Pinyin

Hànyǔ Pīnyīn Fang'an (Chinese汉语拼音 方案/汉语拼音 方案, Program for the fixation of the sounds in Chinese ') also called, usually only briefly Pinyin, the delineation of Tongyong Pinyin Hanyu Pinyin, the official Romanization of Chinese standard Chinese in the People's Republic of China. Developed by Zhou Youguang phonetic transcription based on the Latin alphabet was officially adopted by the State Council on 6 February 1956 and approved in late 1957. It triggered on the mainland from 1921 introduced non-Latin transliteration Zhuyin ( Bopomofo ). At the same time simplified Chinese characters ( simplified) became the official writing system of the PRC.

The address specified by the pinyin pronunciation is based on the standard Chinese (Chinese普通话/普通话, Pinyin pǔtōnghuà ). Pinyin is the International Organization for Standardization ( ISO) as ISO 7098:1991 (second edition after 1982 ) registered and therefore recognized as an international standard. In the People's Republic of China Pinyin is defined by the standard GB / T 16159, which was last revised in 2012 ( GB / T 16159-2012 ); for the spelling of personal names is considered the standard GB / T 28039-2011.

Since January 1, 2009 is officially in the Republic of China on Taiwan Hanyu Pinyin. Hanyu Pinyin dissolved in Taiwan so Tongyong Pinyin from a controversial inscription, which was introduced in 2000.

  • 3.1 Rules for placing the tone marks
  • 3.2 Pinyin and Tonsandhis

Letters of syllables

As the Chinese characters almost always exactly describe a syllable, the Pinyin syllable is based. The Chinese syllable consists of an initial sound and a final position. The syllable ba consists of the initial sound b and the final sound a Most end of a word can be spoken without initial sound. As the Chinese and the German sound system in some respects be materially different, the pronunciation hints are only approximations. In the second column in each case is the pronunciation according to the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA).

Initial sounds

End of a word

The end of a word are written partly different depending on the initial sound:

  • To j, q, x and y are the points are not written on the UE. A program written u after this initial vowel is thus spoken of as above;
  • The end of a word uei, uen and iou after initial sound as ui, un and iu written;
  • In syllables without initial sound i, u, ü replaced at the beginning by y, w, yu. The syllables and i are as yi and wu u written;
  • After z, c, s, zh, ch, sh and r i denotes " squeezed " vowels in the throat ( " it remains a stick in his throat ").

Matrix of all syllables

The following table lists all of the standard Chinese syllables are listed by arrival and final position. The sorting is done phonetically, not the typeface. That is:

  • When to j, q, x, y of the "ü" follows - According to the syllable in the corresponding line, although it is written in this case " u" with no points;
  • The syllables with [ ɻ ] and [ ɯ ] standing in line for the final sound " -i", separated from the line " i";
  • " W", " y" and " yu" are in the column for syllables without initial sound (∅), since they are spelling variants of Gleitvokale "u ", " i", " ü".

The syllable yai comes in the highly linguistic variant of the Republic of China before, but not in the variant of the People's Republic of China. Occurring only in the vocabulary of dialects syllables are bracketed.

Until he all these syllables can increasingly a -r are appended in the pronunciation of Beijing in standard Chinese and that often changed the pronunciation strong and phonetic differences between otherwise clearly divorced syllables brings to disappear, but this is not included in the Pinyin romanization. There are also the interjection ê and interjections with syllabic nasals (hm, hng, m, n, ng). Interjections can not be extended with -r.

Hyphenation characters

If in polysyllabic words one syllable starts with an a, e or o, it must always be separated from the preceding syllable by an apostrophe. Examples are the cities of Xi'an and Chang'an or Tian'e ( Swan) and hai'ou ( Seagull ). Without hyphenation character of these cities would be read as Xian ( one syllable ) and Chan - gan. The apostrophe is also set where there is no risk of confusion (there are no syllables tia or Haiou ) to improve the flow.

