonetic notation) is the visual representation of speech sounds (or ''phones'') by means of symbols. The most common type of phonetic transcription uses a phonetic alphabet, such as the I ...

based on the Qahar dialect. For example, is not transcribed as ''Ûlaganhada hôta'' but rather ''Ûlaanhad hôt'' (strict) or ''Ulanhad hot'' (broad). Though it is recommended within the standard the strict transcription to use the system when transcribing place names and broad transcription is recommended for general use, ''strict'' transcription is rarely used in practice, e.g.

Hohhot Hohhot,; abbreviated zh, c=呼市, p=Hūshì, labels=no formerly known as Kweisui, is the capital of Inner Mongolia in the north of the People's Republic of China, serving as the region's administrative, economic and cultural center.''The N ...

rather than '' Hohhôt''. In certain occasions, the SASM/GNC/SRC romanization of Mongolian is even fused with

Hanyu pinyin Hanyu Pinyin (), often shortened to just pinyin, is the official romanization system for Standard Mandarin Chinese in China, and to some extent, in Singapore and Malaysia. It is often used to teach Mandarin, normally written in Chinese for ...

, such as ''Huhhot'' or ''Huhehot''.

Examples

''Characters labeled as red in SASM/GNC/SRC strict and Cyrillic Mongolian are not mutually isomorphic. This may be caused by dialectal difference (Chakhar and Khalkha) or different interpretation of the concept phonetical and phonemical. '' ''Characters labeled as green in SASM/GNC/SRC strict and Traditional Mongolian are not mutually equivalent. ''

Tibetan

Uyghur

The SASM/GNC/SRC romanization system for the

Uyghur language The Uyghur or Uighur language (; , , , or , , , , CTA: Uyğurçä; formerly known as Eastern Turki), is a Turkic language written in a Uyghur Perso-Arabic script with 8-11 million speakers, spoken primarily by the Uyghur people in the Xi ...

is based on

Uyghur New script (abbreviated UYY; literally "Uyghur New Script") or (literally "new script", ug, يېڭى يېزىقى, , ; zh, c = 新维文, p = Xīnwéiwén, l = New Uyghur script; sometimes falsely rendered as ''Yengi Yeziķ'' or ''Yengi Yezik̡''), is a La ...

(commonly known as Yengi Yeziⱪ or ''Uyghur Pinyin Yëziqi''), since at the time it devised Uyghur New script was the official orthography of the Uyghur language in China.

Scheme

* UEY - Uyghur Arabic script (Uyghur Ereb Yëziqi) * USY - Uyghur Cyrillic alphabet (Uyghur Siril Yëziqi) * ULY - Uyghur Latin script (Uyghur Latin Yëziqi) * UYY -

(Uyghur Yëngi Yëziqi) * broad - SASM/GNC/SRC broad * strict - SASM/GNC/SRC strict

Non-SASM/GNC/SRC transcriptions and orthographies in China

Pinyin-based or pinyin-influenced

Romanizations such as Bbánlám pìngyīm and

Guangdong Romanization Guangdong Romanization refers to the four romanization schemes published by the Guangdong Provincial Education Department in 1960 for transliterating Cantonese, Teochew, Hakka and Hainanese. The schemes utilized similar elements with some dif ...

, in addition with orthographies such as the Zhuang alphabet (1982) and Yengi Yeziⱪ for Uyghur ( Uyghur Pinyin Yëziqi) are not SASM/GNC/SRC transcriptions.

Non-SASM/GNC/SRC transcriptions used in China

Non-SASM/GNC/SRC transliterations may be used in China for scholarly purposes, and are promoted for those circumstances. For example, libraries in China use Wylie transliteration and scientific transcription to transcribe Tibetan and Mongolian book titles respectively within the

library catalog A library catalog (or library catalogue in British English) is a register of all bibliographic items found in a library or group of libraries, such as a network of libraries at several locations. A catalog for a group of libraries is also ...

. Non-SASM/GNC/SRC transcriptions (e.g. the THDL), however, are not rather promoted.

Personal and place names from languages without SASM/GNC/SRC romanization

For personal and place names from languages without SASM/GNC/SRC romanization, the

romanization of its transcription into Chinese characters are used. For example,

Xishuangbanna Xishuangbanna, Sibsongbanna or Sipsong Panna ( Tham: , New Tai Lü script: ; ; th, สิบสองปันนา; lo, ສິບສອງພັນນາ; shn, သိပ်းသွင်ပၼ်းၼႃး; my, စစ်ဆောင်� ...

is not transcribed as ''Sipsongpanna'' or ''Sibsongbanna''. The

Oirat language Oirat (Clear script: , , ; Kalmyk: , ; Khalkha Mongolian: , ) is a Mongolic language spoken by the descendants of Oirat Mongols, now forming parts of Mongols in China, Kalmyks in Russia and Mongolians. Largely mutually intelligible to other co ...

, however, is transcribed from the corresponding Qahar dialect, since it is considered officially by the PRC government as a dialect of Mongolian.

Notes

References

Regulation of Phonetic Transcription in Hanyu Pinyin Letters of Place Names in Minority Nationality Languages

External links

; Bureaus
National Administration of Surveying, Mapping and Geoinformation, formerly State Administration of Surveying and Mapping

; UN * ttp://www.eki.ee/wgrs/rom1_zh.pdf Chinese - United Nations Romanization Systems for Geographical Names
Mongolian - United Nations Romanization Systems for Geographical Names

Tibetan - United Nations Romanization Systems for Geographical Names

Uighur - United Nations Romanization Systems for Geographical Names
{{DEFAULTSORT:SASM GNC romanization Romanization