Talk:Pe̍h-ōe-jī

Comment by mikka
Please take a look at this version of Church Romanization artcl (now a redirect). Reusable? Where it was copyed from, I am wondering. The text refers to "Wikipedia". mikka (t) 05:56, 12 October 2005 (UTC)
 * It appears to be from the corresponding article in the Chinese version of Wikipedia. --ian 17:40, 13 October 2005 (UTC)

The tone markers may not display correctly in all typefaces, but it appears now a lot of the pe̍h-oē-jī is in Lucida Sans Unicode--is that really necessary? --ian 21:00, 3 January 2006 (UTC)


 * No, it isn't, and I've removed that formatting. —Babelfisch 02:12, 21 February 2006 (UTC)

I translated a couple of the later paragraphs from the current Chinese incarnation. The Chinese version could be slightly NPOV against KMT, but this is a thorny issue and it is hard to deny the role of the KMT in suppressing Taiwanese. Anyways, maybe someone knows official English names of the "mother tongue movement" and 國語推行委員會. I also don't know the best romanizations of the three individuals who made the application to the ISO; I doubt that they themselves would use pinyin. If you're reading this Kaihsu maybe you could help out here? :-) Mgmei 21:33, 14 January 2006 (UTC)

Pe̍h-oē-jī or Pe̍h-ōe-jī?
Why do the Taiwanese and Chinese Wikipedias list POJ as Pe̍h-oē-jī while the English one lists it as Pe̍h-ōe-jī? Was the article incorrectly moved? Hintha 07:56, 28 March 2006 (UTC)


 * I think "Pe̍h-ōe-jī" is correct, so the zh-min-nan and zh Wikipedias are mistaken--according to Wikipedia:Chiàⁿ-jī-hoat (in the Siaⁿ-tiāu hû-hō ê phiat-hoat section), the macron should be on the 'o' and not the 'e'. --ian (talk) 16:46, 28 March 2006 (UTC)

A nice addition to the article would be the rules on tone markers for syllables with more than one vowel. Hongthay (talk) 23:58, 27 November 2008 (UTC)


 * The article should explain how the macron is used; the word macron does not occur in it, and ō (to take an example from the name of the article itself) does not occur in the lists of symbols, so it is impossible for the reader who does not already know the system to make sense of it. Languagehat (talk) 15:22, 28 March 2010 (UTC)


 * There is a principle for marking macrons: a > o͘, o, e, er > i, ir, u > m, ng (by sonority)
 * As some people's pronunciation of "oe" is actually "ue", marking a macron on the "e" is not wrong. luuva (talk) 16:57, 19 February 2011 (UTC)

IPA
Why not consider giving the corresponding IPA for each letter? With all that Pinyin, Wade-Giles and stuff out there, one does not have a clue about how consonants in Pe̍h-ōe-jī ought to be pronounced... orthographic symbols are useless unless they're assigned some phonemic/phonetic content! JREL (talk) 09:51, 24 April 2006 (UTC)

I incorporated your suggestion into a new template called, which is now embedded in the article at Pe̍h-ōe-jī. A-cai 13:41, 30 July 2006 (UTC)

POJ in Hakka?
How would POJ be used to represent Hakka? Which letters are modified to represent that language? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 70.20.5.222 (talk) 13:56, 5 August 2008 (UTC)

POJ needs to be checked
Can someone check the POJ in the lead of Wu Chuanyu? Badagnani (talk) 21:57, 13 August 2008 (UTC)

Need POJ
Need POJ reading at Sean Lien. Badagnani (talk) 06:09, 17 August 2008 (UTC)

Still need POJ meading at Sean Lien. Badagnani (talk) 20:40, 1 January 2009 (UTC)

Undisplayable script
What language script/encoding do I need to download/set to display POJ correctly? --Mistakefinder (talk) 11:28, 18 November 2009 (UTC)

Complete overhaul of this article
I have just made a big edit to the article, replacing the old one (which had absolutely no inline references, only one end reference, and some dubious unsupported material) with a fully documented version, complete with a proper history, citations, bibliography and more. I welcome any further edits to improve the article - eventually I'd like to push this for Good Article and subsequently Featured Article status once it has been polished up a bit more.