Identification of sounds

The high Chinese is a Konturtonsprache, that is, each syllable with a specific pitch, so speaking the so-called sound. In stressed syllables four tones can be distinguished; another is found only in unstressed syllables that have the so-called " light tone " (轻声), which is sometimes referred to as the fifth or neutral tone. The first sound is consistently highly spoken, the second tone, the voice rises from a mean pitch to - like at the end of German interrogative sentences. On the third tone, the voice first falls easily within the low frequency band from, and then rose, and in the fourth the voice drops abruptly from a high level from. The pitch of unstressed syllables in light tone contrast, is not crucial to the meaning of what is said.

In the pinyin tones accented syllables are marked by diacritics, which are small marks on the vowels ( ā á à ǎ ), in the very rare vowelless syllables over the syllabic nasals (m, n ). The first sound is represented by a macron ( ā ), the second sound by a acute accent ( á), the third tone by a caron ( ǎ, respect, no Breve - pointed down, not round ) and the 4th tone by a grave accent (à ) are shown. The slight sound may be referred to since the spelling reform of 2012 in dictionaries through a central point before syllable ( · ma). To indicate that a syllable is spoken in one of four tones stressed syllables or in light tone either, may according to the standard GB / T 16159-2012 to be used a combination of the two tone marks ( zhi · dào ). Previously, the slight sound occasionally by a period ( ȧ ) or ring was ( å) on the vowel ( rare: the syllabic nasal ) are shown.

If there is no keyboard or no character set with the usual tone marks available, instead the sound is often referred to by a number after the syllable, eg hao3 the syllable hao means the 3rd tone ( hǎo ). The light tone is designated by either a 5 or more rarely by a 0. This system is also used in some Pinyin - based input methods use where, in addition, the letter ü is entered by pressing the key for the unused in Pinyin v.

Rules for placing the tone marks

An audio tone is set to an i, it replaces the i- point. In a ü, however, the audio tone is set by the points ( nǚ ).

In stressed syllables that contain multiple vowels, the diacritic tone marks is set to the first vowel, if it is an a, e or o, otherwise on the second vowel.

The tone marks in non-continuous Chinese texts are often omitted. By thus formed homographs it comes, however, often result in ambiguities.

Pinyin and Tonsandhis

Like other Chinese languages ​​knows the high Chinese Tonsandhis, namely the context -dependent sound changes. Here, the tone of the following syllable affects the Tonverlauf the preceding. Follows, for example, on a syllable in the third tone another syllable in the third tone, the first of the two syllables is often pronounced in the second tone. For example, as ní hǎo pronounced你( nǐ ) 好( hǎo ). Notwithstanding the Tonsandhi in the spoken language, the original tones in Pinyin are always retain unchanged ( nǐ hǎo ); only allowed for demonstration purposes the changed pitch curves are called (eg in language teaching ).

Official Spelling Rules

The spelling rules for Pinyin can be summarized as follows:

General Rules:

  • Words as basic units: řén (person), Pengyou ( friend), túshūguǎn (library )
  • Two or Dreisilbler ( complete concept ): Quanguo ( the whole nation ), duìbuqǐ ( sorry ), qiūhǎitáng ( Begonia )
  • Expressions with four or more syllables are separated when they can be divided into individual words: Wufeng gāngbǐ ( seamless pin ), jīngtǐguǎn gōnglǜ fàngdàqì (transistor output stage). Otherwise, all syllables are written together: Hóngshízìhuì (Red Cross), yánjiūshēngyuàn ( Graduate School )
  • Doubled Einsilbler be connected, disconnected doubled Zweisilbler: Renren (all), Changshi Changshi ( try it out )
  • Juxtaponierte doublings (AA -BB ) are separated by a hyphen: Lailai - wǎngwǎng ( come back and forth ), Qingqing - chǔchǔ ( clear)
  • For a better reading comprehension, a hyphen shall be inserted: Huan- bǎo (environmental protection ), Shiqi sui - bā ( 17 or 18 years old)

