The ancient history of Chinese Pinyin
There were no Pinyin letters in China, so the phonetic notation of Chinese characters was made by the method of direct pronunciation or reverse tangent. Direct pronunciation means that homophones are used to indicate the pronunciation of Chinese characters. If homophones are uncommon words, they can't be read even if they are pronounced. Backcutting means that two Chinese characters are used to annotate another Chinese character, and the upper word is the same as the initial consonant of the annotated word, and the lower word is the same as the vowel and tone of the annotated word. Mr. Zhou Youguang called backcutting "center cutting welding method". These two methods of phonetic notation are inconvenient to use.
On the basis of analyzing the initials, finals and tones of Chinese, Shouwen in Tang Dynasty formulated 36 letters to describe the pronunciation of Chinese characters, indicating that the phonetic analysis in China had reached a high level at that time. Unfortunately, he used Chinese characters to represent these initials and finals, so such letters did not develop into pinyin characters.
5 years ago, some Muslim minorities in China used the "Xiaojing" script, which is an Arabic script. Using Arabic letters to spell Chinese is a step further than using Chinese characters to express initials and finals in the Tang Dynasty. * * * has 36 characters, four of which are unique. This may be the earliest phonetic alphabet used to spell Chinese in China. It no longer bears the trace of Chinese characters, and completely uses phonetic letters. "Xiaojing" is also used by Dongxiang, Salar and other ethnic groups.
In the late Ming Dynasty, western missionaries came to China to preach. In order to learn Chinese characters, they began to spell Chinese with Latin letters. In 165, Matteo Ricci, 1552-161), an Italian Jesuit missionary, published "Miracle of Western Characters" in Beijing, including four articles in Chinese characters with Latin alphabet phonetic notation. This is the earliest publication to phonetic Chinese characters with Latin letters, which is a little later than the "Xiaojing", which is probably the earliest attempt to pinyin Chinese characters with alphabetic characters. It is not easy to find the original book "Miracle in Western Characters". It is said that there are still collections in the Vatican Library.
In p>1626, the French Jesuit missionary Jinnige published "Western Confucians' Eyes and Ears" in Hangzhou, which is a vocabulary for phonetic notation of Chinese characters with Latin letters. The scheme used in phonetic notation is modified on the basis of Matteo Ricci's scheme.
Matteo Ricci and Ginige's scheme is designed based on "Mandarin reading pronunciation", which is suitable for spelling Beijing pronunciation. This novel pinyin method gives great enlightenment to China scholars. Fang Yizhi, a phonologist at the end of Ming Dynasty, said: "There are also differences in words, that is, the connection between fate and borrowing ears. If things belong to one word, each word has its own meaning, as far west is a chorus because of things. Words formed by sounds are not important or * * *, especially? " Yang Xuanqi, a scholar in the Qing Dynasty, said: "Xinmao lived in the Weng family in the old Jinwu period, and his son was still in the chapter. He read the book" Western Confucianism's Eyes and Eyes "to show his surplus, and he did not finish reading it. He had an epiphany about cutting words, because it could be a certain method." However, in two or three hundred years, Matteo Ricci's and Jinnige's schemes were only used by foreign missionaries, but not widely spread among China people.
Between p>1815 and 1823, Ma Lixun, a British missionary who preached in Guangzhou, compiled a Chinese Dictionary, which was the earliest Chinese-English dictionary. In the dictionary, he used his own pinyin scheme to spell Chinese Cantonese dialect, which was actually a dialect that taught Roman characters. Then, in other dialect areas, different dialects were designed to teach Roman characters. Among them, the "phonetic characters" in Xiamen began to spread in 185, and in 1921 alone, 5, books were printed and sold. Until the founding of New China, about 1, people used this dialect to teach Roman characters. Dialects in other places teach Roman characters, which spread in the southern trading ports and are mainly used for missionary work.
in p>1867, wade, secretary of the British embassy, published a textbook of Beijing Mandarin pronunciation, A Collection of Languages from Yours. He designed a spelling method to spell names of people, places and things in China with Latin letters, which was called "wade style".
from p>1931 to 1932, two foreign missionaries put forward "spicy Chinese characters", which is a Chinese Latin alphabet based on Guang Yun. Almost all homophones have different spellings and are spelled in dialects.