Taiwantaffy (talk) 23:56, 10 April 2010 (UTC)

alphabetically ordered references

 * Ang Ui-jin (1992) (in Chinese). Taiwan Fangyan zhi Lü (A Journey Through Taiwanese Regional Speech). Taipei: Avanguard Publishing. ISBN 957-9512-31-0.
 * Babuja A. Sidaia (1998) (in Hàn-lô Taiwanese). A-Chhûn. Taipei: Taili. ISBN 957-98861-6-4.
 * Band, Edward (1936). Barclay of Formosa. Christian Literature Society.
 * Baran, Dominika (2004). ""Taiwanese don't have written words": Language ideologies and language practice in a Taipei County high school". Conference Proceedings - 2004 International Conference on Taiwanese Romanization. 2.
 * Campbell, William (2006) [1913]. A Dictionary of the Amoy Vernacular. Tainan: PCT Press. ISBN 957-8959-92-3.
 * Chang Yu-hong (2001). Principles of POJ or the Taiwanese Orthography: An Introduction to Its Sound-Symbol Correspondences and Related Issues. Taipei: Crane. ISBN 978-957-2053-07-1.
 * Chiung, Wi-vun Taiffalo (2005). Language, Identity and Decolonization. Tainan: National Cheng Kung University. ISBN 957-8845-85-5.
 * Chiung, Wi-vun Taiffalo (2007). Language, Literature and Reimagined Taiwanese Nation. Tainan: National Cheng Kung University. ISBN 978-986-00-9746-7.
 * Chung Raung-fu (1996). The Segmental Phonology of Southern Min in Taiwan. Spoken Language Services. ISBN 957-9463-46-8.
 * Copper, John F. (2007). A Historical Dictionary of Taiwan (Republic of China) (2nd ed.). Lanham, MD: Scarecrow Press. ISBN 978-0-8108-5600-4.
 * Douglas, Carstairs; Barclay, Thomas (1990) [1923]. Chinese-English Dictionary of the Vernacular or Spoken Language of Amoy. Taipei: Southern Materials Center. ISBN 957-9482-32-2.
 * Embree, Bernard L.M. (1973). A Dictionary of Southern Min.
 * Heylen, Ann (2001). "Romanizing Taiwanese: Codification and Standardization of Dictionaries in Southern Min (1837–1923)". in Ku Weit Ying; De Ridder, Koen. Authentic Chinese Christianity, Preludes to Its Development: Nineteenth & Twentieth Centuries. Leuven: Leuven University Press. ISBN 978-9058671028.
 * Iûⁿ Ún-giân (2009). Processing Techniques for Written Taiwanese – Tone Sandhi and POS Tagging (Doctoral dissertation). National Taiwan University.
 * Iûⁿ Ún-giân; Tiuⁿ Ha̍k-khiam (1999). "台灣福佬話非漢字拼音符號的回顧與分析 (Comparison and Analysis of non-Character Transcription Systems for Taiwanese Holo)" (in Chinese). Tainan: National Cheng Kung University. http://ws.twl.ncku.edu.tw/hak-chia/i/iunn-ungian/hui-hanji-phengim.htm. Retrieved 2009-12-17.
 * Kì Bō͘-hô (2008). 台語教會羅馬字講義 (Notes on Taiwanese Church Romanization). Tainan: PCT Press. ISBN 978-986-6947-34-6.
 * Klöter, Henning (2002). "The History of Peh-oe-ji". 2002台灣羅馬字教學KAP研究國際學術研討會論文集 (Proceedings of the 2002 International Conference on Taiwanese Romanization Research). Taipei: Taiwanese Romanization Association.
 * Klöter, Henning (2005). Written Taiwanese. Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz. ISBN 3-447-05093-4.
 * Lin, Alvin (1999). "Writing Taiwanese: The Development of Modern Written Taiwanese". Sino-Platonic Papers (89). http://www.sino-platonic.org/complete/spp089_taiwanese.pdf.
 * Maryknoll Fathers (1984). Taiwanese: Book 1. Taichung: Maryknoll.
 * Norman, Jerry (1998). Chinese. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. ISBN 0-521-29653-6.
 * Ong Iok-tek (2002) (in Chinese). Taiwanyu Yanjiu Juan. Taipei: Avanguard Publishing. ISBN 957-801-354-X.
 * Ota, Katsuhiro J (2005). An investigation of written Taiwanese (Master's thesis). University of Hawai'i at Manoa. https://scholarspace.manoa.hawaii.edu/bitstream/10125/11520/2/uhm_ma_3246_r.pdf.
 * Ramsey, S. Robert (1987). The Chinese Language. Princeton: Princeton University Press. ISBN 978-0-691-01468-5.
 * Tiuⁿ Ha̍k-khiam (2004). "白話字kap台語文的現代化 (Peh-oe-ji and the Modernization of Written Taiwanese)" (in Han-lo Taiwanese). Conference Proceedings - 2004 International Conference on Taiwanese Romanization. 1.
 * Tseng Rui-cheng (2009) (in Chinese). Taiwan Minnanyu Luomazi Pinyin Fang'an Shiyong Shouce (Practical Manual for the Taiwan Southern Min Romanization System). ROC Ministry of Education. ISBN 978-986-01-6637-8. http://english.moe.gov.tw/public/Attachment/9851214271.pdf.
 * Wu Chang-neng (2007). The Taigi Literature Debates and Related Developments (1987–1996) (Master's thesis). Taipei: National Chengchi University.
 * Wu Guo-sheng; Chen Yi-hsin (2004). "客家語羅馬字文獻的版本研究 (Books Written in Hakka Romanization)" (in Chinese). Conference Proceedings - 2004 International Conference on Taiwanese Romanization. 2. —Preceding unsigned comment added by GlitchCraft (talk • contribs) 00:06, 18 May 2010 (UTC)

