Pinyin typing, consulting dictionaries, learning Mandarin … Today, Chinese Pinyin has been integrated into all aspects of our lives, so that it is often overlooked that it is not ancient, but the product of China’s language modernization and the crystallization of the wisdom of several generations.
On May 10th, a symposium was held in Beijing to commemorate the 60th anniversary of the promulgation of the Chinese Pinyin Scheme. More than 100 representatives from education, scientific research, culture and other sectors discussed the historical experience and value of the times in the development, popularization and application of Chinese Pinyin.
1. From word of mouth to scientific programs
Why should we develop and promulgate the Chinese Pinyin Scheme? According to Wu Benyuan, the grandson of Wu Yuzhang, then director of the China Language Reform Commission, "In fact, the original purpose was very simple, that is, to use a good method to eliminate illiteracy."
In the early days of the founding of New China, China’s illiteracy rate reached 80%. In order to quickly change its backwardness and pay special attention to literacy and cultural popularization, the CPC Central Committee carried out three major tasks: simplifying Chinese characters, popularizing Putonghua and formulating a scheme to promote Chinese Pinyin.
At that time, the traditional pronunciation method and backcutting method in China showed obvious disadvantages in phonetic notation of Chinese characters. "Homophones should be used for straight sounds, while some syllables have no homophones, such as’ playing, brewing, and being timid’; Although some syllables have homophones, they are very uncommon. Note the sound is equal to no note. For example, the homophones of’ 司司’ have’ 司’ and’ 司’. Backcutting is to spell out a syllable with two Chinese characters for phonetic notation, such as’ one, it is difficult to master.’ " Su Peicheng, a professor of Chinese Department in Peking University, told the reporter, "You can’t use Chinese phonetic notation to learn Mandarin, because people who study like that can’t learn Mandarin if they read it according to dialect pronunciation."
The ancient ones don’t work, but what about the designs made by foreigners? Since the end of Ming Dynasty and the beginning of Qing Dynasty, the phonetic notation methods designed by foreigners for preaching and learning Chinese include Matteo Ricci’s Latin alphabet, British Wittoma pinyin and American Kennedy’s Yale pinyin. "These pinyin schemes are all for foreigners, and there is neither a unified phonetic standard nor the pursuit of accuracy corresponding to the pronunciation of Chinese characters." Yuan Zhongrui, executive director of Chinese Language Modernization Society, said that we need to create Chinese’s own more scientific and accurate scheme.
In fact, Chinese’s self-created pinyin scheme can be traced back to "At a glance" published by Lu Taizhang in 1892, and many schemes have been born since then, among which Wang Zhao’s mandarin letters, Wu Zhihui’s phonetic alphabet, li jinxi Zhao Yuanren’s national language Roman characters (Guoluo) and Qu Qiubai Wu Yuzhang’s northern Latin new characters (Beila) have the greatest influence. However, these schemes can’t meet the demand because they are not convenient for international communication or are not precise, simple and accurate.
In 1955, the Central Committee instructed the China Character Reform Commission to study and formulate new Chinese phonetic alphabet tools. After three years of research and development, the National People’s Congress passed and promulgated the "Chinese Pinyin Scheme" on February 11th, 1958, and it was quickly popularized throughout the country.
Following the "book with the same language", China culture ended thousands of years of oral history and started the era of "homophony".
2. From literacy tools to cultural bridges
"The main purpose of the Chinese Pinyin Scheme is to phonetic Chinese characters and spell Mandarin to help literacy, unify pronunciation and teach Mandarin. The purpose is to facilitate the people to learn and use Chinese characters and promote the further unification of Chinese, and it is not used to replace Chinese characters." On February 3rd, 1958, Wu Yuzhang clearly explained the two major functions of Chinese Pinyin-phonetic notation and spelling.
Over the past 60 years, China’s illiteracy rate has dropped from 80% at the beginning of the founding of New China to 4.08%, the popularization rate of Putonghua has increased to over 70%, and the proportion of literate people using standardized Chinese characters has exceeded 95%, all thanks to Chinese Pinyin.
