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Revision as of 16:34, 26 January 2012 by Crissov (talk | contribs) (Undid revision 473249069 by Rypamyers (talk))(diff) ← Previous revision | Latest revision (diff) | Newer revision → (diff)There are and have been several Chinese alphabets, that is pre-existing alphabets adapted to write down the Chinese language. However, the standard Chinese writing system uses a non-alphabetic script with an alphabet for supplementary use. There is no original alphabet native to China.
Sometimes the term is used anyway to refer to logographic Chinese characters (sinograms). It is more appropriately used, though, for phonemic transcriptions such as pinyin.
Alphabetic transcription of Chinese
For the use of the Latin alphabet to transcribe Chinese, see:
- Romanization of Chinese
- Hanyu Pinyin (a.k.a. Pinyin) - the modern international standard for transcription of Standard Chinese
- Wade-Giles
- Yale Romanization
For the use of Cyrillic script to transcribe Chinese, see:
For the use of the Arabic alphabet to transcribe Chinese, see:
For another phonetic script in widespread use in Taiwan (often called an alphabet but actually a semi-syllabary) see:
- Zhuyin fuhao (a.k.a. bopomofo or Zhuyin)
See also
References
- "Does Chinese have an alphabet?". Zhongwen.com - Chinese characters FAQ. Retrieved 2008-05-31.
To translate Chinese, see:
Category: