Bopomofo, also called Zhuyin Fuhao ( ; ), or simply Zhuyin, is a transliteration system for

Standard Chinese Standard Chinese ( zh, s=现代标准汉语, t=現代標準漢語, p=Xiàndài biāozhǔn hànyǔ, l=modern standard Han speech) is a modern standard form of Mandarin Chinese that was first codified during the republican era (1912–1949). ...

and other

Sinitic languages The Sinitic languages (), often synonymous with the Chinese languages, are a language group, group of East Asian analytic languages that constitute a major branch of the Sino-Tibetan language family. It is frequently proposed that there is a p ...

. It is the principal method of teaching Chinese Mandarin pronunciation in

Taiwan Taiwan, officially the Republic of China (ROC), is a country in East Asia. The main geography of Taiwan, island of Taiwan, also known as ''Formosa'', lies between the East China Sea, East and South China Seas in the northwestern Pacific Ocea ...

. It consists of 37 characters and five tone marks, which together can transcribe all possible sounds in

Mandarin Chinese Mandarin ( ; zh, s=, t=, p=Guānhuà, l=Mandarin (bureaucrat), officials' speech) is the largest branch of the Sinitic languages. Mandarin varieties are spoken by 70 percent of all Chinese speakers over a large geographical area that stretch ...

. Bopomofo was first introduced in China during the 1910s by the

Beiyang government The Beiyang government was the internationally recognized government of the Republic of China (1912–1949), Republic of China between 1912 and 1928, based in Beijing. It was dominated by the generals of the Beiyang Army, giving it its name. B ...

, where it was used alongside

Wade–Giles Wade–Giles ( ) is a romanization system for Mandarin Chinese. It developed from the system produced by Thomas Francis Wade during the mid-19th century, and was given completed form with Herbert Giles's '' A Chinese–English Dictionary'' ...

, a romanization system which used a modified

Latin alphabet The Latin alphabet, also known as the Roman alphabet, is the collection of letters originally used by the Ancient Rome, ancient Romans to write the Latin language. Largely unaltered except several letters splitting—i.e. from , and from � ...

. Today, Bopomofo is more common in Taiwan than on the mainland, and is used as the primary electronic input method for

Taiwanese Mandarin Taiwanese Mandarin, frequently referred to as ''Guoyu'' () or ''Huayu'' (), is the variety of Mandarin Chinese spoken in Taiwan. A large majority of the Taiwanese population is fluent in Mandarin, though many also speak a variety of Min Chinese ...

, as well as in dictionaries and other non-official documents.

Terminology

''Bopomofo'' is the name used for the system by the

International Organization for Standardization The International Organization for Standardization (ISO ; ; ) is an independent, non-governmental, international standard development organization composed of representatives from the national standards organizations of member countries. M ...

(ISO) and

Unicode Unicode or ''The Unicode Standard'' or TUS is a character encoding standard maintained by the Unicode Consortium designed to support the use of text in all of the world's writing systems that can be digitized. Version 16.0 defines 154,998 Char ...

. Analogous to how the word ''

alphabet An alphabet is a standard set of letter (alphabet), letters written to represent particular sounds in a spoken language. Specifically, letters largely correspond to phonemes as the smallest sound segments that can distinguish one word from a ...

'' is derived from the names of the first two letters

alpha Alpha (uppercase , lowercase ) is the first letter of the Greek alphabet. In the system of Greek numerals, it has a value of one. Alpha is derived from the Phoenician letter ''aleph'' , whose name comes from the West Semitic word for ' ...

and

beta Beta (, ; uppercase , lowercase , or cursive ; or ) is the second letter of the Greek alphabet. In the system of Greek numerals, it has a value of 2. In Ancient Greek, beta represented the voiced bilabial plosive . In Modern Greek, it represe ...

, the name ''bopomofo'' derives from the first four syllabographs in the system's conventional

lexicographic order In mathematics, the lexicographic or lexicographical order (also known as lexical order, or dictionary order) is a generalization of the alphabetical order of the dictionaries to sequences of ordered symbols or, more generally, of elements of a ...

: , , , and . In

the system is commonly known by its official name , or simply as . In official documents, it is occasionally called Mandarin Phonetic Symbols I (), abbreviated as , to distinguish it from the Mandarin Phonetic Symbols II (MPS II) system published in 1984. Formerly, the system was named and .

