Bopomofo

Bopomofo, also called Zhuyin Fuhao (Template:IPAc-en ; Template:Zhi), or simply Zhuyin, is a transliteration system for Standard Chinese and other Sinitic languages. It is the principal method of teaching Chinese Mandarin pronunciation in Taiwan. It consists of 37 characters and five tone marks, which together can transcribe all possible sounds in Mandarin Chinese.

Bopomofo was first introduced in China during the 1910s by the Beiyang government, where it was used alongside Wade–Giles, a romanization system which used a modified Latin alphabet. Today, Bopomofo is more common in Taiwan than on the mainland, and is used as the primary electronic input method for Taiwanese Mandarin, 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 (ISO) and Unicode. Analogous to how the word alphabet is derived from the names of the first two letters alpha and beta, the name bopomofo derives from the first four syllabographs in the system's conventional lexicographic order: , , , and .

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

History

Origins

The Commission on the Unification of Pronunciation, 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.

Modern use

File:CADAL11100176 注音漢字.djvu

A guide on how to typeset Bopomofo alongside characters. (1936, Li Jinxi)

Bopomofo is the predominant phonetic system in teaching reading and writing in elementary school in Taiwan. In elementary school, particularly in the lower years, Chinese characters in textbooks are often annotated with Bopomofo as ruby characters 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 smartphones 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 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 and Cantonese, 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

File:國音字母.jpg

Table of Bopomofo, with romanization given in Gwoyeu Romatzyh

File:Bopomofo in Regular, Handwritten Regular & Cursive formats.jpg

Bopomofo in Regular, Handwritten Regular & Cursive formats

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

Origin of bopomofo symbols

Consonants

Bopomofo	Origin	IPA	Pinyin	WG	Example
	From Template:Wikt-lang, the ancient form and current top portion of Template:Wikt-lang , "to wrap up; package"	Template:IPA link	b	p
	From Template:Wikt-lang, a variant form of Template:Wikt-lang , "to knock lightly".	Template:IPA link	p	pʻ
	From Template:Wikt-lang, the archaic character and current "cover" radical  .	Template:IPA link	m	m
	From the "right open box" radical Template:Wikt-lang .	Template:IPA link	f	f
	From Template:Wikt-lang, a simplification of Template:Wikt-lang , "ten thousand". Not used in Mandarin anymore.	Template:IPA link	v	v	()
	From Template:Wikt-lang, archaic form of Template:Wikt-lang , "blade". Compare the Shuowen seal File:刀-seal.svg.	Template:IPA link	d	t
	From Template:Wikt-lang , an upside-down form of Template:Wikt-lang  and an ancient form of Template:Wikt-lang  (File:Shuowen Seal Radical 528.svg and File:Shuowen Seal Radical 525.svg in seal script)	Template:IPA link	t	tʻ
	From File:乃-seal.svg/Template:Wikt-lang, ancient form of Template:Wikt-lang , "to be" (a copula in Classical Chinese).	Template:IPA link	n	n
	From Template:Wikt-lang, archaic form of Template:Wikt-lang , "power".	Template:IPA link	l	l
	From the obsolete character Template:Wikt-lang /, "ditch".	Template:IPA link	g	k
	From the archaic character, now "breath" or "sigh" component Template:Wikt-lang .	Template:IPA link	k	kʻ
	From Template:Wikt-lang , "towering". Not used in Mandarin anymore.	Template:IPA link	ng	ng	()
	From the archaic character and current radical Template:Wikt-lang .	Template:IPA link	h	h
	From the archaic character Template:Wikt-lang .	Template:IPA link	j	ch
	From the archaic character Template:Wikt-lang , graphic root of the character chuān, "river" (modern ).	Template:IPA link	q	chʻ
	From the archaic character Template:Wikt-lang , "dotted cliff". Not used in Mandarin anymore.	Template:IPA link	gn	gn	()
	From Template:Wikt-lang, an ancient form of Template:Wikt-lang , "under".	Template:IPA link	x	hs
	From File:之-seal.svg/Template:Wikt-lang, archaic form of Template:Wikt-lang , a genitive marker in Classical Chinese.	Template:IPA link	zhi, zh-	ch	;
	From the character and radical Template:Wikt-lang	Template:IPA link	chi, ch-	chʻ	;
	From Template:Wikt-lang, an ancient form of Template:Wikt-lang	Template:IPA link	shi, sh-	sh	shì ; shù
	Modified from the seal script File:日-seal.svg form of Template:Wikt-lang , "day" or "sun".	Template:IPA link~Template:IPA link	ri, r-	j	;
	From the archaic character and current radical Template:Wikt-lang , dialectically (; Template:Zh-no-labels in Wade–Giles)	Template:IPA link	zi, z-	ts	;
	From Template:Wikt-lang, archaic form of Template:Wikt-lang , dialectically (; Template:Zh-no-labels in Wade–Giles). Compare semi-cursive form File:Qi1 seven semicursive.png and seal-script File:七-seal.svg.	Template:IPA link	ci, c-	tsʻ	;
	From the archaic character Template:Wikt-lang , which was later replaced by its compound Template:Wikt-lang .	Template:IPA link	si, s-	s	;

