Talk:Pinyin

Taylor & Taylor "Pinyin represents ... sounds better"

@SuperGrey

Super late (I never got a notification, sorry) but in response to this: You reverted my deletion of: 'A recent study on Chinese writing and literacy concluded, "By and large, pinyin represents the Chinese sounds better than the Wade–Giles system, and does so with fewer extra marks."' (revision in question: )

The main reason why I deleted this is because the phrasing "study ... concluded" makes me think experiment or at least involving some methodology (e.g. foreign language teaching experiments or a survey of different romanization systems). However, while the book as a whole surveys different romanization schemes, in the specific passage it is in (I found the excerpt online via Google Books on p. 124), the context is mainly to summarize for the reader the differences between the Pinyin/Wade-Giles. The authors don't provide much argument overall.

Text with quote underlined reads:

Initials and finals: Pinyin vs Wade-Giles. Table 7-4 lists the initials and some finals that differ between the two romanizing systems, Pinyin and Wade-Giles. Some initials and finals - e.g., those in a, ha, liao, mai, nan, seng - are the same in the two, but some differ. By and large, Pinyin represents the Chinese sounds better than the Wade-Giles system, and does so with fewer extra marks. It can be seen on road signs, store fronts, and other public places, but it is not used in text such as documents, newspapers, and books. Pinyin is put to specialized uses: Teaching the sounds of Chinese characters to foreigners as well as to Chinese children (Chapter 8); writing Chinese names and words for foreign publications; telegraphy, indexing, and so on. Pinyin is particularly useful for input to a word processor, as described in the next section.

[followed by Table 7-4 comparing some initials and finals in Pinyin vs Wade-Giles]

Also, while pinyin is definitely briefer, the first claim that it represents the sounds better seems too contestable or subjective (that is, depending on perspective) to be included. Speakers of language with voiced-voiceless distinction do perceive the two obstruent series as voiceless-aspirated, and the various other symbols like q, c, x, zh, etc. are very unintuitive even if it's unambiguous. That's not to say that Wade-Giles was perfect, but since there are pros and cons for either, I think it's false that "By and large, Pinyin represents the Chinese sounds better". I could try to find a source to support this opposing view if you think it's necessary.

I definitely think that the phrasing "study ... concluded" should be removed. Awelotta (talk) 17:32, 18 September 2025 (UTC)

Wikipedia:No original research: Wikipedia's content is determined by previously published information rather than by the personal beliefs or experiences of its editors. Even if you're sure something is true, it must be verifiable before you can add it.

With that in mind, please consider adding high‑quality, reliably sourced research that presents counterarguments, rather than removing sources you disagree with. This will help the article achieve WP:BALANCE and a Wikipedia:Neutral point of view. SuperGrey (talk) 01:07, 19 September 2025 (UTC)

Thanks for the reminder. After reading through some papers. I happened to have changed my view. Anyways, here are some changes I'd like to make:

1. Put some of the disadvantages of Wade-Giles versus pinyin on the Wade-Giles article. I'll still keep what's here here. A paragraph like:

"The use of spiritus asper in Wade-Giles has been argued to be unintuitive and difficult for laypeople to interpret correctly (Carr, "Whence the pronunciation of Taoism"). The aspiration contrast is not that different from English. One author speculates that it was because of a general fascination with aspiration / it was a fashion in linguistics. (Branner, Beginnings of Comparison of Chinese Dialects)"

But written more objectively / encyclopediacally.

2. Separate out the parts about criticism into one paragraph. Rephrase so that the whole paragraph sounds like it's from Taylor & Taylor (2014). Right now it reads like only the last sentence is sourced. I've found one other source that supports this claim but it seems to make basic mistakes and is focused on library cataloguing anyways / processes. Add the source (Chung, "Wade-Giles") to say pinyin solved some problems with Wade-Giles while introducing new ones (the same ones mentioned in Taylor & Taylor).

I'm going to go ahead and make these changes when I have time (probably within the next day). Awelotta (talk) 19:44, 1 October 2025 (UTC)

Awesome proposal. Thank you for your contributions! SuperGrey (talk) 20:15, 1 October 2025 (UTC)

Sorry for the delay. Just updating this thread out of courtesy.

I've gone ahead and made the changes to the pinyin article. I ended up not adding anything to the Wade-Giles article as I felt it didn't fit anywhere (e.g., the story of early protestant missionaries using ad hoc transcriptions and being influenced by spiritus asper). I suppose I could add such information to the article of "Romanization of Chinese", but then I'm just just looking for a place to put stuff I found interesting. And the articles I found didn't say anything that wasn't already found in the "Taoism-Daoism issue" in the "further reading" section. Awelotta (talk) 06:07, 11 October 2025 (UTC)

phonems

thogh the chart is for the initials should'nt we add ng [ŋ], to better indicate that {ng} represents this phonem?? Invije (talk) 02:38, 21 September 2025 (UTC)

@Invije I don't see the benefit for this. I think since there are only a few finals, it is easy for someone to reference that section if they want to check the pronunciation of ng that they come across in text. If a general list of consonants is included somewhere, I think it definitely shouldn't go in the section for initials, as that might mislead people reading this article who don't read the Mandarin article to think that Mandarin has initial ng. Awelotta (talk) 13:21, 1 October 2025 (UTC)

隔音符号 Redirect

隔音符号 redirects to Pinyin#Approximation from English pronunciation. As that section has since been removed, is there another target section which would work? Suonii180 (talk) 12:23, 30 October 2025 (UTC)

"隔音符号" listed at Redirects for discussion

The redirect 隔音符号 has been listed at redirects for discussion to determine whether its use and function meets the redirect guidelines. Readers of this page are welcome to comment on this redirect at Wikipedia:Redirects for discussion/Log/2025 November 8 § 隔音符号 until a consensus is reached. Suonii180 (talk) 18:44, 8 November 2025 (UTC)

Oxford/Serial Comma Usage

This article appears to have inconsistent usage of the serial comma. I’m personally partial to it, but I just wanted to seek consensus and check that there were no conventions regarding the variant of English used in articles on a Chinese/PRC related topic. Minipotatoes00 (talk) 09:44, 28 June 2026 (UTC)