History

Origins

The

Commission on the Unification of Pronunciation The Commission on the Unification of Pronunciation was established by the Republic of China in 1913 in order to address several aspects of Chinese language reform—including selecting an official phonetic transcription system for Mandarin Chine ...

, led by Wu Zhihui from 1912 to 1913, created a system called ''Zhuyin Zimu'', 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 Old National Pronunciation. A draft was released on 11 July 1913, by the Republic of China National Ministry of Education, but it was not officially proclaimed until 23 November 1928. It was first named 'national pronunciation alphabet', but in April 1930 was renamed 'phonetic symbols' to address fears that the alphabetic system might independently replace

Chinese characters Chinese characters are logographs used Written Chinese, to write the Chinese languages and others from regions historically influenced by Chinese culture. Of the four independently invented writing systems accepted by scholars, they represe ...

Modern use

Bopomofo is the predominant phonetic system in teaching reading and writing in

elementary school A primary school (in Ireland, India, the United Kingdom, Australia, New Zealand, Trinidad and Tobago, Jamaica, South Africa, and Singapore), elementary school, or grade school (in North America and the Philippines) is a school for primary ...

in Taiwan. In elementary school, particularly in the lower years, Chinese characters in textbooks are often annotated with Bopomofo as

ruby character Ruby characters or rubi characters () are small, annotative glosses that are usually placed above or to the right of logographic characters of languages in the East Asian cultural sphere, such as Chinese ''hanzi'', Japanese ''kanji'', and Kor ...

s as an aid to learning. Additionally, one children's newspaper in Taiwan, the '' Mandarin Daily News'', annotates all articles with Bopomofo ruby characters. It is also the most popular way for Taiwanese to enter Chinese characters into computers and

smartphone A smartphone is a mobile phone with advanced computing capabilities. It typically has a touchscreen interface, allowing users to access a wide range of applications and services, such as web browsing, email, and social media, as well as multi ...

s and to look up characters in a dictionary. 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 Hanyu Pinyin, or simply pinyin, officially the Chinese Phonetic Alphabet, is the most common romanization system for Standard Chinese. ''Hanyu'' () literally means ' Han language'—that is, the Chinese language—while ''pinyin'' literally ...

in all editions of '' Xiandai Hanyu Cidian'' from the 1960 edition to the current 2016 edition (7th edition). Bopomofo is also used to transcribe other Chinese languages, most commonly

Taiwanese Hokkien Taiwanese Hokkien ( , ), or simply Taiwanese, also known as Taigi ( zh, c=臺語, tl=Tâi-gí), Taiwanese Southern Min ( zh, c=臺灣閩南語, tl=Tâi-uân Bân-lâm-gí), Hoklo and Holo, is a variety of the Hokkien language spoken natively ...

and

Cantonese Cantonese is the traditional prestige variety of Yue Chinese, a Sinitic language belonging to the Sino-Tibetan language family. It originated in the city of Guangzhou (formerly known as Canton) and its surrounding Pearl River Delta. While th ...

, however its use can be applied to practically any variety in handwriting (because not all letters are encoded). Outside of Chinese, Bopomofo letters are also used in Hmu and Ge languages by a small number of Hmu Christians.

Symbols

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 In articulatory phonetics, the place of articulation (also point of articulation) of a consonant is an approximate location along the vocal tract where its production occurs. It is a point where a constriction is made between an active and a pa ...

, from the front of the mouth to the back, /b/, /p/, /m/, /f/, /d/, /t/, /n/, /l/ etc.

