Portal:China/Selected article/2007/May

The four tones of guo as written in characters and Gwoyeu Romatzyh. Note the spelling differences, highlighted in red, for each tone.

Gwoyeu Romatzyh (literally "National [Language] Romanization"), abbreviated GR, is a system for writing Mandarin Chinese in the Latin alphabet. The system was conceived by Y.R. Chao and developed by a group of linguists including Chao and Lin Yutang from 1925 to 1926. Chao himself later published influential works in linguistics using GR. In addition a small number of other textbooks and dictionaries in GR were published in Hong Kong and overseas from 1942 to 2000.

GR is unique among romanization systems in indicating the four tones of Mandarin by varying the spelling of syllables ("tonal spelling"). These tones are a fundamental part of the Chinese language: they are considered to be a component of the word just as different vowel sounds are recognized as different in English, and determine the meanings of otherwise identical syllables. Other systems indicate the tones with either accents (for example Pinyin: āi, ái, ǎi and ài) or numbers (Wade–Giles: ai¹, ai², etc.). GR spells the same four tones ai, air, ae and ay. These spellings, which follow specific rules, indicate the tones while retaining the pronunciation of the syllable ai. Because it embeds the tone of each syllable in its spelling, GR may help students to master Chinese tones—though some academics dispute this claim. (More...)