These schemes of spelling Chinese characters with Latin letters provide experience for the future Chinese Pinyin movement.
The Modern History of Chinese Pinyin
China people's own Chinese Pinyin movement began with the movement of syncopating characters in the late Qing Dynasty.
After the Opium War, China was reduced to a semi-colonial and semi-feudal society. The enthusiasm for saving the nation from peril and rejuvenating China inspired some patriotic intellectuals to put forward the idea of saving the country through education. Liang Qichao, Shen Xue, Lu Yizhang and Wang Zhao all unanimously pointed out that the difficulty of Chinese characters was the reason why education could not be popularized. Therefore, a "phonetic movement" was launched.
Liang Qichao pointed out in the preface to Shen Shi's Notes, "Is the country evil or strong? People's wisdom is strong, but people's evil is wisdom? Do your best to study, and read, and the people are wise. " Shen Xuexue said: "The strength of European countries ... has the harmony of Rome. When people are easy to read, they are easy to understand, understand, analyze advantages and disadvantages, be United from top to bottom, and stress prosperity. " Lu Taizhang said: "To know Chinese by cutting the sound, ... the whole country can read and understand, so how can the country be poor?" What does the people do to fish? " Wang Zhao said, "Gentlemen, let's all be strong. Look at what China has become?" "The China government must pay attention to the lower education, and to get rid of the obstacles of lower education, it is necessary to make a written language of communication so that words and texts can be integrated."
Lu Taizhang (1854-1928) was the first person to create pinyin characters in China. In 1892, he published "The Initial Stage at a glance" in Xiamen, and published the "China's New Phonetic Characters" he created. He used Latin letters and their variants to spell Xiamen sounds, with the consonants on the right and the vowels on the left, with nasal symbols and tone symbols. After adding initials, he could also spell Quanzhou sounds and Chaozhou sounds. In his view, Chinese characters are "or the most difficult characters in the world today", while the new words with sound-cutting are "all words can be read by themselves without a teacher", thus "saving more than ten years of time and focusing on arithmetic, geography, chemistry, and all kinds of practical learning, why not make the country rich and strong!" Lu Taizhang did not ask for the abolition of Chinese characters, but advocated that "syncopated characters should be juxtaposed with Chinese characters". Later, he compiled the Textbook of China Alphabet Beijing Qieyin and the Book of China Alphabet Beijing Qieyin, and used Qieyin to spell Mandarin.
following Lu Taizhang's "the first step at a glance", a 2-year-long phonetic movement began. Almost every one or two years, there are new schemes for syncopating characters, such as Wu Jingheng's Bean Sprouts Fast Characters, Cai Xiyong's Phonetic Fast Characters, Shen Xue's Prosperous Vowels, Wang Bingyao's Pinyin Character Spectrum, Wang Zhao's Mandarin Synonyms, and Lao Naixuan's Newly Added Synonyms. Most of these phonetic alphabet schemes are phonetic-phonetic-double-spelling Chinese character stroke alphabet schemes, and most of them are only learned in a small area, but not widely implemented. Only Wang Zhao's Mandarin alphabet and Lao Naixuan's homophonic simplified characters are widely implemented.
Wang Zhao (1859-1933) took part in the Reform Movement of 1888, and fled to Japan after failing. Inspired by Japanese pseudonyms, he began to draw up Chinese phonetic alphabets, and returned to China secretly in 19, publishing "The Chorus Alphabet of Mandarin" under the pseudonym of "Poor Man in Luzhong", using Chinese strokes as the alphabet basis, spelling both sounds and rhymes, and advocating Beijing dialect as the standard mandarin. He said: "Beijing dialect is the most convenient to promote, so it is called Mandarin; Officials are public, and if they are public, they should choose those who account for a large number of people. " He did not advocate the abolition of Chinese characters. He said: "Those who study hard and have leisure time are still better off reading Chinese for ten years", and "Chinese proverbs go hand in hand and subsidize each other for more benefits". In 193, Wang Zhao set up an "official alphabet school" in Beijing. In order to obtain legal status, he surrendered himself to prison. After his release, he fully promoted his official alphabet. "In ten years, he persevered and spread it to thirteen provinces." His spirit is admirable.