Origin of bopomofo symbols

Writing

Stroke order

Bopomofo is written in the same stroke order rule as Chinese characters. is written with three strokes, unlike the character from which it is derived ( zh, c=日, p=rì), which has four strokes. can be written as a vertical line () or a horizontal line (); both are accepted forms. Traditionally, it should be written as a horizontal line in vertical writing, and a vertical line in horizontal writing. The People's Republic of China almost exclusively uses horizontal writing, so the vertical form (in the rare occasion that Bopomofo is used) has become the standard form there. Language education in Taiwan generally uses vertical writing, so most people learn it as a horizontal line, and use a horizontal form even in horizontal writing. In 2008, the Taiwanese Ministry of Education decided that the primary form should always be the horizontal form, but that the vertical form is an accepted alternative. Unicode 8.0.0 published an errata in 2014 that updates the representative glyph to be the horizontal form. Computer fonts may only display one form or the other, or may be able to display both if the font is aware of changes needed for vertical writing. File:ㄅ-bw.png File:ㄆ-bw.png File:ㄇ-bw.png File:ㄈ-bw.png File:ㄉ-bw.png File:ㄊ-bw.png File:ㄋ-bw.png File:ㄌ-bw.png File:ㄍ-bw.png File:ㄎ-bw.png File:ㄏ-bw.png File:ㄐ-bw.png File:ㄑ-bw.png File:ㄒ-bw.png File:ㄓ-bw.png File:ㄔ-bw.png File:ㄕ-bw.png File:ㄖ-bw.png File:ㄗ-bw.png File:ㄘ-bw.png File:ㄙ-bw.png File:ㄚ-bw.png File:ㄛ-bw.png File:ㄜ-bw.png File:ㄝ-bw.png File:ㄞ-bw.png File:ㄟ-bw.png File:ㄠ-bw.png File:ㄡ-bw.png File:ㄢ-bw.png File:ㄣ-bw.png File:ㄤ-bw.png File:ㄥ-bw.png File:ㄦ-bw.png File:ㄧ-bw.png File:ㄨ-bw.png File:ㄩ-bw.png File:ㄭ-bw.png Bopomofo is occasionally unofficially handwritten as syllable blocks, similar to

Hangul The Korean alphabet is the modern writing system for the Korean language. In North Korea, the alphabet is known as (), and in South Korea, it is known as (). The letters for the five basic consonants reflect the shape of the speech organs ...

, however this is not considered an accepted form by the People's Republic of China nor the Republic of China, and is unsupported by Unicode.

Tonal marks

As shown in the following table, tone marks for the second, third, and fourth tones are shared between bopomofo and

pinyin Hanyu Pinyin, or simply pinyin, officially the Chinese Phonetic Alphabet, is the most common romanization system for Standard Chinese. ''Hanyu'' () literally means 'Han Chinese, Han language'—that is, the Chinese language—while ''pinyin' ...

. In bopomofo, the mark for first tone is usually omitted but can be included, while a dot above indicates the fifth tone (also known as the

neutral tone The phonology of Standard Chinese has historically derived from the Beijing dialect of Mandarin. However, pronunciation varies widely among speakers, who may introduce elements of their local varieties. Television and radio announcers are chos ...

). In pinyin, a macron (overbar) indicates the first tone, and the lack of a marker usually indicates the fifth (light) tone. Unlike Hanyu Pinyin, Bopomofo aligns well with the Chinese characters in books whose texts are printed vertically, making Bopomofo better suited for annotating the pronunciation of vertically oriented Chinese text. When used in conjunction with Chinese characters, Bopomofo is typically placed to the right of the Chinese character vertically in both vertical print and horizontal print or to the top of the Chinese character in a horizontal print (see

Ruby character Ruby characters or rubi characters () are small, annotative glosses that are usually placed above or to the right of logographic characters of languages in the East Asian cultural sphere, such as Chinese ''hanzi'', Japanese ''kanji'', and Kor ...

s).

Example

Below is an example for the word "bottle" ( zh, p=píngzi):

Erhua transcription

Words rhotacized as a result of

erhua ''Erhua'' (), also called "erization" or "rhotacization of syllable finals", is a phonological process that adds r-coloring or the ''er'' (; ) sound to syllables in spoken Mandarin Chinese. ''Erhuayin'' () is the pronunciation of "er" after r ...

are spelled with attached to the syllable (like ). In case the syllable uses other tones than the 1st tone, the tone mark is attached to the penultimate letter standing for syllable nucleus, but not to (e.g. ; ; ).

Comparison

Pinyin

Bopomofo and

are based on the same Mandarin pronunciations; hence there is a one-to-one correspondence between the two systems: ¹ Not written. ² is written as after , , , or . ³ / is written as / after /, /, /, /. ⁴ is pronounced (written as ) when it follows an initial.

Chart

Use outside Standard Mandarin

Bopomofo symbols for non-Mandarin

Chinese varieties There are hundreds of local Chinese language varieties forming a branch of the Sino-Tibetan language family, many of which are not mutually intelligible. Variation is particularly strong in the more mountainous southeast part of mainland China ...

are added to Unicode in the Bopomofo Extended block.