Rhymes and medials

Bopomofo	Origin	IPA	Pinyin	WG	Example
	From Template:Wikt-lang	Template:IPA link	a	a
	From the obsolete character Template:Wikt-lang , inhalation, the reverse of Template:Wikt-lang , which is preserved as a phonetic in the compound Template:Wikt-lang .	Template:IPA link	o	o
	Derived from its allophone in Standard Chinese, Template:Wikt-lang	Template:IPA link	e	o/ê
	From Template:Wikt-lang , "also". Compare the Warring States bamboo form File:Ye3 also chu3jian3 warring state of chu3 small.png	Template:IPA link	-ie/ê	eh
	From Template:Wikt-lang , archaic form of Template:Wikt-lang.		ai	ai
	From Template:Wikt-lang , an obsolete character meaning  , "to move".		ei	ei
	From Template:Wikt-lang		ao	ao
	From Template:Wikt-lang		ou	ou
	From the archaic character Template:Wikt-lang  "to bloom", preserved as a phonetic in the compound		an	an
	From Template:Wikt-lang, archaic variant of Template:Wikt-lang  or Template:Wikt-lang  ( is   according to other sources)		en	ên
	From Template:Wikt-lang		ang	ang
	From Template:Wikt-lang, archaic form of Template:Wikt-lang		eng	êng
	From Template:Wikt-lang, the bottom portion of   used as a cursive and simplified form		er	êrh
File:Bpmf-i.svg	From Template:Wikt-lang , "one"	Template:IPA link	y, yi, -i	i	; nì
	From Template:Wikt-lang, ancient form of  , "five". Compare the transitory form .	Template:IPA link	w, wu, -u	u/w	;   ㄨㄛˇ
	From the ancient character Template:Wikt-lang , which remains as a radical	Template:IPA link	yu, -ü	ü/yü	;
File:MoeKai Bopomofo U+312D.svg	From the character Template:Wikt-lang. It represents the fricative vowel of ，，，，，，，though it is not used after them in transcription.	Template:IPA link~Template:IPA link, Template:IPA link~Template:IPA link	-i	ih/ŭ	;   ;

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 (Template:Lang-zh), which has four strokes.

can be written as a vertical line (File:Bpmf-i2.svg) or a horizontal line (File:Bpmf-i.svg); 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
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• File:ㄦ-bw.png
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• File:ㄨ-bw.png
• File:ㄩ-bw.png
• File:ㄭ-bw.png

Bopomofo is occasionally unofficially handwritten as syllable blocks, similar to Hangul, 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. 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). In pinyin, a macron (overbar) indicates the first tone, and the lack of a marker usually indicates the fifth (light) tone.

