Taiwanese Modern Spelling System (TMSS)
Hung Jung Lu
Taiwanese language. Now I will post yet another widely-used scheme.
In that article I called the first scheme the "Church Romanization".
Later, I found a book that calls it the "Missionary Romanization".
I believe the latter is more correct.
Also, I have learned from some Hoklo teachers that there is
no consensus on the Chinese characters for the word "Hoklo".
Apparently many paleoorthographic research articles have been written
on just these two characters! Therefore, at least for now, the spelling
"Holo" should be considered just as valid as "Hoklo". (I personally
spell it sometimes as Holo and sometimes as Hoklo... really bothersome,
I don't know what to do about it.)
I am not really satisfied with my present posting...
It is not very well organized. Also, I do not know many
of the technical terms. However, I am presenting it here anyway,
with the hope of improving it sometime in the future.
Meanwhile, this article serves to give a "first look" into TMSS.
I hope the reader will be able to capture most of its essential features.
Finally, if anyone on the net is familiar with TMSS, please get
in touch with me. I am really interested in learning more about it
as well as discussing general issues in Hoklo romanization.
Taiwanese Modern Spelling System (TMSS)
=======================================
Historical note: this scheme is created in early 1940s by the professor
Lin Chi-Hsiung (Liim Keahsioong) of the National Cheng-Kung University.
(Lin=forest, Chi=to continue, Hsiung=hero.) Over the next few years
it was slightly modified, but basically remained unchanged 1950s.
The current popularization of the system started only after 1987.
My source: fax pages provided to me by Ms. Margie Lee, director of the D.C.
Taiwanese School. I am deeply grateful for all the information provided
to me.
Main features and attractiveness over the Missionary Romanization scheme:
1) Tonal markers are replaced by letters. I suspect that this has some
linguistic justification, since historically tonality can happen through
the omission of final consonants. (I learned it from sci.lang)
2) Uses word linkage. That is, many words are multi-syllable.
3) Nasalization symbol preceeds vowels in a syllable.
4) employs some letters/combinations to ease tone notation
(y w ie uo ea ae ao intead of if uf ir ur er air aur).
General reception: Hoklo speakers that are familiar with both
the Missionary Romanization (MR) and TMSS tend to agree that TMSS
is far superior than MR. TMSS is also a more robust system,
meaning that even if a text contains misspellings, the reader will
still likely be able to understand the text. MR apparently is much
weaker in this sense.
Letters
=======
vowel letters: a i u e o @ y w (@ actually should be an "o" superimposed
with a backslash "\")
consonant letters: b c g h j k l m n p s t z
nasalization letter: v (actually it is a Greek nu)
tonal letters: d q f r x
Syllable structure
==================
each syllable is composed of up to five parts:
consonant + nasalization + vowel + tone + ending sound (ending vowel)
Vowels
======
a) Monophtongs
a i u e o @ m ng
b) Diphtongs/Triphtongs
ai au oa oe @e oai ia iu i@ iau ui
c) Special representations
y=if w=uf
ie=ir uo=ur ea=er ae=air ao=aur
Consonants
==========
a) Five voiced and voiceless consonant pairs
c k p t z
ch kh ph th zh
b) other consonants
b g h j l s m n
these consonants can be classified as (don't trust the technical terms here...
I had to translate from Chinese to English, also, personally I don't think
the classification is well done.)
bilabial: p ph m (b)
apico-alveolar: t th n (l)
velar,uvular,glottal: k kh h (g)
apico-dentalveolar: c ch z zh j s
Ending nasal consonant
======================
m n ng E.g. tiarm=tired; kin=near,close; tang=heavy
Nasalization
============
v (a Greek nu)
Tones (I don't know the names of the tones... would appreciate the names
===== given in English or Latin. I don't like the Chinese names like Ru,
Yin, Yang, etc. I had to translate to Chinese names into English
here, and the translated name may not be phonetically correct.)
