Tongyong Pinyin

English

Etymology

From the Tongyong Pinyin romanization of the Mandarin Chinese pronunciation for 通用拼音 (Tongyòng Pinyin).

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /ˌtɒŋjɒŋ ˈpɪnjɪn/, /ˌtʊŋjʊŋ ˈpɪnjɪn/

Proper noun

Tongyong Pinyin

1. A system of romanization for Mandarin Chinese developed and implemented in the Republic of China (Taiwan) in the 1990s.
   • 2003, Julie Ju et al., editors, A Brief Introduction to Taiwan‎^[1], Government Information Office, →ISBN, →OCLC, page 16:

     With regard to romanization, several different systems are concurrently being used in Taiwan, including Wade-Giles, Tongyong Pinyin 通用拼音, Hanyu Pinyin 漢語拼音, and Gwoyeu Romatzyh.

   • 2006, David C. King, Taiwan (Enchantment of the World)‎^[2], Children's Press, →ISBN, →LCCN, →OCLC, page 89:

     By now, you may be as puzzled as most American visitors to Taiwan are. And there is more confusion to come. For the purpose of this book, keep in mind that we are using Tongyong Pinyin throughout, with Hanyu Pinyin in parentheses when the spelling is different.

   • 2007, Stephen Keeling, Brice Minnigh, The Rough Guide to Taiwan (Rough Guides)‎^[3], Penguin, →ISBN, →OCLC, page 316:

     Rickshaw Magazine is a Tainan-based publication targeting expats, and free in many hotels and bars, while FYI South also has decent Tainan listings. The city has opted to use the Tongyong Pinyin system, with streets well marked in English and Chinese.

   • 2008 August 7, “Taiwan Google searches: Hanyu Pinyin vs. Tongyong Pinyin”, in Pinyin.info‎^[4], archived from the original on 2008-08-12‎^[5]:

     Taiwan’s still official but probably-not-long-for-this-world romanization system for Mandarin is Tongyong Pinyin.

   • 2017, “Languages Other than English”, in The Chicago Manual of Style‎^[6], 17th edition, University of Chicago Press, →DOI, →LCCN, →OCLC, page 651:

     Although a few authors, long familiar with Wade-Giles or other older systems (or Tongyong Pinyin, a more recent system still used by some in Taiwan), have not switched to Pinyin in their writings, Chicago joins librarians in urging that Pinyin now be used in all writing about China or the Chinese language.

   • 2017 January 22, Martin Boyle, “Pinyin and a Taiwanese identity”, in Taipei Times‎^[7], →ISSN, →OCLC, archived from the original on 2017-01-21, Editorials, page 6‎^[8]:

     This promotion of Tongyong pinyin reflects Taiwan-identifying political elites seeking to supplant Guoyu with Taiwan-accented Mandarin as the prestige language variety in Taiwan.

   • 2020 August 25, Ching-Tse Cheng, “Station names of central Taiwan Metro pass preliminary review”, in Taiwan News‎^[9], archived from the original on 10 September 2020‎^[10]:

     The Taichung City Council on Monday (Aug. 24) gave initial approval to station names on the Taichung Mass Rapid Transit's (TMRT) green line, which is set to begin operation by the end of this year.
     After a preliminary inspection of the 16.71-km line Monday, the city council gave a nod to the 18 station names on the green line. The English station names were converted using Tongyong pinyin (通用拼音) while four of the stations will also have alternate names, according to CNA.

   • 2020 October 14, Wang Shu-fen, Matthew Mazzetta, “Kaohsiung nixes proposal to adopt Hanyu Pinyin street signs”, in Focus Taiwan‎^[11], archived from the original on 16 October 2020, Society‎^[12]:

     Kaohsiung City Government said Wednesday that it will continue using the Tongyong Pinyin Mandarin romanization system on its street signs, passing on plans by the city's previous mayor to transition to the more widely-used Hanyu Pinyin system.
     In a press release, Kaohsiung's Research, Development and Evaluation Commission said the city adopted Tongyong Pinyin in 2004 amid a push toward national spelling standardizaion by the central government, and later established an advisory committee to promote an English-friendly living environment in Kaohsiung. […]
     Taiwan's Ministry of Education adopted Tongyong Pinyin as the country's official romanization system in 2002, before switching to Hanyu Pinyin in 2008, though a number of Democratic Progressive Party controlled municipalities including Kaohsiung and Tainan have continued to use the former.

   • 2022 February 22, Courtney Donovan (石東文) Smith, “The joyous variety in Taiwanese chosen names”, in Taiwan News‎^[13], archived from the original on 22 February 2022‎^[14]:

     Some use romanization to make a political statement, a legacy of the “Great Tongyong-Pinyin Wars” of the 2000s. Here's a useful trick: if you notice someone is using the Hanyu Pinyin system that is standard in China for their name, they are likely pan-blue (pro-KMT), and if they use Taiwan’s Tongyong Pinyin, they are probably pan-green (pro-DPP).

   • 2022 August 5, Jean-François Dupré, “Language Politics and Recognition under Tsai Ing-wen”, in International Journal of Taiwan Studies‎^[15], volume 5, number 2, →DOI, →ISSN, →OCLC:

     For instance, while many DPP-led localities had favoured the locally designed Tongyong Pinyin system for the purpose of Mandarin transliteration (notably for toponyms), the incoming […]

   • 2023 March 15, Audrey Tang, “Conversation with Cynthia Wang and Tyng-Ruey Chuang”, in Ministry of Digital Affairs‎^[16], archived from the original on 2023-04-06, 新聞參考資料‎^[17]:

     Even within the Taigi community, there's the Pe̍h-ōe-jī, there's the Tongyong pinyin, there's the Tai lo, there's people who don't agree on kanji as orthography, there's people who don't use kanji at all, there's people who think you use kanji for everything except for these prepositions. […]
     What we did is that we held monthly, and later on bimonthly, MoeDict hackathons, where we invite the people of all these different schools to come together. Also, because it's software, so I wrote some programs that automatically turned the Taiwan romanization form to Tongyong or Peh oe ji or whatever form that people prefer.

   • 2023 May 9, “Why is the ROC govt trying to make Taiwanese look like Singaporeans?”, in Pinyin.info‎^[18], archived from the original on 10 May 2023‎^[19]:

     Around twenty years ago, during Taiwan’s romanization wars (when President Chen wanted to impose Tongyong Pinyin upon Taiwan and a great many foreigners and others reacted with dismay and disgust), a popular claim of the Tongyong supporters was, “If Taiwanese use Hanyu Pinyin for their names, no one will be able to tell Taiwanese from Chinese anymore.”

   • For more quotations using this term, see Citations:Tongyong Pinyin.

Translations

a romanization system of Mandarin Chinese

• Chinese:

  Mandarin: 通用拼音 (zh) (tōngyòng pīnyīn)

See also

• Category:English terms derived from Tongyong Pinyin
• Hanyu Pinyin
• Wade-Giles

Further reading

• Tongyong Pinyin at the Google Books Ngram Viewer.