The Commission on the Unification of Pronunciation () was the organization established by the

Beiyang government The Beiyang government (), officially the Republic of China (), sometimes spelled Peiyang Government, refers to the government of the Republic of China which sat in its capital Peking (Beijing) between 1912 and 1928. It was internationally r ...

in 1912 to select ancillary phonetic symbols for

Mandarin Mandarin or The Mandarin may refer to: Language * Mandarin Chinese, branch of Chinese originally spoken in northern parts of the country ** Standard Chinese or Modern Standard Mandarin, the official language of China ** Taiwanese Mandarin, Stand ...

(resulting in the creation of

Zhuyin Bopomofo (), or Mandarin Phonetic Symbols, also named Zhuyin (), is a Chinese transliteration system for Mandarin Chinese and other related languages and dialects. More commonly used in Taiwanese Mandarin, it may also be used to transcribe ...

) and set the standard Guoyu pronunciation of basic

Chinese character Chinese characters () are logograms developed for the Written Chinese, writing of Chinese. In addition, they have been adapted to write other East Asian languages, and remain a key component of the Japanese writing system where they are k ...

History

It was decided in a draft on 7 August 1912, a month after a conference led by the

Cai Yuanpei Cai Yuanpei (; 1868–1940) was a Chinese philosopher and politician who was an influential figure in the history of Chinese modern education. He made contributions to education reform with his own education ideology. He was the president of Pek ...

on July 10, that a set of phonetic symbols were to be used for education purposes. The Commission was set up in December, led by

Wu Zhihui Wu Jingheng (), commonly known by his courtesy name Wu Zhihui (Woo Chih-hui, ; 1865–1953), also known as Wu Shi-Fee, was a Chinese linguist and philosopher who was the chairman of the 1912–13 Commission on the Unification of Pronunciatio ...

(Woo Tsin-hang; ). The Commission ended on 22 May 1913. A later similar organization that still exists that had been headed by Wu Zhihui for a while is the

Mandarin Promotion Council The National Languages Committee was established in 1928 by the Ministry of Education of the Republic of China with the purpose of standardizing and popularizing the usage of Standard Chinese (also called Mandarin) in the Republic of China. The ...

Members

The first meeting took place on 15 February 1913 in

Beijing } Beijing ( ; ; ), alternatively romanized as Peking ( ), is the capital of the People's Republic of China. It is the center of power and development of the country. Beijing is the world's most populous national capital city, with over 21 ...

, with 44 delegates. The chairman was Wu; vice-chairman Wang Zhao (). There were two representatives per each of the 26

province A province is almost always an administrative division within a country or sovereign state, state. The term derives from the ancient Roman ''Roman province, provincia'', which was the major territorial and administrative unit of the Roman Empire ...

s. The

Tibet Tibet (; ''Böd''; ) is a region in East Asia, covering much of the Tibetan Plateau and spanning about . It is the traditional homeland of the Tibetan people. Also resident on the plateau are some other ethnic groups such as Monpa people, ...

ans, the

Mongolia Mongolia; Mongolian script: , , ; lit. "Mongol Nation" or "State of Mongolia" () is a landlocked country in East Asia, bordered by Russia to the north and China to the south. It covers an area of , with a population of just 3.3 million, ...

ns and the

overseas Chinese Overseas Chinese () refers to people of Chinese birth or ethnicity who reside outside Mainland China, Hong Kong, Macau, and Taiwan. As of 2011, there were over 40.3 million overseas Chinese. Terminology () or ''Hoan-kheh'' () in Hokkien, refe ...

each had one representative. Prominent members included: * Cai Zhang () * Chen Suiyi () *

Gao Kunnan Gao , or Gawgaw/Kawkaw, is a city in Mali and the capital of the Gao Region. The city is located on the River Niger, east-southeast of Timbuktu on the left bank at the junction with the Tilemsi valley. For much of its history Gao was an impor ...

() * Hu Yuren () * Li Liangcai () * Liu Zishan () *

Lu Zhuangzhang Lu Zhuangzhang (盧戇章, 1854–1928) was the first Chinese scholar to develop a system for the romanization of Chinese, the ''Qieyin Xinzi'' (切音新字 "New Phonetic Alphabet") in 1892, which stimulated Chinese interest in script reform from ...

() * Ma Tiqian () *

Wang Rongbao Wang may refer to: Names * Wang (surname) (王), a common Chinese surname * Wāng (汪), a less common Chinese surname * Titles in Chinese nobility * A title in Korean nobility * A title in Mongolian nobility Places * Wang River in Thailand ...

