Mandarin Phonetic Symbols II


Mandarin Phonetic Symbols II is a romanization system formerly used in Taiwan. It was created to replace the complex Gwoyeu Romatzyh system, which used tonal spelling—and to co-exist with the Wade–Giles romanization as well as bopomofo. It is sometimes referred to as Gwoyeu Romatzyh 2 or GR2.

History

Based on the earlier and more complex Gwoyeu Romatzyh, the tentative version of MPS II was released on May 10, 1984, by the Ministry of Education under the Chiang Ching-kuo administration. After two years of feedback from the general public, the official version was established on January 28, 1986. To distinguish bopomofo from MPS II, the former is officially called "Mandarin Phonetic Symbols I".
Despite its official status for almost two decades until it was replaced by Tongyong Pinyin in 2002, MPS II existed only in some governmental publications. However, MPS II was not used for the official romanized names of Taiwanese places, though many road signs replaced during this period use it. It never gained the same status as did Wade–Giles. It is virtually unused overseas.

Features

  • Indication of tone by respelling, as used in Gwoyeu Romatzyh, is eliminated. Syllables are spelled like its tone one for non-nasal initials, and like tone two for nasal initials. Tone is then marked with four diacritics identical to Zhuyin's.
  • The romanization of the consonants is identical to Gwoyeu Romatzyh's.
  • The empty rime is treated in the same way as Yale romanization:
  • * It uses r for both:
  • ** ㄖ, and
  • ** what is written in pinyin as i after zh, ch, sh, r.
  • * It uses z for both:
  • ** ㄗ, and
  • ** what is written in pinyin as i after z, c, s.
  • ** The z is not written after tz, however. Tz corresponds to Pinyin zi.
  • Like GR, -iou, -uen, and -uei are all written out, unlike the Pinyin/Wade -iu, -un, and -ui.
  • GR's au persists, as opposed to the ao of Pinyin, Wade-Giles, and the later Tongyong Pinyin.
  • GR's iu is written as -iu and yu.
  • GR's -ong is spelled now -ung.
  • GR's el is spelled now er.Y- and w- are added to or replace i and u, similarly to Gwoyeu Romatzyh and identical to Pinyin.
An example phrase, "The second type of Chinese phonetic symbols":
Spaces are generally used in place of hyphens, except in personal names, which use hyphens in between the syllables of the given names.