|poj=peng-im/pheng-im |bpmf=ㄆㄧㄣ ㄧㄣ |h=pin²⁴ im²⁴ |j=ping³ jam¹ |wuu=phin^平 in^平 |altname=Scheme of the Chinese Phonetic Alphabet|s2=汉语拼音方案|t2=漢語拼音方案|p2= |bpmf2=ㄏㄢˋ ㄩˇ ㄆㄧㄣ ㄧㄣ ㄈㄤ ㄢˋ |h2=hon⁵⁵ ngi²⁴ pin²⁴ im²⁴ fong²⁴ on⁵⁵ |poj2=hàn-gú pheng-im hong-àn |j2=hon³ jyu⁵ ping³ jam¹ fong¹ on³ |wuu2=hoe^去 nyiu^上 phin^平 in^平 faon^平 oe^去}} Pinyin (; ) is the official system to transcribe Chinese characters into the Roman alphabet to teach Mandarin Chinese in China, Hong Kong, Malaysia, Singapore and Taiwan. It is also often used to spell Chinese names in foreign publications and used as an input method to enter Chinese characters (汉字 / 漢字, hànzì) into computers.

The system was developed from earlier versions by Zhou Youguang (b. 1906), who led a government committee in developing the system in China (PRC) in the 1950s. The system was published by the Chinese government in 1958 and revised several times. The International Organization for Standardization adopted pinyin as the international standard in 1982. The system was adopted as the official standard in Taiwan in 2009, where it is generally referred to as the New Phonetic System.

Name

In Chinese language education, pinyin is the common name to refer to the system. The more official name Hanyu Pinyin (汉语拼音 / 漢語拼音) is sometimes used, where means the spoken language of the Han (putonghua) and pinyin literally means "spelled sound" (phonetics).

History Before 1949

In the early 1930s, CCP leaders trained in Moscow introduced a phonetic alphabet using roman letters developed in the Soviet Oriental Institute of Leningrad. This Sin Wenz or "New Writing", from which the present pinyin system differs only slightly, was much more linguistically sophisticated than earlier alphabets, with the major exception that it did not indicate tones.

In 1940 several thousand members attended a Border Region Sin Wenz Society convention. Chairman Mao and General Zhu De, head of the army, both contributed their calligraphy (in characters) for the masthead of the Sin Wenz Society's new journal. Outside the CCP, other prominent supporters included Sun Yat-sen's son; Cai Yuanpei, the country's most prestigious educator; Tao Xingzhi a leading educational reformer; and Lu Xun, China's best known writer. Over thirty journals soon appeared written in Sin Wenz, plus large numbers of translations, biographies (including Lincoln, Franklin, Edison, Ford, and Charlie Chaplin), some contemporary Chinese literature, and a spectrum of textbooks. In 1940, the movement reached an apex when Mao's Border Region Government declared that the Sin Wenz had the same legal status as traditional characters in government and public documents. Many educators and political leaders looked forward to the day when they would be universally accepted and completely replace characters. Opposition arose, however, because the system was less well adapted to writing regional languages, and therefore would require learning Mandarin. Sin Wenzi fell into relative disuse during the following years.

History After 1949

Pinyin was championed by Zhou Youguang, often called "the father of Pinyin," as part of a Chinese government project in the 1950s. Zhou was working in a New York bank when he decided to return to China to help rebuild the country after the establishment of the PRC in 1949. Believing he was helping Mao Zedong build a democracy, Zhou became an economics professor in Shanghai. In 1954 China's Ministry of Education created a Committee for the Reform of the Chinese Written Language. Zhou was assigned the task of helping to develop a new romanization system.

Hanyu pinyin was based on several preexisting systems: (Gwoyeu Romatzyh of 1928, Latinxua Sin Wenz of 1931, and the diacritic markings from zhuyin). "I’m not the father of pinyin," Zhou said years later. "I’m the son of pinyin. It’s [the result of] a long tradition from the later years of the Qing dynasty down to today. But we restudied the problem and revisited it and made it more perfect."

A first draft was published on February 12, 1956. The first edition of Hanyu pinyin was approved and adopted at the Fifth Session of the 1st National People's Congress on February 11, 1958. It was then introduced to primary schools as a way to teach Standard Chinese pronunciation and used to improve the literacy rate among adults. In 2001, the Chinese Government issued the National Common Language Law, providing a legal basis for applying pinyin.

