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Concept
Gwoyeu Romatzyh
Summary
Gwoyeu Romatzyh (), abbreviated GR, is a system for writing Mandarin Chinese in the Latin alphabet. The system was conceived by Yuen Ren 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 the better known of the two romanization systems which indicate the four tones of Mandarin by varying the spelling of syllables ("tonal spelling"). These tones are fundamental to the Chinese language; their presence lets speakers discriminate between otherwise identical syllables and words. Other systems indicate the tones with either diacritics (for example Pinyin: āi, ái, ǎi and ài) or numbers (Wade–Giles: ai1, ai2, etc.). GR spells the four tones of the same vowel, ai, air, ae and ay. These spellings, which follow specific rules, indicate the tones while retaining the pronunciation of the syllable ai.
Chao claimed that, because GR embeds the tone of each syllable in its spelling, it may help students to master Chinese tones. One study of GR, however, comparing students' ability to dictate a romanized text in GR versus pinyin, found that the use of GR resulted in slightly lower accuracy in tonal production. GR uses a complicated system of tonal spelling that obscures the basic relationship between spelling and tone; for example, the difference between tones 1 and 2 is variously indicated as mha vs. ma, ching vs. chyng, chang vs. charng, etc. Although tonal spelling has been adopted as part of the normal romanization of a number of Asian languages (e.g. Hmong and Zhuang), all such systems indicate different tones in a simple and consistent fashion by adding letters to the end of a syllable (e.g. in Hmong, -b indicates high tone, -s indicates low tone, -j indicates high-falling tone, etc.).
In September 1928, China adopted GR as the nation's official romanization system.
Official source
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