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The goal of Pinyin was to be a pronunciation guide for Chinese people who have no preconceived ideas about what letters make what sounds. It works great for tha
by geowwy 8y ago
The goal of Pinyin was to be a pronunciation guide for Chinese people who have no preconceived ideas about what letters make what sounds. It works great for that. The problem is when foreigners try to pronounce Pinyin using their existing knowledge of the Latin alphabet. Inevitably they end up pronouncing "Xiaomi" as "Jow-me", etc!
- Zarel 8y agoI think this isn't giving Pinyin enough credit. The biggest problem with English pronunciation, and the biggest reason everyone says English spelling is a mess, is the Great Vowel Shift: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Vowel_Shift https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Vowel_Shift So when you're writing a sound in the Latin alphabet, you have two choices: - spell it like English (the only language with spelling so confusing, spelling bees are a thing) - or spell it like every other language (relatively consistent) Pinyin... chose to be consistent, like every other language. A lot of the other weirdness is based on other languages, too: for instance, "x" is pronounced "sh" is Portuguese as well.
- geowwy 8y agoI'm not saying saying use English vowels or anything like that, I just mean they could have used the letters in more standard ways like MPSII does.
- ajmurmann 8y agoBy what "standard". Many pinyin pronunciations are close to standard for many European languages expect English. On top of that Mandarin has multiple similar sounds (in pinyin presented as "x", "sh", "j" and "q") that would force you to get a little more creative.