Removing "citation needed" tag from the opening line
The first line of this article had a "citation needed" tag after the IPA. I removed it because If required I can add further POJ-IPA references, but I feel it's unnecessary here.
 * 1) General references for the pronunciation, including IPA, of this system, exist further down the article
 * 2) Finding an explicit reference to the effect that "Pe̍h-ōe-jī = peʔ˩ ue˩ dzi˨" is probably impossible

Taiwantaffy (talk) 01:22, 9 June 2010 (UTC)

Diacussion transferred from FAC page (archived nom)
Comment: This is a challenging article on an unfamiliar subject, which looks (and is) daunting to most would-be reviewers. I'm sure that is why the nomination has so far lacked content reviews. Having gone through roughly the first half, I'm inclined to agree with the peer reviewer that the article is professionally put together. My main concern is that of accessibility to the readership of a general encyclopedia rather than a linguistic journal, and my comments are generally related to that particular issue.
 * Lead
 * Give dates for the Japanese era in Taiwan,  the Kuomintang martial law period and the establishment of the PRC
 * Be careful about the use of "today", which is inderminate. In a few years, the situation "today" might be a lot different from that described in the article.
 * Name
 * The first sentence is over-complicated, with too many parenthetical insertions. The sentence would read adequately as: "The name Pe̍h-ōe-jī (simplified Chinese: 白话字; traditional Chinese: 白話字) literally means "vernacular writing2, i.e. written characters representing everyday spoken language". I question whether the later insertions are necessary; the certainly affect the readability of the article and perhaps would be better omitted.
 * "vernacular writing" should be in inverted commas, not italicised. Likewise other English terms such as "Church Romanization".
 * Informalities such as "didn't" should be avoided.
 * "The term "romanization" is also disliked by some, as the word connotes a supplementary phonetic system rather than an orthography." Remember, this is a general encyclopedia. Most readers would have great difficulty understanding sentences like that.
 * Early development
 * "...the tonal structure of Hokkien..." Suggest "the tonal structure of the Hokkien dialect..."
 * "with regard to", not "with regards to"
 * Overlong sentence: beginning "The first major work to represent this new orthography..." It needs splitting, and some word re-ordering, e.g. "can be therefore regarded" → "can therefore be regarded"
 * "tinkered with" is maybe a bit informal; perhaps "adjusted"?
 * I suggest a paragraph break at "In 1842..."
 * To proselytize means to convert someone from one religion to another. It would be more accurate to write that the missionaries began the proselytising process,  rather than that they "started proselytizing", which makes the business sound rather routine. I wonder whether the word itself is the best choice; it may not be altogether familiar to many readers.
 * Maturity
 * "...donated a small printing press to the local church,[24] which Thomas Barclay learned how to operate..." Ambiguity, since in this construction "which" refers back to the church.
 * The structure of this section becomes very confusing after the words "...became the first printed newspaper in Taiwan." We first have an unintroduced section written in POJ, followed by what I assume is its translation. These excerpts are unexplained. A table then intrudes, again without introduction and therefore puzzling to the reader. What are we supposed to understand from the table? When the text resumes, I'm afraid I had lost the thread completely.

