Pinyin

Category: Languages

From Buddhist Encyclopedia

Pinyin is a system of romanization, where Chinese can be written according to roman phonemic notation. Pin means spell and yin means sound, so Pinyin is a way of how to spell or read the Chinese words from its sound.

The Hanyu Pinyin system is used by the Buddhist Encyclopedia to render Chinese words or characters into a better user-friendly format.

Pinyin Table

This pinyin table is a complete listing of all Pinyin syllables. Each syllable in a cell is composed of an Initial (columns) and a Final (rows). An empty cell indicates that the corresponding syllable does not exist the Chinese Language. With minor differences, many syllables are pronounced similarly to the English pronunciation.

Final are grouped into subsets a, i, u and ü.

i, u and ü groupings indicate a combination of those finals with finals from Group a. For example:

• Group i: i+ao=iao, i+ê=ie, i+ou=iu
• Group u: u+ai=ui, u+ing=ong
• Group ü: ü+ê=ue, ü+ing=iong

Most syllables are a combination of an initial and a final. However, some syllables have no initials. This is shown in Pinyin as follows:

• if the final begins with an i, it is replaced with a y
• if the final begins with an u, it is replaced with a w
• if the final begins with an ü, it is replaced with yu
• exceptions to the rules above are indicated by yellow in the table's no initial column:

Note that the y, w, and yu replacements above do not change the pronunciation of the final in the final-only syllable. They are used to avoid ambiguity when writing words in pinyin. For example, instead of:

• "uen" and "ian" forming "uenian", which could be interpreted as:
  • "uen-ian"
  • "uen-i-an" or
  • "u-en-i-an"
• the syllables are written "wen" and "yan" which results in the more distinct "wenyan"

Colour Legend:

"regular" initial or final Final is in Group a or is a direct combination of: i+Group a final u+Group a final ü+Group a final
Final of i, u, ü groups is a modified combination of: i+Group a final u+Group a final ü+Group a final
syllable is direct combination of initial and final (or follows rules for no-initial syllables outlined at the top of the page)
syllable is modified combination of initial and final

Modified i, u, and ü group finals:

The following finals in the i, u, and ü groups are a modified combination of i, u or ü with a group a final:

• ie=i+ê
• iu=i+ou
• in=i+en
• ing=i+eng
• ui=u+ei
• un=u+en
• ong=u+eng
• ue=ü+ê
• ün=ü+en
• iong=ü+eng

A few additional syllables are formed in pinyin by combining an initial-final combination from the table above with an additional er-final. Rather than two distinct syllables, the last "er" is contracted with the first combination, and therefore represented as one syllable (analogous to "they're" instead of "they are", and "isn't" instead of "is not" in English)

Tones

Relative pitch changes of the four tones

The pinyin system also incorporates marks to represent the five tones. Each tone is indicated by a diacritical mark above a non-medial vowel.

1. The first tone (Flat or High Level Tone) is represented by a macron ˉ added to the pinyin vowel:

   
   ā ē ī ō ū ǖ

2. The second tone (Rising or High-Rising Tone) is denoted by an acute accent ˊ :

   
   á é í ó ú ǘ

3. The third tone (Falling-Rising or Low Tone) is symbolized by a caron ˇ :

   
   ǎ ě ǐ ǒ ǔ ǚ

4. The fourth tone (Falling or High-Falling Tone) is represented by a grave accent ˋ :

   
   à è ì ò ù ǜ

5. The fifth or neutral tone (Neutral Tone) is represented by a normal vowel without any accent mark :

   
   a e i o u ü

Examples

Rules for placing the tone mark

The rules for determining on which vowel the tone mark appears are as follows:

1. If there is more than one vowel and the first vowel is i, u, or ü, then the tone mark appears on the second vowel.
2. In all other cases, the tone mark appears on the first vowel.

(y and w are not considered vowels for these rules.)

Another algorithm for determining the vowel on which the tone mark appears is as follows:

1. First, look for an "a" or an "e". If either vowel appears, it takes the tone mark. There are no possible pinyin syllables that contain both an "a" and an "e".
2. If there is no "a" or "e", look for an "ou". If "ou" appears, then the "o" takes the tone mark.
3. If none of the above cases hold, then the last vowel in the syllable takes the tone mark.

See Chinese