Tone	Bopomofo		Pinyin
	Tone Marker	Unicode Name	Tone Marker	Unicode Name
1	ˉ	Modifier Letter Macron (usually omitted)		Combining Macron
2	ˊ	Modifier Letter Acute Accent		Combining Acute Accent
3	ˇ	Caron		Combining Caron
4	ˋ	Modifier Letter Grave Accent		Combining Grave Accent
5	˙	Dot Above		Middle Dot (usually omitted)

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 characters).

Example

Below is an example for the word "bottle" (Template:Lang-zh):

,

or

Erhua transcription

Words rhotacized as a result of erhua are spelled with attached to the syllable (like 歌兒（ㄍㄜㄦ） ). 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. 哪兒（ㄋㄚˇㄦ） ; 一（ㄧ）點兒（ㄉㄧㄢˇㄦ） ; 好（ㄏㄠˇ）玩兒（ㄨㄢˊㄦ） ).

Comparison

Pinyin

Bopomofo and pinyin are based on the same Mandarin pronunciations; hence there is a one-to-one correspondence between the two systems:

IPA and pinyin counterparts of Bopomofo finals

		Rhyme
			ㄚ	ㄛ	ㄜ	ㄝ	ㄞ	ㄟ	ㄠ	ㄡ	ㄢ	ㄣ	ㄤ	ㄥ	ㄦ
Medial		() 1 -i	a -a	3 o -o 3	e -e	ê	ai -ai	ei -ei	ao -ao	ou -ou	an -an	en -en	ang -ang	eng -eng	er
		yi -i	ya -ia	yo		ye -ie	yai		yao -iao	you -iu	yan -ian	yin -in	yang -iang	ying -ing
		wu -u	wa -ua	3 wo -uo 3			wai -uai	wei -ui			wan -uan	wen -un	wang -uang	weng -ong 4
		yu -ü 2				yue -üe 2					yuan -üan 2	yun -ün 2		yong -iong

¹ Not written.

² Template:Grapheme is written as Template:Grapheme after Template:Grapheme, Template:Grapheme, Template:Grapheme, or Template:Grapheme.

³ Template:Grapheme/Template:Grapheme is written as Template:Grapheme/Template:Grapheme after Template:Grapheme/Template:Grapheme, Template:Grapheme/Template:Grapheme, Template:Grapheme/Template:Grapheme, Template:Grapheme/Template:Grapheme.

⁴ Template:Grapheme is pronounced (written as Template:Grapheme) when it follows an initial.

Use outside Standard Mandarin

Bopomofo symbols for non-Mandarin Chinese varieties are added to Unicode in the Bopomofo Extended block.

Taiwanese Hokkien

In Taiwan, Bopomofo is used to teach Taiwanese Hokkien, 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:

Bopomofo	IPA	GR	Pinyin
	Template:IPA link	v	v
	Template:IPA link	ng	ng
	Template:IPA link	gn	gn

23 more letters were added specifically for Taiwanese Hokkien:

Bopomofo	IPA	TL	Derivation
	Template:IPA link	b	with voicing circle
	Template:IPA link	g	with voicing circle
	Template:IPA link	ji	with voicing circle
	Template:IPA link	j	with voicing circle
		ir	and combined (?)
	Template:IPA link	oo	from
	Template:IPA link	e	from
		ann	with nasal curl
		onn	with nasal curl
		enn	with nasal curl
/		inn	with nasal curl
		unn	with nasal curl
		ainn	with nasal curl
		aunn	with nasal curl
		am	and combined
		om	and combined
		ong
		m	with syllabic stroke
		ng	with syllabic stroke
	Template:IPA link	-p	small
	Template:IPA link	-t	small
/	Template:IPA link	-k	small (and variant small )
		-h	small

Two tone marks were added for the additional tones: ,

Cantonese

The following letters are used in Cantonese.

Bopomofo	IPA	Jyutping
	Template:IPA link	gw
	Template:IPA link	kw
	Template:IPA link	eo
	Template:IPA link	a

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

File:Bopomofo.jpg

An example of a Bopomofo keypad for Taiwan

File:Keyboard layout Zhuyin.svg

A typical keyboard layout for Bopomofo on computers

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 phones.. On the QWERTY keyboard, the symbols are ordered column-wise top-down (e.g. Template:Keypress)

Unicode

Bopomofo was added to the Unicode Standard in October 1991 with the release of version 1.0.

