page_title: Gwoyeu Romatzyh
section_title: History
hierarchical_section_title: Gwoyeu Romatzyh / History
caption_attribution_description: English: Lin Yutang 中文: 林语堂Lin Yutang
context_page_description: 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. These tones are as fundamental to the Chinese language as vowels are to English; their presence lets speakers discriminate between otherwise identical syllables and words. Other systems indicate the tones with either diacritics or numbers. 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.
context_section_description: Tonal spelling, Gwoyeu Romatzyh's most distinctive feature, was first suggested to Y.R. Chao by Lin Yutang. By 1922 Chao had already established the main principles of GR.
  The details of the system were developed in 1925–1926 by a group of five linguists, led by Chao and including Lin, under the auspices of the Preparatory Commission for the Unification of the National Language. In 1928 GR was officially adopted by the government. GR was intended to be used alongside the existing Juhin (Zhùyīn) phonetic symbols: hence the alternative name for GR, "Second Pattern of the National Alphabet." Both systems were used to indicate the revised standard of pronunciation in the new official Vocabulary of National Pronunciation for Everyday Use of 1932. The designers of GR had greater ambitions: their aim was complete reform of the script, using GR as a practical system of writing.
  In the 1930s two short-lived attempts were made to teach GR to railway workers and peasants in Hénán and Shāndōng provinces. Support for GR, being confined to a small number of trained linguists and Sinologists, "was distinguished more for its quality than its quantity." During this period GR faced increasing hostility because of the complexity of its tonal spelling. Conversely, Sinologist Bernhard Karlgren criticised GR for its lack of phonetic rigour. Ultimately, like the rival (toneless) system Latinxua Sinwenz, GR failed to gain widespread support, principally because the "National" language was too narrowly based on Beijing speech: "a sufficiently precise and strong language norm had not yet become a reality in China".
  A vestigial use of GR can be seen in the official spelling of the first syllable of Shaanxi for Shǎnxī (陝西) province, to distinguish it from Shānxī (山西) province, particularly in foreign-language text where the tone marks are often omitted. Some prominent Chinese have used GR to transliterate their names: for example the mathematician Shiing-Shen Chern. The romanization system was changed by the government of the People's Republic of China in 1958 to the current system used now in the country, and other foreign and international institutions, like the United Nations, the Library of Congress, the International Organization for Standardization, and is widely used to teach Mandarin Chinese to foreign students: Hanyu Pinyin. Meanwhile, in the Republic of China (Taiwan), GR survived until the 1970s as a pronunciation aid in monolingual dictionaries such as Gwoyeu Tsyrdean [Guóyǔ Cídiǎn] and Tsyrhuey [Cíhuì], but was officially replaced in 1986 by a modified form known as Mandarin Phonetic Symbols II. The Warring States period State of Wey (Chinese: 衛) is often spelled as such to distinguish it from the more prominent state Chinese: 魏, which are both pronounced Wèi in Mandarin, but in Old Chinese it was probably /*ɢʷat-s/ and /*N-qʰuj-s/, respectively.
caption: Lin Yutang, who first proposed tonal spelling
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