Nouns:

  • Monosyllabic prefixes and suffixes are associated with nouns. Prefixes: fù ( Vice), zǒng (main ), fēi - (un), fǎn [ Anti-/Gegen- ], Chao ( Super-/Über- ) lǎo ( venerable / r), A- (marker for nickname / pet name ), KE (eg xiǎokě inconsequential ), WU (in), etc.: fù - bùzhǎng (Vice - Director of the (government) department ), zǒng - gōngchéngshī ( chief Engineer )
  • Suffixes: - zǐ, - er,- tou (nominal suffix), - xing ( nature ) -zhě/-yuán, ( - is ), Jia ( expert - is ), shǒu (hand / person / expert / is ), huà ( - ized), men ( plural suffix ), etc. Yishujia (artist).

Proper names:

  • Family and first name ( xingming / Mingzi ) are written separately in Han Chinese. The first letter of surnames and first names are capitalized. Pseudonyms ( bǐmíng ) and nicknames ( biémíng ) can be written according to the same principles: Wáng Jianguo, Dongfang Shuo, ZHANG San
  • Personal names and titles are separated: Wáng bùzhǎng, lǐ Xiansheng
  • The first letter of personal styling as Lǎo, xiǎo, Da, Â, and so on, are capitalized. For example: xiǎo Liú (small Liu ), Lǎo Qian ( Qian Mature ) Wú Lǎo ( Honorable Wu ), San ( the third party [ in a family ] )
  • If the name is historically known personalities with a respectful or descriptive term by which they are commonly known, are combined, the syllables are connected and capitalized the first letter. For example: Kǒngzǐ ( Confucius ), Baogong ( Highest Judge Bao ), Xishi ( beauty Xishi )
  • Proper names and general location names are separated and capitalized the first letter of each of the names: Beijing Shi ( Beijing city ), Dongting Hu ( Dongting Lake )
  • The monosyllabic prefixes or suffixes of proper names and generic names are written together: Jǐngshān Houjie ( backyards / red light district of Jingshan ), Cháoyángménnèi Nánxiǎojiē ( Southern small street inside the gate facing the sun )
  • Established names for towns, villages and other places are usually written together ( first letter capitalized ): Wangcun (Wang village), Zhōukǒudiàn ( an excavation site near Beijing ), Santanyinyue (Moon in the Mirror of the three ponds )
  • In genus names are Separated sensitive.
  • Personal and place names, which does not exist in the Chinese Han language, based on the principle " according to the custom of the person concerned ( Míng Cong zhǔrén ) " - either written in the original language or in Latin letters transcribed: Einstein ( Ai ' īnsītǎn ), Ngawang Jigme Ngapoi ( APEI Awang Jinmei ), London ( Lundun ), Washington ( Huáshèngdùn )
  • Foreign names are written according to the pronunciation of the corresponding character: Nanmei (South America), Deguo ( Germany ), Dōngnányà ( Southeast Asia)

Verbs:

  • ( 've Ever read ) kànzhe (read), canals ( just read ), kànguò: Action verbs are zhe with the endings, le, guo connected le at the end of a sentence is separated: Huǒchē dào le ( Perfected Action: The train came / has come).
  • But action verb and object are connected when they bring together a concept expressed: Chifan ( eat ), ( go to sleep ) Shuijiao, kanshu (read), dǎqiú ( play ball ), Jugong ( bow ), Kétou ( kowtow )

Adjectives:

  • Monosyllabic adjectives combine with its reduplicated prefixes or suffixes: mēngmēngliàng ( weak light), liàngtāngtāng ( brightly lit )
  • Adjectives are kept by the Xie, Yixie, diǎnr, yīdiǎn separately: Kuai ( yī ) Xie ( Faster [ be ] ), kuai ( yī ) diǎn ( [ be ] faster)

