Saturday, July 13, 2024

Hanyu Pinyin and bopomofo


                                                     


This guy Yong Wen San, who commented on Quora, is a highly educated guy. I walked away from his questions on Quora simply because I did not want to embarrass him but he insists on continuing and I thought it best to answer him. I have high respect for him.

The problem for many of us is that we quite often wear blinkers and do not want to see different perspectives. (Different perspective is the motto for my blog which was suggested by one of my sons.)

One of Yong Wen San’s several questions that I did not want to answer was the following:

How did the Chinese language survive for more than two millennia without the support of pinyin?

My response now:

Why did the Chinese introduce Pinyin in the 50’s if the Chinese Language survived for more than two millennia without the support of Pinyin?

It was China that created Hanyu Pinyin by copying the Yale and other earlier translations. It was not introduced into China by the Americans.

I did not answer his question above nor several other questions simply because once his mind is made up then nothing can change it. I said, ’Thank You’ and moved on but then he commented as below leaving me no choice but to give a reply for the benefit of all and especially to the politicians of China and Malaysia.

Yong Wen San:

Regarding your comment on Chinese people infiltrating and screwing up pinyin with bopomofo. I read your two (2) blog posts “Phonics and Pinyin”, “How to screw up pinyin” and the accompanying videos therein.

Watching the videos back-and-forth several times, I cannot find where the person has “used bopomofo to infiltrate and screw up pinyin”. What she is using is simply a phonics technique called blending, where she takes a word - in this case, a word written in pinyin - and deconstructed it into its component consonants and vowels to show how the word is pronounced when they are combined together. So, in the example video that you provided, she has demonstrated that the words biǎo, diào, niǎo and jiǎo have the same triphthong ending -iao (tones may be different), but different initial consonants b-, d- n- and j-, respectively. I do not see a single bopomofo symbol in her entire video.

My response:

I admire the way he writes. He is definitely knowledgeable.

He is making the same mistakes made by the so-called PhDs I had discussions with on Twitter. I would suggest Wen San get a copy of my book Shut Down Kids and get his educated friends to discuss the contents and then get back to me.

I never said anything about bopomofo symbols. I am talking about the consonant sounds. 

Consonants in Pinyin do not have extraneous sounds.  

Yong Wen San continued:

To be clear, this concept of blending is not new. It is a well-established technique used by many kindergartens to teach children how to pronounce and spell words (there are many YouTube videos available). And the concept is not unique to English, either.

My response:

Who does not know ‘the concept of blending not being new’?

I was the first man in the world to say that blending with consonants added with extraneous sounds is the problem with kids who are predisposed to shutting down/disengaging from learning to read in English. 

Now, it appears that many kids who are being taught Bopomofo sounds when teachers teach Pinyin is also affecting kids in some schools in China. 

How can ‘be yi ao’ be read as biao? Be-yi-ao is nothing more than beyiao.

How can ne-yi-ao be pronounced niao? Ne-yi-ao is nothing more than neyiao.

Again, I advise Yong Wen San and the Chinese politicians in China to get a copy of ‘Shut Down Kids’.

Someone, please pass this post to President Xi Jin Peng.

If the politicians can’t get all schools in Mainland China to eradicate Bopomofo and introduce strict Pinyin it is ok with me but do not come to my country and promote consonant sounds as taught under Bopomofo and claim it to be Hanyu Pinyin.This is what some teachers from Mainland China are doing on Face Book and influencing teachers and kids in Malaysia.

Malaysia successfully implemented Hanyu Pinyin in the 70’s and eradicated all forms of Bopomofo.

Yong Wen San continued:

Coming full circle: The person in the examples provided in your blog did not corrupt pinyin. All her spellings conform to the pinyin standard. She merely utilised the blending technique to explain pinyin. The way I figure it, if China is going to use Western alphabets to codify the pronunciation of their language, and since there is already a precedent of using the blending technique for more than a millennia in China (i.e. 切韻 Qièyùn), then there is nothing wrong with using the same tool to supplement its teaching.

My comment:

As educated as he is, he does not know the difference between the sounds taught under Bopomofo and Hanyu Pinyin. This is why many intelligent kids in China especially Taiwan have a problem learning to read in English. They have been taught the sounds of consonants with extraneous sounds. 

Someone please get Mr. HUAI Jinpeng to stop teachers from China teaching sounds of consonants as taught under Bopomofo via Facebook to Malaysian teachers and students.

                                                



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