A while ago, there was a Chinese mobile game player who spent three hours cracking the "elven language" in the game , and got a lot of praise from Chinese netizens. When it was sent back to Taiwan, everyone was dumbfounded. Isn't this just phonetic symbols? What is there to crack! Hey, this makes us wonder why "Zhuyin symbols" are only used by Taiwanese? Today, let us talk about "ㄅㄆㄇㄈ" together! hiho~ Hello everyone, I am Zhiqi! Do you usually use Zhuyinwen? Phonetic symbols, this thing that Taiwanese children know can not only be used to mark pronunciation and typing , but also can be used to pretend to be cute and coquettish on the Internet, pretending to be a second-hand kid to provoke war. Basically, it is already a must-have skill for Taiwanese , but you know what? , in fact, phonetic symbols are also a very modern invention , and for a long time, some people like them and some people don’t like them. Even in 2018, Taiwan even called for the abolition of phonetic symbols and the use of "Roman Pinyin" in line with international standards. Hey, why is Taiwan the only one in the world? Use "Zhuyin symbols"? Where did the phonetic symbols come from? And why would anyone want to abolish phonetic symbols? Let us discuss it together today! But before we start the discussion, as usual, let’s start with a period of commercial service . As a creator, running a channel will encounter various challenges . Especially in the past few years, there are more and more competitors with the same theme. Difficult to grow We hold the creators' annual conference FEAT.CON just to help creators break through the predicament , Cheap, and Dcard will share their unique growth strategies at the annual meeting. After all , they have experienced your problem . In addition, the official representatives of YouTube and PressPlay will also cut into the platform and market trends to help you find more potential Growth direction The annual meeting will be held on March 15th , and now the early bird tickets are on sale. Enter the discount code to get another 100% off! Click the link in the information bar to sign up now to find your direction to accelerate subscription! [The predecessor of phonetic symbols? 】 To answer the question "How did the phonetic symbols come from?" We must first understand how the ancients marked the pronunciation Now it may be difficult for us to imagine how to mark a word on a book in ancient times without recording equipment . In fact, it is very difficult. A common method is to use words to describe the length, speed , or position of the tongue, how big the mouth should be opened, etc. It's abstract , so there are so-called "reading methods" and "straight phonetic methods" , which are to find words with similar or identical pronunciations . For example, you can't pronounce the word "Qi" in "Zhiqi". It will be marked in the book that the pronunciation of Qi is the same as the "qi" in chess. Although this method seems intuitive and simple, it still has some problems. For example, if you can't even pronounce the word "qi" in chess, Ah, what should I do? This will lead to endless investigations. Therefore, during the Wei, Jin, Southern and Northern Dynasties, a more systematic " Fan Qie Method" began to be popular. It is "Dejiuqie", which uses the initial consonant of "De" and the final consonant and tone of "Jiu" (ㄐㄧㄡ) to spell the word "Dou" . The Fanqie method was widely spread later, and even some Hong Kong and Macau Regional dictionaries also use Fanqie to mark the pronunciation . There are even Chinese students who use the internal reference of "Guanqie" to express emotions "elegantly". Now that there is Fanqie method, why do we need phonetic symbols later? The answer you may not think of is to save the country! [“Mandarin” for saving the country? ! ] Although the methods we mentioned earlier have some problems, they are actually quite usable! Because there was no unified "Chinese" in ancient times, although they had a common "Mandarin" , but the Mandarin did not strictly fix each pronunciation like we do now, so everyone's requirements for "correct pronunciation" are not so much Strict, basically as long as you can understand it , but this thing that was not a problem suddenly became very important at the end of the Qing Dynasty. Because of the constant internal and external troubles in the late Qing Dynasty , many patriotic intellectuals put forward self-criticism. Some people think that , One of the reasons why China's national power is so weak is that "there is no unified national language" which causes communication barriers in various places, and education cannot be popularized. Therefore , they believe that if a unified national language can be formulated so that all people can read and receive education, China The national strength of the country has the opportunity to become stronger! But how to unify the national language? This has led to the emergence of many different schemes [The phonetic symbols are born! 