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Pe?h-oe-ji
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Pe?h-oe-ji (POJ) is an orthography in the Latin alphabet created and introduced to Fujian and Taiwan by Presbyterian missionaries in the 19th century. POJ is a popular orthography for the Taiwanese language or Hokkien in general. A version called Pha?k-fa-s? exists for Hakka and is particularly well-suited for the Siyen dialect; the counterpart for Min Dong is Bàng-uâ-cê. The counterpart for Teochew is Pêh-ue-ji.
a b ch chh e g h i j k kh l m n ng o o? p ph s t th (ts) u
Twenty-four in all, including the obsolete ts, which was used to represent the modern ch at some places.
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Encyclopedia
Pe?h-oe-ji (POJ) is an orthography in the Latin alphabet created and introduced to Fujian and Taiwan by Presbyterian missionaries in the 19th century. POJ is a popular orthography for the Taiwanese language or Hokkien in general. A version called Pha?k-fa-s? exists for Hakka and is particularly well-suited for the Siyen dialect; the counterpart for Min Dong is Bàng-uâ-cê. The counterpart for Teochew is Pêh-ue-ji.
Examples
Current system
In POJ, the traditional list of letters is
- a b ch chh e g h i j k kh l m n ng o o? p ph s t th (ts) u
Twenty-four in all, including the obsolete ts, which was used to represent the modern ch at some places. The additional necessities are the nasal symbol n (superscript n; the rare capital form N is used for ALL CAPS text, such as book titles or section headings), and the tonal diacritics. Note, O? is not well-supported by fonts and is often typed as either o· (using the interpunct) or ou.
Pe?h-oe-ji in its present form has 17 initials, 18 finals and 7 tones.
Initials
b, ch, chh, g, h, j, k, kh, l, m, n, ng, p, ph, s, t, th
Note that unlike their typical interpretation in modern English language, b and g are voiced and unaspirated, whereas p, k, and t are plain unvoiced. ph, kh, and th are unvoiced and aspirated, corresponding closer to p, k, and t in English. This choice of notation may be attributed to the European origin of the first scholars to promote romanization. It is consistent with the use of h's in the Legge romanization and the use of the diacritic ? in the International Phonetic Alphabet to signal consonantal aspiration.
Finals
- Vowels: a, i, u, e, o, ?
- Diphthongs: ai, au, ia, iu, io, ui, oa, oe
- Triphthongs: iau, oai
- Nasals: m, n, ng
The nasals m, n, and ng can be appended to any of the vowels and some of the diphthongs.
In addition, m and ng can function as independent syllables by themselves.
The stops h, k, p and t can appear as the last letter in a syllable, in which case they are pronounced as unreleased stops. (The final h in POJ stands for a glottal stop.)
Tones
Tones are expressed by diacritics; checked syllables (i.e. those ending with glottal stops) are followed by the letter h. Where diacritics are not technically available, e.g. on some parts of the internet, tone numbers may be used instead.
- a (yinping)
- á (shangsheng)
- à (yinqu)
- ah (yinru)
- â (yangping)
- a (yangqu)
- a?h (yangru)
Examples for the seven tones: chhiun ? (elephant), pà ? (leopard), bé ? (horse), ti ? (pig), chôa ? (snake), ah ? (duck), lo?k ? (deer)
Delimiting symbols
All syllables in each word are normally separated by a dash (-). Generally syllables followed by a dash must undergo tone sandhi.
The double dash
The double dash (two consecutive hyphens, "--") marks a special case of tone change, in that the syllable preceding the double dash maintains its original tone (that is, it does not undergo tone sandhi), but all the syllables following the double dash are changed into a low-falling tone (tone 3), or a low stop (tone 4, in the case of syllables ending with a stop).
Examples:
- kiân--kòe-lâi (kiân maintains the original tone 5, while both kòe and lâi are pronounced with tone 3)
- cháu--chhut-khì
The double dash is used to denote the extent of a verb action, the end of a noun phrase, among other functions.
For example, in the question "Chia?h-pá--be?", the question particle "be" is modified by the double dash.
In the clause "i cháu--chhut-khì" ("he ran out"), the double dash is used with the resultative construction chhut-khì.
Comparison chart
Origins of the name
According to Tiun Ha?k-khiam, the name Pe?h-oe-ji, which literally means "script for the spoken language", is used to discriminate it from the other major written forms of the Chinese language, namely Literary Chinese and Vernacular Chinese. Literary Chinese was used in poems and essays throughout Chinese history prior to the May 4 Movement. Since then, Vernacular Chinese, is now used widely in China and other places where Chinese migrants have settled. Both Vernacular Chinese and Pe?h-oe-ji corresponds to some form of spoken Chinese, the former being Mandarin, and the latter being Taiwanese.
Pe?h-oe-ji is also called the Church Romanization, but advocates of Pe?h-oe-ji do not support the use of this name. This is chiefly because it implies the system is used mainly in the context of the Church, while in fact Pe?h-oe-ji is often used in other contexts.
History
Pe?h-oe-ji, as a romanization system in Taiwan, was preceded by the script found in the Sinckan Manuscripts (which literally means "Language of the New Port"), which originated in the seventeenth century during when Taiwan was under Dutch influence/colonial rule. Sinckan scripts were used up till the nineteenth century. Pe?h-oe-ji, as a romanization system, can be applied not only to the aboriginal languages of Taiwan, but also to the Hoklo and Hakka languages.