Usage

Pinyin superseded older romanization systems such as Wade-Giles (1859; modified 1892) and Chinese Postal Map Romanization, and replaced zhuyin as the method of Chinese phonetic instruction in mainland China. The International Organization for Standardization (ISO) adopted pinyin as the standard romanization for modern Chinese in 1982 (ISO 7098:1982, superseded by ISO 7098:1991); the United Nations followed suit in 1986. It has also been accepted by the government of Singapore, the United States' Library of Congress, the American Library Association, and many other international institutions.

The spelling of Chinese geographical or personal names in pinyin has become the most common way to transcribe them in English. Pinyin has also become a useful tool for entering Chinese text into computers.

is annotated with Pinyin, but without tonal marks.]] Chinese families who speak Mandarin as a mother tongue use pinyin to help children associate characters with spoken words which they already know. Chinese families who speak some other language as their mother tongue use the system to teach children Mandarin pronunciation when they learn vocabulary in elementary school.

Since 1958, Pinyin has been actively used in adult education as well, making it easier for formerly illiterate people to continue with self-study after a short period of Pinyin literacy instruction.

Pinyin has become a tool for many foreigners to learn the Mandarin pronunciation, and is used to explain the grammar and spoken Mandarin together with hanzi. Books containing both Chinese characters and pinyin are often used by foreign learners of Chinese; pinyin's role in teaching pronunciation to foreigners and children is similar in some respects to furigana-based books (with hiragana letters written above or next to kanji) in Japanese or fully vocalised texts in Arabic ("vocalised Arabic").

The tone-marking diacritics are commonly omitted in popular news stories and even in scholarly works. An unfortunate effect of this is the increased ambiguity that results as to which Chinese characters are being represented.

Overview

, Yichang, Hubei, text on road signs appears both in Hanzi and in Pinyin]] The correspondence between Roman letter and sound in the system is sometimes idiosyncratic, though not necessarily more so than the way the Roman alphabet is employed in other languages. For example, the aspiration distinction between b, d, g and p, t, k is similar to that of English (in which the two sets are however also differentiated by voicing), but not to that of French. Z and c also have that distinction; however, they are pronounced as [ts], as in German and Italian, which do not have that distinction. From s, z, c come the digraphs sh, zh, ch by analogy with English sh, ch. Although this introduces the novel combination zh, it is internally consistent in how the two series are related, and reminds the trained reader that many Chinese pronounce sh, zh, ch as s, z, c. In the x, j, q series, the Pinyin use of x is similar to its use in Portuguese, Galician, Catalan, Basque and Maltese; and the Pinyin q is akin to its value in Albanian; both Pinyin and Albanian pronunciations may sound similar to the ch to the untrained ear. Pinyin vowels are pronounced in a similar way to vowels in Romance languages. More information on the pronunciation of all pinyin letters in terms of English approximations is given further below.

The pronunciation and spelling of Chinese words are generally given in terms of initials and finals, which represent the segmental phonemic portion of the language, rather than letter by letter. Initials are initial consonants, while finals are all possible combinations of medials (semivowels coming before the vowel), the nucleus vowel, and coda (final vowel or consonant).

Initials and finals

Unlike in European languages, clusters of letters – initials () and finals () – and not consonant and vowel letters, are the fundamental elements in pinyin (and most other phonetic systems used to describe the Han language). Nearly each Mandarin syllable can be spelled with exactly one initial followed by one final, except in the special syllable er and when a trailing -r is considered part of a syllable (see below). The latter case, though a common practice in some sub-dialects, is rarely used in official publications. One exception is the city Harbin (), which is from the Manchu language originally.

Even though most initials contain a consonant, finals are not always simple vowels, especially in compound finals (), i.e., when a "medial" is placed in front of the final. For example, the medials [i] and [u] are pronounced with such tight openings at the beginning of a final that some native Chinese speakers (especially when singing or on stage) pronounce yī (, clothes, officially pronounced ) as , wéi (, to enclose, officially as ) as or . Often these medials are treated as separate from the finals rather than as part of them; this convention is followed in the chart of finals below.