】 At that time, one of the proposals was called "Latin system", which meant that Chinese characters should be abolished directly, and the Roman alphabet should be used like Europe and the United States to write in pinyin. This sounds a bit crazy. Waiting for important figures But the claim of "Latin system" is tantamount to reinventing a new text and language , so they were criticized for completely cutting off the Chinese cultural tradition. Therefore, there is another "Kana system", which advocates imitating the practice of Japanese kana, borrowing The radicals of Chinese characters are used to create symbols to help Chinese characters to be phonetic, so that the essence of Chinese characters can be preserved, and it can also meet the needs of "unifying the national language". The results of one "new text" and 22 "rhyme texts" were published in 1908 and became the predecessor of "phonetic symbols" [Unified Mandarin! ] The Qing Dynasty collapsed in 1911, but the movement to unify the national language did not stop. The newly established government of the Republic of China convened representatives from various provinces and language scholars in 1913 (the 2nd year of the Republic of China) to hold a "pronunciation unification conference" . At this meeting, they used "Beijing dialect" combined with northern and southern dialects. The standard pronunciation of more than 6,500 characters is determined by voting. Hey, the "Mandarin pronunciation" is determined by voting. It feels super democratic, right? But here comes the problem, the mandarin voted out is a hodgepodge , no one can speak Beijing or Beijing, dialect or dialect! So later the Ministry of Education held many meetings one after another, and finally decided to use the Beijing dialect as the model , and then make adjustments based on Zhang Taiyan's phonetic transcription system, and finally set the "Mandarin" and "Phonetic Symbols" that we still use today. In 1949, "Zhuyin symbols" came to Taiwan following the retreat of the Kuomintang government , but the People's Republic of China, which was established at the same time , decided to invent its own phonetic notation system [Why is only Taiwan using Zhuyin? 】 After the government of the People's Republic of China took power, in addition to inventing "simplified characters" , it also decided to use the Roman alphabet to formulate "Hanyu Pinyin" . Why go the extra mile and switch to the Roman alphabet? According to Wu Yuzhang, the director of the "Chinese Text Reform Commission" at the time, they believed that "phonetic symbols" were not conducive to promotion because they had few other uses. On the contrary, the Roman alphabet is a system commonly used in the world, so whether it is a Chinese or a foreigner, it must be It is more convenient to learn Mandarin, and it is easier to help China integrate with the world . This statement sounds reasonable, but some people criticize that this is not entirely accurate. Like Japanese and Korean, they are not using Roman Pinyin, and they may not be able to communicate and learn. There is a big problem, the degree of internationalization is relatively low, right? Therefore, some people believe that the reason why the CCP invented "Simplified Chinese Characters" and "Hanyu Pinyin" is not only for the purpose of promoting education, but also has a political meaning behind it to fight against the Republic of China . After the rise of the Republic , their simplified characters and pinyin symbols have also become the mainstream in the world . For example, most foreign media translations now use "Hanyu Pinyin"; while Singapore and Malaysia, which have a relatively large Chinese population, also gave up using it in the 1970s Zhuyin symbols and traditional characters were changed to "Hanyu Pinyin" in schools . Therefore, it can be said that Taiwan is the only one left in the world that uses phonetic symbols! Because of this, some people ask: Why doesn't Taiwan follow in the footsteps of the world and switch to Roman Pinyin? [Taiwan also uses pinyin? 