Base (mid) a an am ang m ng
High af afn afm afng mf ngf
High stressed (high falling) ar arn arm arng mr ngr
Low stressed (low falling) ax axn axm axng mx ngx
Rising (low rising) aa aan aam aang mm ngg
High stopped ah at ap ak mh ngh
Low stopped aq ad ab ag mq ngq
Linkage symbols
===============
1) Apostrophe (') is used in order to separate syllable that might be mislinked
otherwise.
e.g. te'aw harn'y pak'hofng kiok'hoef
2) Hyphen (-) is used to link two words
e.g. Taioaan-lang, Bykog-kongbiin, hiaf-ciaf
3) Plus sing (+) is used as a superscript to emphasize. The syllable after
the (+) sign acquires a lower tonality.
e.g. khuy+khuy khuikhuy (open, half-open)
kviaf+sie kviafsie (scared)
Taan+siensvy (Mr. Taan) Taan Bygiok (a female name)
Tone mutation
=============
Tone mutation is present in many Chinese languages, but Hoklo is
particularly complicated at it.
All the seven tones mutate. The mutation occurs in composite words.
As a rule, all the syllables in a composite word change to the
mutated tones except the last syllable.
(Note: I don't know whether there are exception to the mutation rules,
but Hoklo seems fairly rigid about the tone mutation)
The following chart explain the tone mutation in Hoklo.
long tones short tones
========== ===========
high <------ high-stressed high-stopped
| ^ | ^
| | | |
| rising | | |
| | | |
| / | | |
| / | | |
v L | v |
base -------> low-stressed low-stopped
Example: (hyphenated here to make the individual syllables more clear)
hoer = fire
hoef-chiaf = train (fire-car, literally)
hoef-chia-zam =train station
hoef-chia-zaxm-tviur = train station master
hoef-chia-zaxm-tviuf-lviuu = train station master's wife
Example of text (included here just give an idea of how MTR looks like)
===============
Titw k@hzaix tuix hosiin korng, "Hosiin Hviaf,
Hosiin Hviaf. Lie nar @e ciahniq'ientaau? Lie
kiarm zay, lie ee bagciw vii-kwnkurn, lie ee sit
si hiahniq'kym-siaksiag. Goar theh cviax laai ho lie
chi@x, lie ciu thafng zaiviar".
Hosiin thviati@h titw @l@r y ientaau, ciu simlai
hvoahie, lorng b@e kietit ti@qaix tviutii. Y cide
p@ef-jibkhix titw-ban+nih, ciu cviazoex titw ee
armtngx.
-- Ekki
Xie Min (Dr)
: Sometime ago I posted an article on the romanization scheme for Hoklo
: Taiwanese language. Now I will post yet another widely-used scheme.
(stuff deleted)
what's all about? why make everything so complicated?
I am not sure if you are aware of Pinyin system widely used
in Mainland China and other South East Asian countries
(such as Singapore and Malaysia)...
Also, not sure what you mean by Taiwanese... If you do not
want to call it Chinese, please call it Mandarin (so is it calles
here). Taiwanese, for most people, is the dialect used by
native Taiwanese (similar to the language Indians speak in US).
You may be interested in cross-posting to soc.culture.china
and soc.culture.singapore. At our university, there is a big
department of Chinese Language interested in this...
Hung Jung Lu
: (stuff deleted)
Bahhh, please remove the (Dr) from your name... no offense,
but if you cannot read, I don't think you deserve a (Dr)
title. Unless, of course, you are a Ph.D. in illiteracy.
I said "Hoklo Taiwanese" and not "Taiwanese". Now, if
you don't understand the word "Hoklo", I can explain it
to you. "Hoklo" is a subdialect of the Min-Nan dialect
group. Close but not quite similar to Fuzhou (Foochow)
dialect. It's much closer to Amoy dialect. Nowadays
"Hoklo Taiwanese" is basically an amalgamation of the Quanzhou
and Zhangzhou dialects, plus some imported words from
Mandarin, Japanese, English, Native Aborigen (Gao Shan)
and Dutch, yes Dutch, words. (A widely used unit for
area measure in Taiwan is Zhia, which comes from Hoklo
"kah", which comes from Dutch "kop".)