Taiwanese Hokkien

In Taiwan, Bopomofo is used to teach

, and is also used to transcribe it phonetically in contexts such as on storefront signs, karaoke lyrics, and film subtitles. Three letters no longer used for Mandarin are carried over from the 1913 standard: 23 more letters were added specifically for Taiwanese Hokkien: Two tone marks were added for the additional tones: ,

Cantonese

The following letters are used in

. If a syllable ends with a consonant other than or , the consonant's letter is added, then followed by a final middle dot. is used for () (e.g. , , "to be defeated"). is used for () (e.g. , , "to follow"), and is used for () (e.g. , , "within"). Other vowels that end with use · for the final . (e.g. , , "to see"). is used for (). (e.g. , , , "cow") To transcribe (), it is written as (e.g. , , "path"). is used for both initial (as in , , ) and final (as in , , "to use"). is used for () (e.g. , , "to cook") and is used for () (e.g. 全, , "whole"). During the time when Bopomofo was proposed for Cantonese, tones were not marked.

Computer uses

Input method

Bopomofo can be used as an input method for Chinese characters. It is one of the few input methods that can be found on most modern personal computers without having to download or install any additional software. It is also one of the few input methods that can be used for inputting Chinese characters on certain

cell phone A mobile phone or cell phone is a portable telephone that allows users to make and receive calls over a radio frequency link while moving within a designated telephone service area, unlike fixed-location phones ( landline phones). This radio ...

s.. On the

QWERTY QWERTY ( ) is a keyboard layout for Latin-script alphabets. The name comes from the order of the first six Computer keyboard keys#Types, keys on the top letter row of the keyboard: . The QWERTY design is based on a layout included in the Sh ...

keyboard, the symbols are ordered column-wise top-down (e.g. )

Unicode

Bopomofo was added to the

Standard in October 1991 with the release of version 1.0. The Unicode block for Bopomofo is U+3100–U+312F: Additional characters were added in September 1999 with the release of version 3.0. The Unicode block for these additional characters, called Bopomofo Extended, is U+31A0–U+31BF: Unicode 3.0 also added the characters and , in the

Spacing Modifier Letters Spacing Modifier Letters is a Unicode block containing characters for the IPA, UPA, and other phonetic transcriptions. Included are the IPA tone marks, and modifiers for aspiration and palatalization. The word ''spacing'' indicates that these ...

block. These two characters are now (since Unicode 6.0) classified as Bopomofo characters.

References

External links

The Manual of The Phonetic Symbols of Mandarin Chinese
*

reference glyphs for and
Bopomofo annotations
nbsp;– adds inline and pop-up annotations with bopomofo pronunciation and English definitions to Chinese text or web pages.
Mandarin Dictionary
nbsp;– needs Chinese font for

Big5 Big-5 or Big5 ( zh, t=大五碼) is a Chinese character encoding method used in Taiwan, Hong Kong, and Macau for traditional Chinese characters. The People's Republic of China (PRC), which uses simplified Chinese characters, uses the GB 18030 ...

encoding
Chinese Phonetic Conversion Tool
nbsp;– converts between Pinyin, Bopomofo and other phonetic systems

nbsp;– converts between Hanyu Pinyin, Wade–Giles, Gwoyeu Romatzyh and other known or (un-)common Romanization systems
Bopomofo -> Wade-Giles -> Pinyin -> Word List
National Phonetic Alphabet (bopomofo) spellings of words transliterated into the International Phonetic Alphabet. The vowel values have been verified against the official IPA site. See IPA help preview, SIL International website. Se

(Accessed 23 December 2010).
Bopomofo to Pinyin converter and reversePinyin Annotator
nbsp;– adds bopomofo (bopomofo) or pinyin on top of any Chinese text, prompts alternative pronunciations to homonyms, has the option of exporting into OpenOffice Writer for further editing

nbsp;– online keyboard for bopomofo which can turn it into Chinese characters
Online Bopomofo Input Method Editor
{{Authority control Mandarin words and phrases Auxiliary and educational artificial scripts Ruby characters Writing systems derived from Chinese characters Transcription of Chinese CJK input methods Writing systems introduced in 1913