Pe̍h-ōe-jī

Encyclopedia : P : PE : PEH : Pe̍h-ōe-jī

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Pe̍h-ōe-jī (POJ) (Traditional Chinese: ; pinyin: ) is an orthography in the Latin alphabet created and introduced to Taiwan by Presbyterian missionaries in the 19th century. POJ is a popular orthography for the Taiwanese language, and Min Nan in general. A version called phak-fa-sṳ exists for Hakka and is particularly well-suited for the Siyen dialect; the counterpart for Min Dong is bàng-uâ-cê.

The 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.

Pe̍h-ōe-jī 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

Finals

• Vowels: a, i, u, e, o, 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 are followed by the letter h.

Examples for the seven tones: chhiūⁿ 象 (elephant), pà 豹 (leopard), bé 馬 (horse), ti 豬 (pig), chôa 蛇 (snake), ah 鴨 (duck), lo̍k 鹿 (deer)

Comparison chart

Vowels

Revised	a	i	u	e	o	oo	ua	ue	uai	uan	ing	ik	aN
	a	i	u	e	o	oo	ua	ue	uai	uan	ing	ik	ann
Missionary POJ	a	i	u	e	o	o.	oa	oe	oai	oan	eng	ek	an
Pumindian (普閩典)	a	i	u	e	o	oo	ua	ue	uai	uan	ing	ik	na

Consonants

Revised	p	ph	b	m	t	th	l	n	k	kh	h	g	ng	z	c	s	j
	p	ph	b	m	t	th	l	n	k	kh	h	g	ng	c	ch	s	j
Missionary POJ	p	ph	b	m	t	th	l	n	k	kh	h	g	ng	ch	chh	s	j
Pumindian (普閩典)	b	p	bb	m	d	t	l	n	g	k	h	gg	ggn	z	c	s

Tones

Revised	1	2	3	4	5	6=2	7	8
Missionary POJ		/	\		^	/	-
Pumindian (普閩典)	-	v	\	-	/	v	^	/

Origins of the Name

According to Tiuⁿ Ha̍k-khiam (張學謙), the name Pe̍h-ōe-jī, 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 Pe̍h-ōe-jī corresponds to some form of spoken Chinese, the former being Mandarin, and the latter being Taiwanese.

Pe̍h-ōe-jī is also called the Church Romanization, but advocates of Pe̍h-ōe-jī do not support the use of this name. This is chiefly because it implies the Church, where in fact, usage of Pe̍h-ōe-jī is often out of the context of the Church.

History of Pe

Pe̍h-ōe-jī, 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 17th century during when Taiwan was under Dutch influence/colonial rule. Sinckan scripts were used up till the 19th century. Pe̍h-ōe-jī, 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 Tianjin Treaty, 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 Pe̍h-ōe-jī. 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 廈門音新字典, Ē-MN̂G IM Ê JĪ-TIÁN), published 1913, is still in use today in Taiwan.

While Pe̍h-ōe-jī 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 Ha̍k-khiam, Pe̍h-ōe-jī even helps the learning of Chinese characters.

Books in Pe Due to its Christian origins, Christian works make up a significant proportion of all works in Pe̍h-ōe-jī. The first New Testament in Pe̍h-ōe-jī (Lán ê Kiù-chú Iâ-so• Ki-tok ê Sin-iok) was published in 1873. The Old Testament (Kū-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 Pe̍h-ōe-jī.

Apart from Christianity, works in such areas as Literature, Mathematics, Medicine have also been published in Pe̍h-ōe-jī.

Suppression under Japanese rule

The 1880s was the peak period of Pe̍h-ōe-jī's development, with ten thousands of users. An important contributing factor was that the Qing government did not suppress its usage. So great was its growth was that at the end of Qing rule, usage of Pe̍h-ōe-jī 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 Pe̍h-ōe-jī 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 Pe̍h-ōe-jī as one of its main tasks, which it took up in 1924. The associate decided to publish books in Pe̍h-ōe-jī. However, Chhoà met a setback when he went up to the Japanese colonial government to apply for a permit start study classes on Pe̍h-ōe-jī. Not only was the proposal overthrown by the Japanese, but the Japanese police undertook violent measures to silence and ban it.

Since then, the Japanese attitude toward the Taiwanese tongue became all too obvious. The Taiwan Church Newsletter (台灣教會公報, formerly Prefecture of Taiwan Church Newsletter [Tâi-oân-hú-siâⁿ Kàu-hōe-pò; 台灣府城教會報]), written in Pe̍h-ōe-jī, was banned during World War Two. This is because the spread of Japanese was hampered by the use of Pe̍h-ōe-jī. When World War Two broke out, Japan finally took greater steps to suppress the use of even the Taiwanese tongue itself.

When the KMT took over China, it took similar steps to enforce use of the national language, Mandarin, while suppressing use of Pe̍h-ōe-jī. Numerous examples illustrate the KMT's attack on the use of Pe̍h-ōe-jī. 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 Pe̍h-ōe-jī were also banned. In 1984 the Ministry of Education wrote a letter to Internal Affairs to prohibit its use when preaching. Other material in Pe̍h-ōe-jī was soon outlawed too.

Development since the 1990s

After the lifting of martial law, Pe̍h-ōe-jī 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 Pe̍h-ōe-jī for teach elementary school children Taiwanese. This represented the first official instance of Pe̍h-ōe-jī entering the public schools. At this time, the KMT changed its strategy against Pe̍h-ōe-jī, and the Kuomintang-supported Mandarin Promotion Council promoted an alternate romanization scheme, the Taiwanese Language Phonetic Alphabet (TLPA) in direct opposition to Pe̍h-ōe-jī. 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 Pe̍h-ōe-jī, 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 Pe̍h-ōe-jī, and additionally there is an online Pe̍h-ōe-jī dictionary and encyclopedia. In June of 2004, the International Standards Organization (ISO) inserted all of the symbols of Pe̍h-ōe-jī into Unicode following an application by Tè Khái-sū, Tân Pek-tiong, and Tân-Tēⁿ Hông-giâu.

 

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