() *

Wang Sui Wang may refer to: Names * Wang (surname) (王), a common Chinese surname * Wāng (汪), a less common Chinese surname * Titles in Chinese nobility * A title in Korean nobility * A title in Mongolian nobility Places * Wang River in Thailand ...

() *

Wang Yi'an Wang may refer to: Names * Wang (surname) (王), a common Chinese surname * Wāng (汪), a less common Chinese surname * Titles in Chinese nobility * A title in Korean nobility * A title in Mongolian nobility Places * Wang River in Thailand ...

() *

Xing Dao XING is a Hamburg-based career-oriented social networking site, operated by New Work SE (until mid-2019 ''XING SE''). The site is primarily focused on the German-speaking market, alongside XING Spain, and competes with the American platform Li ...

() *

Yang Qu Yang may refer to: * Yang, in yin and yang, one half of the two symbolic polarities in Chinese philosophy * Korean yang, former unit of currency of Korea from 1892 to 1902 * YANG, a data modeling language for the NETCONF network configuration p ...

() *

Yang Zenghao Yang may refer to: * Yang, in yin and yang, one half of the two symbolic polarities in Chinese philosophy * Korean yang, former unit of currency of Korea from 1892 to 1902 * YANG, a data modeling language for the NETCONF network configuration pr ...

()

Phonetic symbols

There were three main ideas of how the phonetic symbols should be: * Using certain complete

s to symbolize other characters of the same sound ** Supporters included Wang Zhao, Wang Rongbao, Wang Yi'an, and Cai. * Using

Latin alphabet The Latin alphabet or Roman alphabet is the collection of letters originally used by the ancient Romans to write the Latin language. Largely unaltered with the exception of extensions (such as diacritics), it used to write English and the o ...

letters ** Supporters included Yang Zenghao and Liu * Using non-existent symbols ** Supporters included Wu, Lu, Ma, Li, Xing, Wang Sui, Hu, Yang Qu, Gao, Chen, and Zheng. The three groups discussed for two months and adopted 15 symbols from

Zhang Binglin Zhang Binglin (January 12, 1869 – June 14, 1936), also known by his art name Zhang Taiyan, was a Chinese philologist, textual critic, philosopher, and revolutionary. His philological works include ''Wen Shi'' (文始 "The Origin of Writing"), t ...

's all- Zhuanshu Jiyin Zimu (記音字母), which was the proposal by the

Zhejiang Zhejiang ( or , ; , also romanized as Chekiang) is an eastern, coastal province of the People's Republic of China. Its capital and largest city is Hangzhou, and other notable cities include Ningbo and Wenzhou. Zhejiang is bordered by Jiang ...

Committee. Jiyin Zimu was renamed to

Zhuyin Fuhao Bopomofo (), or Mandarin Phonetic Symbols, also named Zhuyin (), is a Chinese transliteration system for Mandarin Chinese and other related languages and dialects. More commonly used in Taiwanese Mandarin, it may also be used to transcribe ...

. After its proclamation, several aspects of Zhuyin were further modified, including: * Rearranging the order of the symbols * Adding ㄜ (Pinyin ''e'') * ㄦ, originally just ''r'', was now also ''er'' (a retroflex vowel) * The three dialectal symbols — ㄪ (v), ㄫ (ng) and ㄬ (ny) — were deleted, but are still to be found in Unicode Bopomofo (U+3105–U+312C). * The tone system was modified

Programs

The Commission established the Seven Mandarin Sound Promotion Programs (; Guoyu Tuixing Fangfa Qi Tiao): # Proclaimed Zhuyin Zimu. n 23 November 1918# All provinces were to establish places to promote and study the 6500 standardized Mandarin sounds (), where the county representatives would gather and return to their counties to spread the words. stablished in 1920, along with Summer Mandarin Seminars ()# Using the

gramophone A phonograph, in its later forms also called a gramophone (as a trademark since 1887, as a generic name in the UK since 1910) or since the 1940s called a record player, or more recently a turntable, is a device for the mechanical and analogu ...

to record the exact pronunciation. ecorded in 1920# Having Mandarin be a compulsory subject in all

elementary school A primary school (in Ireland, the United Kingdom, Australia, Trinidad and Tobago, Jamaica, and South Africa), junior school (in Australia), elementary school or grade school (in North America and the Philippines) is a school for primary ed ...

. mplemented in 19??# All teachers were to speak solely in Mandarin in elementary and

middle school A middle school (also known as intermediate school, junior high school, junior secondary school, or lower secondary school) is an educational stage which exists in some countries, providing education between primary school and secondary school. ...

s. mplemented in 19??# All textbooks and some official documents were to be annotated by Zhuyin. mplemented in 19??

History

Members

Phonetic symbols

Programs

Notes

Further reading