】 In fact, Taiwan does use Roman Pinyin! However, Roman Pinyin is not the only Chinese "Hanyu Pinyin". There are also different pinyin methods such as "Watoma Pinyin", "Zhuyin Second Form" and "General Pinyin". In early Taiwan, there were no regulations, and the translation of place names was usually It is good to translate according to the habits of various places. Some do not even use Chinese, and directly use Taiwanese or other native language pronunciation to translate. In 2008, in order to unify the translation, the Ma Ying-jeou government stipulated in the official "Principles for the Use of Chinese Transliteration" that the most widely used "Chinese Pinyin" was used in the world. At that time, it also caused a wave of discussions about "being united." The "Principles for the Use of Transliteration" is not mandatory , so although some places still follow up with the use of Hanyu Pinyin , counties and cities such as Tainan and Kaohsiung continue to use the original "General Pinyin" for translation . Except for the translation of place names, in 2018 Ye Yijin, a legislator from the Democratic Progressive Party, also put forward the political opinion of "abolishing the phonetic symbols". She believed that the phonetic symbols are useless and should learn Roman pinyin well to help children integrate with international standards. This political opinion aroused considerable discussion at the time. [Zhiyin symbols are useless? 】 Should phonetic symbols be abolished? The objection is that Zhuyin is the standard of Chinese characters, which is more suitable for straight reading. Furthermore , even though they are all in Roman letters, the spelling and spelling rules are different in different language families . After switching to Roman alphabet, it is easier for foreigners to learn Chinese. If you mispronounce due to the influence of your mother tongue , it is better to use the phonetic symbols that are closest to Chinese pronunciation . The supporting opinion is that using pinyin can lower the threshold for foreigners to learn Chinese and refer to Chinese in China, Singapore, Malaysia, etc. The learning obstacles caused by pinyin are actually problems that can be overcome. In addition to these more linguistic views , many people are more concerned about the issue of cross-strait relations. According to the poll conducted by the United Daily News at the time , most of the people who supported the abolition of phonetic symbols People who oppose the abolition of Hanyu Pinyin are worried that the use of Hanyu Pinyin will make Taiwan more and more like China . So it is interesting that a hundred years after the invention of the phonetic notation, it has slowly become a kind of The symbol of "Taiwanese identity" is not only used to mark phonetics, but also gradually derived the unique "Zhuyinwen" of Taiwanese , which is to mix Zhuyin and Chinese characters, and even use Zhuyin "decapitated" only as the phonetic symbols themselves. For example, use ㄅㄅ instead of Baibai, etc. Of course , some people think that the phonetic text reminds people of "childish", "ignorant", and "baby" images , and it makes reading more troublesome . So many online discussion forums and BBS in the early days It is expressly forbidden to use phonetic script , but in recent years, more and more Taiwanese have begun to use phonetic script on purpose, because whether it is to ridicule or provoke a war, or pretend to be cute and coquettish , phonetic script is more emotional than simply using Chinese characters. Although some people like phonetic script, some don’t. , but the emergence of phonetic symbols actually makes "phonetic symbols", a product of a hundred years ago , more and more infiltrated in the daily life of Taiwanese [our point of view] the phonetic symbols we talked about today seem to be things that a child can know, nothing It’s great , but in fact, if you study it in depth, you will find that there are many complicated issues behind it . We have seen many scholars mention that because there is no “perfect standard” in language , it is just a conventional thing , so use pinyin It’s still Zhuyin, or even simplified or traditional. In many cases, it’s not just because which one is easier to use , but it depends on which side you want to "identify". Just like the reason why the phonetic symbols were able to defeat the "Latin system" in the first place was partly because it retained The characteristics of Chinese culture can help people at that time resist the invasion of Western culture, but this kind of meaning will also change over time Phonetic writing" even forms a kind of "Taiwanese characteristics" to distinguish it from "China" which uses pinyin. Therefore, from the change in the use of language and characters , we can actually see a lot of pulls on identity and power. Extend to see Taiwan, aborigines, and even Taiwan. The same is true for the language of the new residents. There are many issues worth thinking about behind the scenes. But today, due to time constraints, we can only touch on a little superficial. If you have more professional insights, it is also very helpful. Welcome to leave a message with everyone to add ~ Finally, I want to come and ask everyone. Finally , if you like today's video, please share it to let more people know the story of "Zhuyin Symbol"! In addition, you can also click here to see the discussion of "Chinese Language" and "Chinese Class"; then, today's Zhiqi Qiqi will come to an end here, and we will see you tomorrow night!