Lao Naixuan (1842-1921) is a phonologist. He actively supported Wang Zhao's plan, supplemented dialect letters on the basis of mandarin letters, and drew up plans for visiting Nanjing, Suzhou, Fujian and Guangdong, collectively known as "combined sounds and simplified characters". The achievement of popularizing this kind of "combined sound and simplified characters" is very remarkable. "Once illiterate women can read books and newspapers, they can write letters, and if the blind can see them suddenly, their joy is almost indescribable."
The purpose of the creators of the phonetic alphabet is that although they don't want to use it to replace Chinese characters, they hope that phonetic alphabet can be used in parallel with Chinese characters. However, their wishes have not come true.
The phonetic alphabet schemes put forward in the phonetic alphabet movement are various and dazzling, which can be roughly summarized into three major systems:
① Kana system: imitating Japanese kana, using Chinese character radicals as phonetic symbols. In 1892, Lu Taizhang's book "At a glance" put forward "China's new phonetic characters" and Wang Zhao's "Mandarin chorus letters" in 191 all belong to pseudonyms.
② shorthand system: shorthand symbols are used as pinyin symbols. The schemes put forward in Cai Xiyong's Phonetic Fast Word, Shen Xue's Vowel in the Prosperous Age and Wang Bingyao's Pinyin Zi Pu, which were published in 1896-1897, all belong to the shorthand department.
③ Latin system: Latin letters are used as phonetic symbols. Zhu Wenxiong's Jiangsu New Alphabet in 196, Liu Mengyang's China Phonetic Alphabet in 198, Jiang Kanghu's Tongzi and Huang Xubai's Latin Hypothesis in 199 all belong to Latin school.
In February, 1913, a unified pronunciation meeting was held in Beijing. The main task of the meeting was to "examine and approve the national pronunciation of all words" and "select the alphabet". The meeting lasted for more than three months. At this meeting, the pronunciations of 6,5 Chinese characters were examined and approved, and the "standard national pronunciation" was determined by the voting method of provincial representatives; A set of phonetic alphabet with 39 characters * * * has been drawn up. This set of alphabet adopts Chinese character strokes, the letters are selected from ancient Chinese characters, and syllables adopt the triple spelling system of initials, finals and tones. The reverse spelling method of double spelling has been improved, and its purpose is only to mark the pronunciation of Chinese characters, not to be used as pinyin characters. This set of phonetic alphabet was later reduced to 37 (12 initials, 13 finals and 3 medians), which is almost half of the letters in the scheme of double spelling and phonetic transcription.
The meeting had a heated debate on the function and position of phonetic alphabet, and finally decided that the function of phonetic alphabet is to phonetic Chinese characters, and it cannot be used in parallel with Chinese characters. Li jinxi clearly pointed out that the function of phonetic alphabet is to "serve Chinese characters and lean against them".
after the phonetic alphabet was passed, it was shelved for five years before it was officially published by the Ministry of Education of Beiyang Government in 1918. In 192, "Mandarin workshops" and "Summer Mandarin workshops" were set up all over the country to promote phonetic alphabet. Classical Chinese classes in primary schools all over the country were changed to vernacular Chinese classes, and primary school textbooks all used phonetic alphabet to annotate new words of Chinese characters. Beijing has also set up a phonetic alphabet book and newspaper office to print popular books on phonetic alphabets, and also run a phonetic alphabet newspaper. From 192 to 1958, phonetic alphabet was used in China for nearly 4 years. This has played a great role in unifying the pronunciation of Chinese characters, popularizing Mandarin and popularizing pinyin knowledge. In 193, some senior officials thought that the name of "phonetic alphabet" was not good and changed it to "phonetic symbol" to emphasize that it was not a parallel character with Chinese characters.