The Unicode block for Bopomofo is U+3100–U+312F:

Bopomofo[1][2] Official Unicode Consortium code chart (PDF)

0

1

2

3

4

5

6

7

8

9

A

B

C

D

E

F

U+310x

ㄅ

ㄆ

ㄇ

ㄈ

ㄉ

ㄊ

ㄋ

ㄌ

ㄍ

ㄎ

ㄏ

U+311x

ㄐ

ㄑ

ㄒ

ㄓ

ㄔ

ㄕ

ㄖ

ㄗ

ㄘ

ㄙ

ㄚ

ㄛ

ㄜ

ㄝ

ㄞ

ㄟ

U+312x

ㄠ

ㄡ

ㄢ

ㄣ

ㄤ

ㄥ

ㄦ

ㄧ

ㄨ

ㄩ

ㄪ

ㄫ

ㄬ

ㄭ

ㄮ

ㄯ

Notes 1.^ Template:Unicode version 2.^ Grey areas indicate non-assigned code points

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:

Bopomofo Extended[1] Official Unicode Consortium code chart (PDF)

0

1

2

3

4

5

6

7

8

9

A

B

C

D

E

F

U+31Ax

ㆠ

ㆡ

ㆢ

ㆣ

ㆤ

ㆥ

ㆦ

ㆧ

ㆨ

ㆩ

ㆪ

ㆫ

ㆬ

ㆭ

ㆮ

ㆯ

U+31Bx

ㆰ

ㆱ

ㆲ

ㆳ

ㆴ

ㆵ

ㆶ

ㆷ

ㆸ

ㆹ

ㆺ

ㆻ

ㆼ

ㆽ

ㆾ

ㆿ

Notes 1.^ Template:Unicode version

Unicode 3.0 also added the characters Template:Unichar and Template:Unichar, in the Spacing Modifier Letters block. These two characters are now (since Unicode 6.0) classified as Bopomofo characters.

Tonal marks for bopomofo Spacing Modifier Letters
Tone	Tone Marker	Unicode	Note
1 Yin Ping (Level)	ˉ	U+02C9	Usually omitted
2 Yang Ping (Level)	ˊ	U+02CA
3 Shang (Rising)	ˇ	U+02C7
4 Qu (Departing)	ˋ	U+02CB
4a Yin Qu (Departing)		U+02EA	For Minnan and Hakka languages
4b Yang Qu (Departing)		U+02EB	For Minnan and Hakka languages
5 Qing (Neutral)	˙	U+02D9

See also

• Chinese input methods for computers
• Fanqie
• Furigana
• Hangul
• Kana
• Ruby character
• Taiwanese Phonetic Symbols
• Zhuyin table

External links

• The Manual of The Phonetic Symbols of Mandarin Chinese
• Unicode reference glyphs for  (69.6 KB) and  (61.6 KB)
• Bopomofo annotations – adds inline and pop-up annotations with bopomofo pronunciation and English definitions to Chinese text or web pages.
• Mandarin Dictionary – needs Chinese font for Big5 encoding
• Chinese Phonetic Conversion Tool – converts between Pinyin, Bopomofo and other phonetic systems
• Chinese Romanization Converter – converts between Hanyu Pinyin, Wade–Giles, Gwoyeu Romatzyh and other known or (un-)common Romanization systems
• Bopomofo -> Wade-Giles -> Pinyin -> Word List
• NPA->IPA 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. See IPA help preview, SIL International website. (Accessed 23 December 2010).
• Bopomofo to Pinyin converter and reverse
• bopomofo syllable chart, with Hanyu Pinyin equivalents
• Pinyin Annotator – 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
•  – online keyboard for bopomofo which can turn it into Chinese characters
• Online Bopomofo Input Method Editor