ABSTRACT
The Chinese Phonetic Alphabet Hànyǔ Pīnyīn 汉语拼音, sometimes abbreviated Pinyin, is China’s official system for spelling Mandarin Chinese in Roman letters. It was promulgated in 1958. By convention, practically all Chinese dictionaries compiled since then feature it, often as an appendix under the heading Hànyǔ Pīnyīn Fāng’àn 汉语拼音方案 ‘Chinese phonetic alphabet scheme’. Pinyin is what Western tourists see written on street signs below the Chinese script street names (Figure 28.1). In elementary schools in China, Pinyin is used as a pedagogical tool to teach students to read Chinese script (Table 28.1, based on Xiaoxue Yuwen Jiaocai 1987, vol. 2: 113). All publications such as books, film credits, digital media, etc., coming out of China use the Pinyin system for Romanization of Chinese characters.
