Taiwan Province
Taiwan Province is one of the two administrative divisions of the Republic of China (ROC) that are officially referred to as "provinces". The province covers approximately 69% of the actual-controlled territory of the ROC, with around 31% of the total population. Geographically it covers the majority of the island of Taiwan as well as almost all of its surrounding islands, the largest of which are the Penghu archipelago, Green Island, Xiaoliuqiu Island and Orchid Island. Taiwan Province does not cover territories of the Special municipality of Taiwan">special municipalities of Kaohsiung, New Taipei, Taichung, Tainan, Taipei, and Taoyuan, all of which are located geographically within the main island of Taiwan
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Human Development Index
The Human Development Index (HDI) is a statistic composite index of life expectancy, education, and Per capita income">per capita income indicators, which are used to rank countries into four tiers of human development. A country scores a higher HDI when the Life expectancy at birth">lifespan is higher, the education level is higher, and the gross national income GNI (PPP) per capita is higher. It was developed by Pakistani economist Mahbub ul Haq and was further used to measure a country's development by the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP)'s Human Development Report Office. The 2010 Human Development Report introduced an Inequality-adjusted Human Development Index (IHDI)
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Spelling In Gwoyeu Romatzyh
The spelling of Gwoyeu Romatzyh (GR) can be divided into its treatment of initials, finals and tones. GR uses contrasting unvoiced/voiced pairs of consonants to represent aspirated and unaspirated initials in Chinese: for example b and p represent IPA [p] and [pʰ]. The letters j, ch and sh represent two different series of initials: the alveolo-palatal and the retroflex sounds. Although these spellings create no ambiguity in practice, readers more familiar with Pinyin should pay particular attention to them: GR ju, for example, corresponds to Pinyin zhu, not ju (which is spelled jiu in GR). Many of the finals in GR are similar to those used in other romanizations. Distinctive features of GR include the use of iu for the close front rounded vowel spelled ü or simply u in Pinyin
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New Taiwan Dollar
New Taiwan dollar (Chinese: 新臺幣; pinyin: xīn tái bì; Currency symbol">sign: NT$; code: TWD) is the official currency of Taiwan. It is subdivided into 100 cents (Chinese: 分; pinyin: fēn), although cents are rarely used in practice. The New Taiwan dollars has been the currency of Taiwan since 1949, when it replaced the Taiwan dollar">Old Taiwan dollar, at a rate of 40,000 old dollars per NT$. In Mandarin, the unit of the dollar is referred to as "元" or "圓" (pinyin: yuán). Since the year 2000, the Bank of the Republic of China (Taiwan)">Central Bank of the Republic of China (Taiwan) is the central bank of Taiwan, which currently issues the New Taiwan dollar
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Foochow Romanized
Foochow Romanized, also known as Bàng-uâ-cê (BUC for short; Chinese: 平話字) or Hók-ciŭ-uâ Lò̤-mā-cê (Chinese: 福州話羅馬字), is a Latin alphabet for the Fuzhou dialect"> Fuzhou dialect of Eastern Min adopted in the middle of the 19th century by Western missionaries. It had varied at different times, and became standardized in the 1890s
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Traditional Chinese Characters
Traditional Chinese characters (traditional Chinese: 正體字/繁體字; simplified Chinese: 正体字/繁体字, Pinyin: Zhèngtǐzì/Fántǐzì) are Chinese characters in any character set that does not contain newly created characters or character substitutions performed after 1946. They are most commonly the characters in the standardized character sets of Taiwan, of Hong Kong and Macau
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Simplified Chinese Characters
Simplified Chinese characters (简化字; jiǎnhuàzì) are standardized Chinese characters prescribed in the Standard Chinese Characters">Table of General Standard Chinese Characters for use in mainland China. Along with subsets Traditional Chinese characters"> Traditional Chinese characters, they are one of the two standard character sets of the contemporary Chinese written language. The government of the People's Republic of China in mainland China has promoted them for use in printing since the 1950s and 1960s to encourage literacy. They are officially used in the People's Republic of China, Malaysia, and Singapore. Traditional Chinese characters are used in Hong Kong, Macau, and the Republic of China (Taiwan)
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Standard Chinese
Standard Chinese, also known as Modern Standard Mandarin, Standard Mandarin, Modern Standard Mandarin Chinese (MSMC), or simply Mandarin, is a standard variety of Chinese that is one of the official languages of China. Its pronunciation is based on the Beijing dialect"> Beijing dialect, its vocabulary on the Mandarin dialects, and its grammar is based on written vernacular Chinese. The similar Taiwanese Mandarin is a national language of Taiwan. Standard Singaporean Mandarin is one of the four official languages of Singapore. Like other varieties of Chinese, Standard Chinese is a tonal language with topic-prominent organization and subject–verb–object word order. It has more initial consonants but fewer vowels, final consonants and tones than southern varieties
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Hanyu Pinyin
Hanyu Pinyin (simplified Chinese: 汉语拼音; traditional Chinese: 漢語拼音; pinyin: Hànyǔ Pīnyīn), often abbreviated to pinyin, is the official romanization system for Standard Chinese in mainland China and to some extent in Taiwan. It is often used to teach Standard Mandarin Chinese, which is normally written using Chinese characters. The system includes four diacritics denoting tones. Pinyin without tone marks is used to spell Chinese names and words in languages written with the Latin alphabet and also in certain computer input methods to enter Chinese characters. The pinyin system was developed in the 1950s by many linguists, including Zhou Youguang, based on earlier forms of Romanization of Chinese">romanizations of Chinese
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Bopomofo
Egyptian hieroglyphs 32 c. BCE --->

