Why is the English of Shanxi as s h a n, while the English of Shaanxi is s h a a n, which is one more a than the middle of Shanxi.
Why was Chiang Kai-shek mistranslated as Chang Kaishen?
To answer these two cold knowledge, we have to start with the history of pinyin.
1. Ancient phonetic methods
In ancient China, speech recognition was aided by the method of "phonetizing Chinese characters with Chinese characters".
1, Linear Method:
Use one kanji to phonetize another kanji. For example, "Song Ruo sends" is the Song Zhuyin who sent an umbrella to the Song Dynasty.
2. Anti-cutting method
Use two words to note the sound of one word. The first word is reversed to cut the initials of the upper word, and the second word is reversed to cut the lower word to note the finals and tones, such as "red, Hu cage cut." That is, take the initials of Hu, the finals and tones of the cage, and combine them into red.
In order to standardize the pronunciation of Chinese characters and help learn Xi Chinese characters, rhyme books and rhyme diagrams naturally came into being.
The rhyme book is equivalent to an ancient dictionary, in addition to recording the meaning of each word, it also records its pronunciation with the reverse cut method.
Ancient rhyme books
The rhyme diagram is also called the rhyme table, which is equivalent to the ancient phonetic table, drawing all the pronunciations of Chinese characters in a set of tables, after people find a certain word in the table, they find the initials according to its corresponding column, find the finals according to its corresponding row, and find the tone in the rightmost column corresponding to it.
"Cutting Rhyme Finger Palm"
This is a famous Song Dynasty "Cutting Rhyme Finger Palm Map", which contains a total of 36 initials, 206 finals, and 4 tones. In this picture, you can see that the labor is to Haoche, and the feather is Minghaoche. The tone on the far right is flat.
2. Modern phonetic methods
The ancient method of reverse cutting was conceived in the process of learning and Xi Sanskrit of Indian Buddhism. The method of phonetic pronunciation of modern Chinese characters is also deeply influenced by foreign cultures.
Based on the needs of missionary work, Western missionaries represented by Matteo Ricci and Kinnic tried to phonetize Chinese characters in Latin.
Ricci
Kinney Court
With the development of cultural exchanges between China and the West, diplomats have also joined the ranks of Chinese character phonetics. For example, Wittoma Pinyin (also known as Merriam-Webster) was founded by the British Minister Plenipotentiary to China.
Wittoma
Wittoma Pinyin, a transliteration system for writing Chinese pronunciation in Roman Pinyin, was mainly used for spelling Chinese after its invention, and once became the main English transliteration system for translating Chinese in the 20th century.
Wittoma pinyin comparison
Although Hanyu Pinyin has replaced Wei Tu Ma Pinyin, the influence of Wei Tu Ma Pinyin has survived to this day, and many Chinese words are still used in Wei Tu Ma Pinyin, such as: Kung Fu (Kung Fu), Taichi (Taichi), Taoism (Taoism), I Ching (I Ching), Sun Tzu (Sun Tzu), Chingming Festival, Kungpao Chicken (Kung Pao Chicken), Peking University (Peking). University), Tsinghua University, Taipei University, etc.
Here is the answer to the aforementioned incident about Chiang Kai-shek being mistranslated as Chang Kaishen. The translation of Chiang Kai-shek in Western historical works is Chiang Kai-shek, and Wang Qi, deputy director of the Department of History at Tsinghua University, mistakenly translated Chiang Kai-shek as Chang Kai-shek when introducing the translation of related works, making an academic joke.
3. Modern phonetic methods
In 1908, Zhang Taiyan imitated the method of "simplifying the side" of the Japanese kana, and used the structure of the Chinese character Xiaozhen to create 36 "new characters" and 22 "rhymes", which are the predecessors of today's phonetic symbols.
Zhang Tai Flame
In 1913, the Ministry of Education of the Beiyang Government held a pronunciation unification meeting, and through the proposals of Ma Yuzao, Zhu Xizu, Qian Daosun, Xu Shoushang, Zhou Shuren and others, based on the "New Text" and "Rhyme" created by their teacher Zhang Taiyan, a set of phonetic symbols was created, which was officially released and promoted in 1918.
Phonetic symbols
After 100 years of evolution, there are 21 initials, 3 consonants and 13 finals, with a total of 37 letters. It has been used in Hong Kong, Macao and Taiwan in mainland China to this day. In mainland China, it was used until 1958, on the eve of the introduction of the Hanyu Pinyin scheme.
