Gwoyeu Romatzyh
| Gwoyeu Romatzyh | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Traditional Chinese | 國語羅馬字 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Simplified Chinese | 国语罗马字 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Literal meaning | "Standard Chinese Romanization" | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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| Transcriptions | |
|---|---|
| Standard Mandarin | |
| Hanyu Pinyin | Guóyǔ Luómǎzì |
| Gwoyeu Romatzyh | Gwoyeu Romatzyh |
| Wade–Giles | Kuo2-yü3 Lo2-ma3-tzu4 |
| Tongyong Pinyin | Guóyǔ Luómǎzìh |
| Yale Romanization | Gwóyǔ Lwómǎdz̀ |
| IPA | [ku̯ǒỳ lu̯ǒmàtsɹ̩̂] |
| Yue: Cantonese | |
| Yale Romanization | gwok yu lòh máh jih |
| IPA | [kʷɔ̄ːk jȳː lɔ̀ː mɐ̬ tɕìː] |
| Jyutping | gwok3 jyu3 lo4 ma5 zi6 |
| Southern Min | |
| Hokkien POJ | Kok-gí Lô-má-jī |
Gwoyeu Romatzyh (pinyin: Guóyǔ luómǎzì, literally "National Language Romanization"), abbreviated GR, is a system for writing Mandarin Chinese in the Latin alphabet. The system was conceived by Yuen Ren Chao and developed by a group of linguists including Chao and Lin Yutang from 1925 to 1926. Chao himself later published influential works in linguistics using GR. In addition a small number of other textbooks and dictionaries in GR were published in Hong Kong and overseas from 1942 to 2000.
GR is the better known of the two romanization systems which indicate the four tones of Mandarin by varying the spelling of syllables ("tonal spelling"). These tones are as fundamental to the Chinese language as vowels are to English; their presence lets speakers discriminate between otherwise identical syllables and words. Other systems indicate the tones with either diacritics (for example Pinyin: āi, ái, ǎi and ài) or numbers (Wade–Giles: ai1, ai2, etc.). GR spells the same four tones ai, air, ae and ay. These spellings, which follow specific rules, indicate the tones while retaining the pronunciation of the syllable ai.
Chao claimed that, because GR embeds the tone of each syllable in its spelling, it may help students to master Chinese tones. One study however, found the opposite to be true in a study of GR. GR uses a complicated system of tonal spelling that obscures the basic relationship between spelling and tone; for example, the difference between tones 1 and 2 is variously indicated as mha vs. ma, ching vs. chyng, chang vs. charng, etc. Although tonal spelling has been adopted as part of the normal romanization of a number of Asian languages (e.g. Hmong), all such systems indicate different tones in a simple and consistent fashion by adding letters to the end of a syllable (e.g. in Hmong, -b indicates high tone, -s indicates low tone, -j indicates high-falling tone, etc.).
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