Besides, designing special languages such as sign language and Braille, improving and creating minority languages, arranging all kinds of dictionaries, books, files, medical records, documents and other materials, and forming terms and codes … After 60 years of development, the function of Chinese Pinyin has gone far beyond the original idea and has become an indispensable and important tool. Zhang Wei, secretary of the Party Committee and president of China Braille Publishing House, said: "Chinese Pinyin is an important foundation for compiling sign language and Braille, which provides convenience for disabled people to fully participate in social life on an equal footing and share the development achievements of social civilization."
Especially after the 1990s, with the advent of the era of globalization, informationization and intelligence, Chinese Pinyin has become an important tool for Chinese characters to input information by using international computer keyboards because of its colloquial, phonemic and Latin features, which has made ancient Chinese characters take the information express train to the world.
With the development of the Belt and Road Initiative, Chinese Pinyin is more widely used in teaching Chinese as a foreign language. "Because of the particularity of ideographic characters of Chinese characters, foreigners can’t get the pronunciation from the glyphs of Chinese characters, so in the primary stage, pinyin is generally adopted to help Chinese beginners get started quickly." Zhao Guocheng, deputy director of Hanban, told reporters that Chinese Pinyin has become an important basis for teachers of Chinese as a foreign language to train students in pronunciation, rhyme and intonation.
This is just as Zhou Youguang, a famous linguist and one of the main founders of the Chinese Pinyin Scheme, pointed out when Chinese Pinyin was implemented for 50 years: "In the past 50 years, the application of Chinese Pinyin has expanded at an alarming rate. Originally mainly used in the field of education, it is now significantly used in the field of industry and commerce. Originally, it was mainly a literacy tool for primary schools, but now it has been widely developed as a medium for information transmission. It turned out to be the key to domestic culture, and now it extends to an international cultural bridge. "
3. From national standards to international standards
“The city of Beijing！” On July 13th, 2001, Samaranch, then president of the International Olympic Committee, announced that Beijing would be the host city of the 2008 Olympic Games. The spelling of "Beijing" in Chinese Pinyin has replaced the Weitoma Pinyin "Peking" commonly used in the international community in the past. This subtle change has witnessed the course of Chinese Pinyin from foreign schemes to domestic schemes, from national forms to international forms, from internal and external differences to internal and external consistency, and from national standards to international standards.
As early as 1977, the United Nations Conference on the Standardization of Geographical Names decided to adopt the Chinese Pinyin Scheme as the international standard for spelling Chinese geographical names in China, which became the first step for Chinese Pinyin to go global.
Two years later, China, on behalf of Zhou Youguang, proposed to the Technical Committee for Standardization of Information and Documentation, an international organization for standardization, that the Chinese Pinyin Scheme should be taken as an international standard. In 1982, ISO 7098 Document Work-Chinese Roman Alphabet Spelling officially became the international standard of Chinese Roman Alphabet Spelling. This indicates that Chinese Pinyin has become an international standard from the national standard in China.
However, for a long time after that, the actual situation of Chinese Roman alphabet spelling in the world was still multi-scheme, and at the same time, Chinese Pinyin Scheme, wade Style and Yale Pinyin coexisted, and many countries and fields still acted according to their own habits. Considering this actual situation and the new requirements for Chinese Pinyin at home and abroad in the information age, it is necessary to revise the previous scheme.
Since 2011, China has officially started the revision of ISO 7098, and in June 2015, it was unanimously approved by the Technical Committee of Information and Literature Standardization, an international organization for standardization. Feng Zhiwei, the leader of the revision working group and a researcher at the Institute of Language and Character Application of the Ministry of Education, told the reporter: "The publication of this new international standard will help to improve the level of document automation in a digital and intelligent environment, so that Chinese Pinyin can play a greater role in international document work and further promote Chinese Pinyin to the world." Li Yuming, a well-known linguist in China, commented that this updated international standard "is a new step for Chinese Pinyin to enter the world, and also a new international step for Chinese culture". (Reporter Chai Ruzhen)
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