XIN TANG (New China) - Pinyin.info

5 XIN TANG: NEW CIUNAApplied Linguistics was formed (1984). The relationshipof these two organizations is like that betweenthe National Language Council and the ResearchInstitute of National Language in Japan.The following are a few points about recentdevelopments in the research and promotion ofChinese Romanization since 1911.I. PINYIN ORTHOGRAPHY IN THE MAKINGEvery alphabetic writing has to go through its journeyof orthographic development. The joumey of Pinyin orthographyhas just begun.National Romanization tried -connected writing of wordgroups- (cilei IilDshu) in the 1920s. Latini zed New Writing(Ladjnghua Kjnwenzj) experimented with ·connected writingof words- (ci"er liamae) in the 1930s. Pinyin as adopted in1958 is only a scheme of syllabic spelling. How to link thesyllables into words is a complex problem not mentionedin the scheme.In 1982 a working committee for Pinyin orthographywas formed and in 1984 a draft of -Sasic Rules of PinyinOrthography· was ready for tria1. In addition, rules forspelling personal and place names have been formulated,and an Atlas of Chinea ProYinces and Chinese Gazetteerare being published in Pinyin. (See articles in LanguageReform Joumal, including Zhou Youguang"s -The Nature ofPinyin Orthography- and -Intemal Contradictions of PinyinOrthography·J·How to write homophonic words in Pinyin requiresthorough study. Will the homophonic words be spelledphonetically (like English ·weU- in ·very well- and ·oilwell-) or etymologically (like English -no- and -know-)? Aworking group for studying homophonic words was formedin 1983.The Pinyin GlOSSary (Hanyu Pinyin Cihui. 1964) is under