Pronoun:

  • Men shows the plural and is connected with the pronoun in front of it: wǒmen (we ), tamen ( they )
  • Demonstrative pronouns: Zhe, nà and the quizzical Demonstrative nǎ be separated from the nouns: Zhe (ge) řén ( this person ), Zhi Zhe Chuan ( this boat ), nǎ zhāng bàozhǐ (which newspaper? )
  • Zhe, nà be nǎ with Xie, me, Yang, bān, lǐ, Bian, huǐr, ge connected: zhèxiē ( this ) Zhege ( this ) Nayang ( so / then ), zhèhuǐr ( at this moment )
  • Gè, měi, mǒu, Ben, Gai, wǒ, nǐ, etc. from them following nouns or ZEW be separated: gè guó ( any country ), gè gè (both all ) měi nián (every year), Gai Gongsi ( this / that society )

Numerals and ZEW:

  • Whole number from 11 to 99 are written together: shíwǔ (fifteen), sānshísān ( thirty-three )
  • Bǎi ( hundred), Qian ( thousand ), WAN (ten thousand ), yì ( hundred million) are connected to the preceding ( whole ) number, but " tens of thousands " and " hundreds of millions " to be separated from the following zero values ​​( líng ): jiǔyì líng qīwàn Erqian sānbǎi wǔshíliù ( 900 072 356 )
  • Di Numeral ( = ordinals ) is joined by a hyphen with the number: dì - shisan ( thirteenth ), dì - èrshíbā (twenty-eighth )
  • Numbers and measure words must be separated: liǎng ge řén (two persons), yī dà wǎn fàn (a large bowl of cooked rice)
  • Duo, lái, jǐ indicate an approximate amount and they are separated from the numbers and Zählwörtern, the before and after are: yībǎi Duo ge ( more than 100), shí lái Wan řén (about 100,000 people)
  • Numbers that indicate " more than ten " or "some" are connected: shíjǐ ge řén (more than ten people), jǐshí ge řén (tens of people)

Other parts of speech:

  • Function words ( xūcí ) are separated from other words Adverbs: Hen hǎo (very good), dà zui ( be the greatest ), Feichang kuai ( extremely fast)
  • Prepositions: zài Qianmian ( front), Shengyu 1940 nián ( born 1940)
  • Conjunctions: nǐ hé wǒ ( you and me); Nǐ lái HAISHI lái bù? ( Come [ or not ?] )
  • Constructive auxiliary verbs ( jiégòu zhùcí ) de (的), de / di (地), de (得), zhi (之): May cai de (vegetable seller), Manman de / di zou ( go slow), hóng de Hen (real red)
  • Modal auxiliary verbs are written separately at the end of a sentence: Nǐ Zhidao ma? ( Have you heard )? ; Kuai Qu ba! ( Hurry up and go! )

Chinese proverbs ( chéngyǔ ):

  • Chinese proverbs, which consist of four characters and can be divided into two halves, joined by a hyphen: ( to be fair ) céngchū - bùqióng ( successively occur ), Guangming lěiluò
  • Other four- character strings and expressions ( shúyǔ ) that can not be segmented easily be written together: bùyìlèhū (Is not it a joy? ) Àimònéngzhù ( sorry, I can not help you ).

Capital letters:

  • Letters at the beginning of a sentence are capitalized: mingtian nǐ qu ma? ( Are you going tomorrow? )
  • The first letter of a proper name is capitalized: Běijīng Daxue ( Peking University ); Tài Shān ( Tai Mountain); Huang He ( Yellow River )

Representation of Tones:

  • There are only given the original sounds; Tone Sandhi is not displayed.

Pinyin to Unicode

Prefabricated signs are coded to the following locations:

Pinyin language Retroflex consonant Triphthong Li (unit)
374889
de