In 1860, under the Treaties of Tianjin, foreign missionaries were allowed to preach in China. Catholic and Protestant missionaries flocked to Taiwan soon after. Churches, most prominently the Presbyterian Church, began advocating the use of Pe?h-oe-ji. In 1865, Dr James L. Maxwell (1836-1921) spearheaded the missionary movement, setting up a missionary base in Tainan.
Actually, before these missionaries went to Taiwan, they had already been in South-eastern China and in the migrant Chinese communities in South-east Asia for a long time, and had begun romanizing the Min-nan and Hakka languages. Many dictionaries have been published. One, Rev. William Campbell's A Dictionary of the Amoy Vernacular, spoken throughout the prefectures of Chin-chiu, Chiang-chiu and Formosa ??????, E-MN^G IM Ê JI-TIÁN), published 1913, is still in use today in Taiwan.
While Pe?h-oe-ji was originally a missionary tool for Christian missions, it also has the practical benefits of being easy to read, learn and write. According to Tiun Ha?k-khiam, Pe?h-oe-ji even helps the learning of Chinese characters.
Books in Pe?h-oe-ji
Due to its Christian origins, Christian works make up a significant proportion of all works in Pe?h-oe-ji. The first New Testament in Pe?h-oe-ji (Lán ê Kiù-chú Iâ-s? Ki-tok ê Sin-iok) was published in 1873. The Old Testament (Ku-iok ê Sèng-keng) was published later in 1884. The publication of these books was a driving force for the spread of the Church. The first of the Prefecture of Taiwan Church Newsletter, published 1885, was also written in Pe?h-oe-ji.
Apart from Christianity, works in such areas as Literature, Mathematics, Medicine have also been published in Pe?h-oe-ji. See Lai-goa-kho Khan-ho-hak.
Suppression under Japanese rule
The 1880s was the peak period of Pe?h-oe-ji's development, with ten thousands of users. An important contributing factor was that the Qing Dynasty government did not suppress its usage. So great was its growth was that at the end of Qing rule, usage of Pe?h-oe-ji was not limited to the Presbyterians only, but also attained much usage in the general population.
Nevertheless, as Taiwan became a Japanese colony, the use of Pe?h-oe-ji was suppressed in preference to katakana. In 1922, anti-Japanese movements led to the establishment of the Taiwanese Cultural Association. Following which, Chhoà Poê-hoé enthusiastically proposed to the association to designate promoting of Pe?h-oe-ji as one of its main tasks, which it took up in 1924. The associate decided to publish books in Pe?h-oe-ji. However, Chhoà met a setback when he went up to the Japanese colonial government to apply for a permit start study classes on Pe?h-oe-ji. Not only was the proposal rejected by the Japanese, but the Japanese police undertook violent measures to silence and ban it.
From then on the Japanese attitude toward the Taiwanese tongue became all too obvious. The Taiwan Church Newsletter (??????, formerly Prefecture of Taiwan Church Newsletter [Tâi-oân-hú-siân Kàu-hoe-pò; ???????]), written in Pe?h-oe-ji, was banned during World War Two. This was because the spread of Japanese was hampered by the use of Pe?h-oe-ji. When World War Two broke out, Japan finally took greater steps to suppress the use of even the Taiwanese tongue itself.
Suppression under Chinese rule
When the KMT took over China, it took similar steps to enforce use of the national language, Mandarin, while suppressing use of Pe?h-oe-ji. Numerous examples illustrate the KMT's attack on the use of Pe?h-oe-ji. In 1969, it forbade its use in the Church Newsletter. In 1973, copies of Embree's Taiwanese-English Dictionary were confiscated and banned. In 1975, new translations of the Bible into Pe?h-oe-ji were also banned. In 1984 the Ministry of Education wrote a letter to Internal Affairs to prohibit its use when preaching. Other material in Pe?h-oe-ji was soon outlawed too.
Development since the 1990s
After the lifting of martial law, Pe?h-oe-ji began to experience a revival as a result of efforts made by supporters of the "Mother Tongue Movement." In 1990 a few counties governed by the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) began to use texts written in Pe?h-oe-ji for teaching elementary school children Taiwanese. This represented the first official instance of Pe?h-oe-ji entering the public schools. At this time, the KMT changed its strategy against Pe?h-oe-ji, and the Kuomintang-supported Mandarin Promotion Council promoted an alternate romanization scheme, the Taiwanese Language Phonetic Alphabet (TLPA) in direct opposition to Pe?h-oe-ji. The result was internal conflict among Taiwanese language supporters.
However, the mother tongue movement continued to experiment with Taiwanese writing utilizing different romanization schemes, including Pe?h-oe-ji, printing various items including the news. Moreover, as digital text became more and more important, Taiwanese supporters began a push to modernize Taiwanese and make it more suitable for digital use. For instance, there are already a number of software packages related to Pe?h-oe-ji, and additionally there is an online Pe?h-oe-ji dictionary and encyclopedia. In June 2004, the International Organization for Standardization (ISO) inserted all of the symbols of Pe?h-oe-ji into Unicode following an application by Tè Khái-su, Tân Pek-tiong, and Tân-Ten Hông-giâu, with help from Michael Everson.
Further reading
- Chiung, W.-V. (2000). Peh-oe-ji, a childish writing? Cambridge, Mass: North American Taiwan Studies Association.
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