I will come back with further comments later. Should the article be archived meantime, I will continue my comments on the talkpage. Brianboulton (talk) 18:37, 15 August 2010 (UTC)
 * I appreciate the time you have taken to make these suggestions. I find them almost universally good and have done my best to implement them, although I have refrained from using the term "Hokkien dialect" as suggested above, because of the thorny dialect/language in Chinese linguistics (I went for "Southern Min" instead, as it is used and explained earlier in the article).


 * With regards regard to your comments about the "Maturity" section, I am interested to hear your thoughts on its reorganisation. Tidying up the references for the table and adding explanatory text is probably uncontroversial. Removing the images has also improved it, I think, but I worry that relevant images are one of the things encouraged in the FAC criteria, and that by losing two here the article may fall foul of that particular expectation. Taiwantaffy (talk) 14:23, 17 August 2010 (UTC)

syllables with no initial consonants?
Aren't there syllables with no initial consonants in Pe̍h-ōe-jī /Minnan? Like say Iûⁿ Ún-giân in Bibliography. And I guess many other. --Koryakov Yuri (talk) 18:35, 19 February 2011 (UTC)


 * Yes, there are. – Kaihsu (talk) 14:13, 21 July 2011 (UTC)

Pronunciation of POJ "L" and POJ "J"
I used to listen to some Taiwanese songs, and I've caught the pronunciation of words that are supposedly pronounced with the POJ "J" initial to be pronounced as "l". (The initial from 日, pronounced as "r" in Mandarin, is usually expected to become the "j" initial in Hokkien.) This phenomenon was then confirmed through the audio files on Iun Un-gian's site. Furthermore, I've heard the "l" initial pronounced as a "d" sound, as in a voiced alveolar plosive. I understand that this was the actual older pronunciation of some words that begin with l. (Note that Archaic/Middle Chinese nasal initials turned to stops for the most part: m -> b, n -> d, ng -> g; with the d becoming l later on. This is noted in the Philippine Hokkien pronunciation of you "li" as "di", compare Mandarin "ni".) However, words such as 羅, in the audio file, had a distinctive plosive quality to it, which was unusual since it has a MC initial of l (來母). Is this some allophony, or is this some vernacular? I see the table of IPA has a "d" for the initial l, but this is not reflected in the phonology section of Taiwanese Hokkien. Hmanck (talk) 15:26, 26 July 2012 (UTC)

External links modified
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Missuse of i.e.
There are local dialects that are not non-Mandarin. --2.245.168.36 (talk) 21:56, 19 October 2016 (UTC)

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A Commons file used on this page has been nominated for deletion
The following Wikimedia Commons file used on this page has been nominated for deletion: Participate in the deletion discussion at the. —Community Tech bot (talk) 20:22, 15 November 2019 (UTC)
 * Tai JintianDaoJiaKanWo.ogg

Consonant or syllable?
The article contains the phrase:

"the nucleus vowel is the only required part of a licit consonant in Chinese varieties."

with a reference to a source. Since I cannot consult the source but seriously doubt that "consonant" is the intended word here (I am not aware that a vowel can be part of a consonant), I wonder if anyone can confirm that the word "syllable" is intended, or is the correct word.Redav (talk) 16:17, 10 April 2021 (UTC)


 * Yes, this is a mistake. Freelance Intellectual (talk) 20:06, 18 April 2021 (UTC)