Zhou Enlai spoke highly of the function of phonetic alphabet in The Task of Current Character Reform. He said: "The phonetic alphabet came into being after the Revolution of 1911, which is the first set of phonetic alphabet officially published by the state in China and widely implemented in primary and secondary schools. Phonetic letters have made some contributions to literacy education and pronunciation unification. Although today, there are still many shortcomings in phonetic alphabet (for example, phonetic alphabet is obviously far less than Latin alphabet as the foundation of ethnic minorities and a tool to promote international cultural exchanges), we should affirm its achievements in history. For the phonetic alphabet movement in the past forty years, phonetic alphabet has also played a pioneering role. "
after the may 4th movement, in 1918, Qian Xuantong published the article "China's future writing problems" in the four volumes and four issues of New Youth, and put forward the idea of "abolishing Confucianism" and "abolishing Chinese characters". He said: "If you want to abolish Confucius, you must first abolish Chinese; If you want to drive away the childish, barbaric and stubborn thoughts of ordinary people, you must first abolish Chinese "; He even said: "If China is to survive and China is to be a civilized nation in the 2th century, the fundamental solution must be to abolish Confucianism and destroy Taoism;" The abolition of the Chinese language that records Confucius' theory and Taoist myths is especially the fundamental solution. " He put forward: "After the abolition of Chinese", "When the artificial words Esperanto (Esperanto) with concise grammar, neat pronunciation and excellent roots are adopted".
This is obviously a very radical statement, and it is academically wrong to confuse Chinese with Chinese characters and confuse the difference between language and writing, so it has been criticized by Chen Duxiu. Chen Duxiu pointed out that language and writing "are closely related, but different in nature" must not be confused, so it is "only abolishing China writing?" It is worth studying to suppress and abolish the language of China, so he put forward the idea of "abolishing Chinese first, and saving Chinese and using Roman script instead".
This opinion has been supported by people in New Youth. Qian Xuantong also accepted Chen Duxiu's opinion, advocated the Romanization of Mandarin together and started the Romanization Movement of Mandarin. In 1923, Mandarin Monthly published the Special Issue of Chinese Character Reform, and the call for adopting Roman characters reached a climax, and the Romanization Movement of Mandarin entered a new stage. Qian Xuantong published a paper on "Chinese Character Revolution", denying Chinese characters, saying that "everywhere is enough to prove that this is the anachronism of the old birthday girl, and she can't get used to the new life in the era of scientific prosperity in the twentieth century", "So it is absolutely possible to change to Pinyin in the Chinese character revolution", and "Only by saying loudly and brightly that Chinese characters should be revolutionized! In this way, the cause of Chinese character reform has hope of success. " He is not satisfied with phonetic alphabet, and thinks that "the fundamental reform of Chinese characters" should adopt Roman alphabet.
li jinxi published "A Road for Chinese Revolutionary Army to Advance", and put forward the problem of "linking words with books", and made a systematic study on this important issue. Zhao Yuanren published "A Study of Romance in Mandarin", and put forward a "Draft of Romance in Mandarin", which uses the Latin letters that are commonly used in the world, and uses letters to indicate the tone of syllables, without creating new letters or adding new symbols, and puts forward systematic rules for word linking.
In August, 1923, the Ministry of Education held a preparatory meeting for the unification of Mandarin, and decided to organize the "Research Committee on Romanization of Mandarin".
In September, 1925, some committee members and some linguists in Beijing organized a "meeting of several people" automatically, and put forward "French Pinyin of Roman Characters in Mandarin".
In September, 1928, Cai Yuanpei, president of the University, officially published the French Phonetic Alphabet of Chinese Romance as the "second style of Mandarin Phonetic Alphabet", which was used to phonetic Chinese characters and unify the national language, "comparing with phonetic alphabet, so as to help promote the national pronunciation". In the Romance Movement of Mandarin, some reading materials were published, such as A Reading Book of Mandarin Phonograms.
In p>1932, the Ministry of Education published a Glossary of Common Chinese Phonetic Words, which was compared with phonetic alphabet and Mandarin Roman characters. However, the romanization of the national language has never left the circle of the intellectual class and has not been widely implemented in society.