Proto-Sinaitic 19 c. BCE

Phoenician 12 c. BCE

Libyco-Berber 3 c. BCE

Paleohispanic (semi-syllabic) 7 c. BCE

Aramaic 8 c. BCE

---> --->

Hebrew 3 c. BCE

Pahlavi 3 c. BCE

Palmyrene 2 c. BCE

Syriac 2 c. BCE

Wade–Giles
Wade–Giles (/ˌweɪd ˈdʒaɪlz/), sometimes abbreviated Wade, is a Romanization of Chinese">romanization system for Mandarin Chinese. It developed from a system produced by Thomas Wade, during the mid-19th century, and was given completed form with Herbert A. Giles's Chinese–English Dictionary of 1892. Wade–Giles was the system of transcription in the English-speaking world for most of the 20th century. Wade-Giles is based on Beijing dialect, whereas Nanking dialect-based romanization systems were in common use until the late 19th century. Both were used in postal romanizations (romanized place-names standardized for postal uses). In mainland China it has been mostly replaced by the Hanyu Pinyin romanization system, with exceptions for the romanized forms of some locations, persons and other proper nouns
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ISO 3166
ISO 3166 is a standard published by the International Organization for Standardization (ISO) that defines codes for the names of countries, dependent territories, special areas of geographical interest, and their principal Country subdivision">subdivisions (e.g., provinces or states)
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Tongyong Pinyin
Tongyong Pinyin ( Traditional Chinese characters">Chinese: 通用拼音; Hanyu Pinyin: Tōngyòng Pīnyīn; Tongyong Pinyin: Tongyòng Pinyin; literally: "general-use spelling of sounds") was the official romanization of Mandarin Chinese in Taiwan between 2002 and 2008. The system was unofficially used between 2000 and 2002, when a new romanization system for Taiwan was being evaluated for adoption. Taiwan's Ministry of Education approved the system in 2002, but its use was optional
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Wu Chinese
Wu (Shanghainese: International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA)" class="IPA">[ɦu˨˨ ɲy˦˦]; Suzhou dialect"> Suzhou dialect: International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA)" class="IPA">[ɦəu˨˨ ɲy˦˦]; Wuxi dialect"> Wuxi dialect: International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA)" class="IPA">[ŋ˨˨˧ nʲy˨˨]) is a group of linguistically similar and historically related varieties of Chinese primarily spoken in the whole city of Shanghai, Zhejiang province and the southern half of Jiangsu province, as well as bordering areas. Major Wu varieties include those of Shanghai, Suzhou dialect">Suzhou, Ningbo dialect">Ningbo, Wuxi dialect">Wuxi, Wenzhou/Oujiang, Hangzhou dialect">Hangzhou, Shaoxing, Jinhua dialect">Jinhua and Yongkang
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Xiang Chinese
Xiang or Hsiang (Chinese: 湘; pinyin: xiāng; Mandarin pronunciation: [ɕi̯ɑ́ŋ]), also known as Hunanese (English: /ˌhuːnɑːˈniːz/), is a group of linguistically similar and historically related varieties of Chinese, spoken mainly in Hunan province but also in northern Guangxi and parts of neighboring Guizhou and Hubei provinces. Scholars divided Xiang into five subgroups, Chang-Yi, Lou-Shao, Hengzhou, Chen-Xu and Yong-Quan. Among those, Lou-shao, also known as Old Xiang, still exhibits the three-way distinction of Middle Chinese obstruents, preserving the voiced stops, fricatives, and affricates
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Cantonese
Cantonese, or Standard Cantonese, is a variety of the Chinese language spoken within Guangzhou (historically known as Canton) and its vicinity in southeastern China. It is the traditional prestige variety of Yue, one of the major subdivisions of Chinese. In mainland China, it is the lingua franca of the province of Guangdong, being the majority language of the Pearl River Delta, and neighbouring areas such as Guangxi. It is the dominant and official language of Hong Kong and Macau. Cantonese is also widely spoken amongst overseas Chinese in Southeast Asia (most notably in Vietnam and Malaysia, as well as in Singapore and Cambodia to a lesser extent) and throughout the Western world. While the term Cantonese refers narrowly to the prestige variety, it is often used in a broader sense for the entire Yue subdivision of Chinese, including related but largely mutually unintelligible languages such as Taishanese
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