by Eric Brand

Many students are challenged by learning Pinyin, the phonetic method of writing Chinese sounds with Roman letters. We use Pinyin names extensively in Chinese medicine, and most practitioners who were trained in the past decade predominantly use Pinyin names when discussing Chinese medicinals. Pinyin is quite consistent when used properly, but the existence of multiple different transliteration schemes (Pinyin vs. the older Wade-Giles system) makes it appear confusing and inconsistent. Pinyin is capable of representing all the sounds used in Mandarin, but it takes a bit of a learning curve to master the some of the sounds, especially the zh, ch, z, c, and x sounds.

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The main problem with Pinyin is inconsistent use of a single system. Earlier books, especially those used in mainstream university Chinese history classes, use a system called Wade-Giles. This system was created early on, and was used extensively in Taiwan. All major Western scholars used this system in days gone by, and it is this system that is responsible for spellings such as the Tao Te Ching (Dao De Jing), Taoism, Peking (Beijing), and Nanking (Nanjing). The Wade-Giles system is falling out of use now that China's new Pinyin system has become dominant with language learners, but it lingers on in older books, especially in academic disciplines like history and art. My undergrad classes at the University of Colorado used Wade-Giles for the Chinese history and religion classes, but we used Pinyin for the Chinese language classes.

The main differences between Pinyin and Wade-Giles relate to pronunciation of the letters and the rules applied. In the Wade-Giles system, Ching would be read as Jing, while Ch'ing would be read as Qing. The "c" of Pinyin is a "ts," the "j" is a "k," the "q" is a "ch" with no apostrophe, etc. The "b" and "p" are confusing, giving us things like Peking (pei king) instead of Beijing (bei jing). Both systems are functional if one knows the rules, but the Wade-Giles system is fading into obscurity. It lingers on in older English TCM books by Hong Yen-Hsu, and we see it used in the transliteration of Taiwanese names, such as the acupuncture techniques by Master Tung (Tong), which is pronounced as Dong in Pinyin.

In mainland China, everyone now knows Pinyin for the most part. They use it as a teaching tool for learning the pronunciation of characters while growing up, and we use it as to learn the pronunciation of characters when we learn Chinese in Western universities. In TCM schools in America, we use Pinyin extensively, but in a slightly more simplified form than true Pinyin.

Originally, Pinyin was intended to replace Chinese characters, but it never caught on because there are too many words that share the same sound, even when accents (tone marks) are used. True Pinyin has accents on the vowels, and it combines multiple syllables together (each Pinyin word is a single syllable of sound; a single written character is a single syllable as well). Because the accents are a nuisance with computers and fonts, they are often left off both in China and the West. However, Chinese has many words with the same basic sound, so the accent helps to narrow down which character the sound is referring to. Most writers leave off the accents when writing to a Western audience, because the readers generally don't know the tones of words.

By convention, we tend to use separated single Pinyin syllables when writing in Western books of Chinese medicine. For example, we say jin yin hua instead of jinyin hua. Official Pinyin would join the jin and yin to make jinyin (gold-silver). This is confusing to Western readers so most publishers prefer to say jin yin hua instead of jinyin hua. Joining the words together is problematic for words like "xi an," which if joined would be the different sound "xian."

Finally, there is yet another system of Pinyin that was newly created in Taiwan, known as Tong Yong Pin Yin. This system is nearly universally rejected by Westerners and it is unused by most native Chinese speakers. It basically arose as a nationalistic movement by the former leader of Taiwan to avoid adopting the mainland Pinyin system. The mainland system is much more widely used and is far superior, so the new Tong Yong Pin Yin system just clings on in confusing roadsigns in rural Taiwan (Taipei city uses mainland Pinyin, the rest of the island uses a messy mix of Wade-Giles and Tong Yong Pin Yin).

Pinyin is one of the first challenges that most acupuncture students are faced with in the West. If you have any questions about it, please write to us using the comments form of the blog, and I'll be happy to clarify any challenging issues.