Fourth, the abolition of Chinese characters
Since the Opium War, the country's national fortunes have been weakened and the nation has weakened, and many literati with lofty ideals have learned from the pain, and they all agree that the cumbersome and complex writing and phonetic system of ancient Chinese characters is a shackle that restricts the development of the nation.
Among them, there are two major schools. One of them was the Kanji Preservation School, represented by the Society for the Unification of Characters, which believed that in order to preserve Kanji, it was only necessary to reform the phonetic system of Kanji.
Pronunciation unity
Another school of thought attempts to abolish Chinese characters or the Latinization of Chinese characters. This genre was also most influential with the Chinese Romaji and the Latinized New Script.
Lin Yutang, an advocate of Chinese romanization
Zhao Yuanren, an advocate of Chinese Romaji
The Chinese Romaji is a set of Latinization schemes for Chinese characters, which was once the national standard of the Republic of China. His most distinctive feature is that he uses complex spelling rules to indicate tones, without the use of key signatures or numbers to indicate tones.
Many letters in the pinyin of the Chinese Romaji are also used to indicate tones, rather than representing actual syllables. For example, the a-i in Hanyu Pinyin and Weituma Pinyin can be written as a-i, a-i-r, a-e, or a-y in Chinese Roman characters (representing the four tones of Chinese respectively). Here the r does not make a sound, only the yang flat sound.
This is also why Shaanxi is spelled as s h a a n, and the middle one is the pinyin that indicates the tone to distinguish Shanxi.
The Latinized New Script was proposed by Qu Qiubai and others in 1931 to completely Latinize the "script", with the ultimate goal of replacing Chinese characters.
Qiu Qiu Bai
Based on the idea of dialect equality, 15 Latinization schemes for Chinese were formulated, of which 5 were actually implemented, and the remaining 10 schemes were not actually implemented. There were two literacy campaigns in the Red Base Areas, the first from 1936 to early 1938 and the second from 1940 to the spring of 1943.
Literacy in the field
However, in the process of complex historical evolution, the retention of Chinese characters won the final victory. Phonetic symbols are only used as a tool for phonetics, not as a tool for making characters.
5. Hanyu Pinyin in New China
In 1958, based on the practical needs of eradicating illiteracy, the Chinese Pinyin and Chinese character simplification scheme was pushed onto the historical stage. Hanyu Pinyin was developed by Zhou Youguang and other linguists of the older generation based on the foundation of the early Latinization of Chinese characters, and played a mainstay role in the promotion of Putonghua and the popularization of general education across the country.
Zhou Youguang
6. China's luck
Fortunately for China, pinyin and simplified characters have greatly reduced the difficulty Xi of learning Chinese characters, helped to establish a national general education system, greatly increased the literacy rate, and reduced the illiteracy rate. At the same time, the basic glyph and meaning of Chinese characters are maintained. So much so that to this day, the Chinese cultural circle can still appreciate and appreciate the beauty of ancient characters, and can also inherit many ancient idioms and commonly used slang.
On the other hand, North Korea and Vietnam, which are also part of the Chinese character cultural circle, have lost their own historical and cultural traditions, although their de-Chinese characters have made the Chinese characters popular, but they have lost their own historical and cultural traditions.
7. The de-Chinese character movement on the Korean Peninsula
The Korean Peninsula has been using Chinese characters for a long time. In the 15th century, at the initiative of King Sejong, Yanwen began to be promoted. Yanwen was actually also a pinyin script, but due to the resistance of Korean literati and aristocrats, Yanwen was not widely used until the 20th century.
Yanwen
At present, North and South Korea use this pinyin script. The use of pinyin characters also brings a lot of trouble. First of all, this type of pinyin script blocks the understanding of ancient Chinese characters. Due to the fact that North Korea has used Chinese characters as a recording tool for a long time, the current North Koreans and South Koreans are completely unable to understand the expressions of ancient Chinese. For example, the bright moonlight in front of the bed, staring at the frost on the ground, I don't understand it at all, and I need to translate it into modern Yanwen. In addition, pinyin characters will bring a lot of ambiguity of homophones, such as Wang Ming and Wang Ming, using pinyin characters are the same. Therefore, Koreans need to choose a different Chinese name to eliminate the ambiguity of the pinyin characters. A similar problem probably exists in Vietnam.
Korean ID card