I can also explain to you the current trend of using
tonal spelling instead of diacritical marks to represent
tones values in tonal languages/dialects. Tonal spelling
means to use letters instead of tone markers like (' ` ^ -)
to represent tone values. It's not a new idea. But has
been gaining strength lately. If you would like to see the
application of this system to Mandarin, see for example
Jay Osborn Lundelius in Journal of Chinese Language Teacher
Association, Vol. XXVIII, No. 3, Oct, 1992, pp 93-108.
Users of tonal spelling systems generally find them to be much
better and natural than the diacritic systems.
I do know Pinyin, thanks for you concern. And I do call
Chinese "Mandarin" or "Putonghua". But I will never call
Hoklo Taiwanese "Mandarin". I can't believe a (Dr) can
misread my article so, but, so badly. Don't you read
before posting a reply. Or do you think Mandarin is the
only language spoken in Taiwan???
Cross posting to soc.culture.china and soc.culture.singapore?
I'll think about it. But don't forget that Hoklo Taiwanese
romanization is being developped and designed mainly for the
people living in Taiwan (and their immediate off-springs).
Thanks for all the points you have raised.
But I must say that you have misread badly my article.
And that you are probably out of touch with contemporary
issues of Taiwan.
-- Ekki
Tsangpuu Lin
This is a beautiful flame-bait.
Hung Jung Lu
: This is a beautiful flame-bait.
Ha ha, very funny.
Just keep your bad habit in soc.culture.taiwan
and don't bring it into sci.lang, OK?
-- Ekki
Miguel Carrasquer
Xie Min (Dr) <ise...@leonis.nus.sg> wrote:
>
>Anyway, I just feel that a single language would be the best for
>human being. Unifying our language is a step in right direction.
>
Whether you mean "for a human being" or "for mankind", I strongly
disagree on both counts. I was fortunate enough to be raised
multi-lingually, and I don't think I would have been better off
with just a single language (even if it had been "unified Chinese").
A world where only a single language were spoken would be very
dull indeed (and would force me to learn Klingon :-), and the only
redeeming feature of it would be to put an end to the myth that
"if we all spoke a single language, all would be peace and
understanding".
--
Miguel Carrasquer ____________________ ~~~
Amsterdam [ ||]~
m...@inter.NL.net ce .sig n'est pas une .cig
Xie Min (Dr)
: This is a beautiful flame-bait.
Hey, I have no intension to be a trouble-maker. My wife is teaching
Mandarin at Singapore American School (heard of the guy who was caned?
he is from that School and a real trouble-maker). She is a Manchu
by race in China, and always says that Mandarin language is due to
"their" effort...
Anyway, I just feel that a single language would be the best for
human being. Unifying our language is a step in right direction.
: >Also, not sure what you mean by Taiwanese... If you do not
Jacques Guy
>Whether you mean "for a human being" or "for mankind", I strongly
>disagree on both counts. I was fortunate enough to be raised
>multi-lingually, and I don't think I would have been better off
>with just a single language (even if it had been "unified Chinese").
>A world where only a single language were spoken would be very
>dull indeed (and would force me to learn Klingon :-), and the only
>redeeming feature of it would be to put an end to the myth that
>"if we all spoke a single language, all would be peace and
>understanding".
... as in Northern Ireland, the former Yugoslavia, and in France,
on the night of Saint Barthelemy, where and when they all spoke
the same language!
Solomon Taibi
: > >redeeming feature of it would be to put an end to the myth that
: > >"if we all spoke a single language, all would be peace and
: > >understanding".
: Can anyone give references to the existence of such a myth as
: distinct from the related myth (found in the Bible among other
: places) that without a common language peace and understanding
: are impossible?
The Bible only says that there was once a common language,
not that the same is necessary or sufficient for peace
and understanding. Quite bitterly the contrary, in fact.
--
Solomon Taibi
tai...@zodiac.cs.newpaltz.edu
State University of New York College at New Paltz
New Paltz, New York 12561, United States of America