Initials

In each cell below, the first line indicates the , the second indicates pinyin. You can hear recordings of the Initials here

¹ may phonetically be (a voiced retroflex fricative). This pronunciation varies among different speakers, and is not two different phonemes. ² the letters "w" and "y" are not included in the table of initials in the official pinyin system. They are an orthographic convention for the medials "i", "u" and "ü" when no initial is present. When "i", "u" or "ü" are finals and no initial is present, they are spelled "yi", "wu", and "yu", respectively. ³ "y" is pronounced (a labial-palatal approximant) before "u".

The conventional order (excluding w and y), derived from the zhuyin system, is: :{|cellspacing="0" cellpadding="3" |- |style="background: #ccf;"|b p m f |style="background: #cfc;"|d t n l |style="background: #fcc;"|g k h |style="background: #fcf;"|j q x |style="background: #cff;"|zh ch sh r |style="background: #ffc;"|z c s |}

Finals

The following chart gives the combinations of medials and finals based on an analysis that assumes just two vowel nuclei, /a/ and /ə/; various allophones result depending on phonetic context.

In each cell below, the first line indicates IPA, the second indicates pinyin for a standalone (no-initial) form, and the third indicates pinyin for a combination with an initial. Other than finals modified by an -r, which are omitted, the following is an exhaustive table of all possible finals.¹ You can hear recordings of the Finals here

The only syllable-final consonants in Standard Chinese are -n and -ng, and -r, which is attached as a grammatical suffix. A Chinese syllable ending with any other consonant either is from a non-Mandarin language (a southern Chinese language such as Cantonese, or a minority language of China), or indicates the use of a non-pinyin Romanization system (where final consonants may be used to indicate tones).

¹ is written er. For other finals formed by the suffix -r, pinyin does not use special orthography; one simply appends -r to the final that it is added to, without regard for any sound changes that may take place along the way. For information on sound changes related to final -r, please see Standard Chinese. ² "ü" is written as "u" after j, q, x, or y. ³ "uo" is written as "o" after b, p, m, or f. ⁴ "weng" is pronounced (written as "ong") when it follows an initial.

Technically, i, u, ü without a following vowel are finals, not medials, and therefore take the tone marks, but they are more concisely displayed as above. In addition, ê (欸, 誒) and syllabic nasals m (呒, 呣), n (嗯, 唔), ng (嗯, 𠮾) are used as interjections.

Rules given in terms of English pronunciation

All rules given here in terms of English pronunciation are approximate, as several of these sounds do not correspond directly to sounds in English.

Pronunciation of initials

;* Note on w, y, and the apostrophe: Y and w are equivalent to the semivowel medials i, u, and ü (see below). They are spelled differently when there is no initial consonant in order to mark a new syllable: fanguan is fan-guan, while fangwan is fang-wan (and equivalent to *fang-uan). With this convention, an apostrophe only needs to be used to mark an initial a, e, or o: Xi'an (two syllables: ) vs. xian (one syllable: ). In addition, y and w are added to fully vocalic i, u, and ü when these occur without an initial consonant, so that they are written yi, wu, and yu. Some Mandarin speakers do pronounce a or sound at the beginning of such words—that is, yi or , wu or , yu or ,—so this is an intuitive convention. See below for a few finals which are abbreviated after a consonant plus w/u or y/i medial: wen → C+un, wei → C+ui, weng → C+ong, and you → C+iu.

Pronunciation of finals

The following is a list of finals in Standard Chinese, excepting most of those ending with a -r.

To find a given final: #Remove the initial consonant. Zh, ch, and sh count as initial consonants. #Change initial w to u and initial y to i. For weng, wen, wei, you, look under ong, un, ui, iu. #For u after j, q, x, or y, look under ü.

Orthography

Letters

Pinyin differs from other romanizations in several aspects, such as the following:

Syllables starting with u are written as w in place of u (e.g. uan is written as wan). Standalone u is written as wu.

Syllables starting with i are written as y in place of i (e.g. ian is written as yan). Standalone i is written as yi.

Syllables starting with ü are written as yu in place of ü (e.g. üe is written as yue).

ü is written as u when there is no ambiguity (such as ju, qu, and xu), but written as ü when there are corresponding u syllables (such as lü and nü). In such situations where there are corresponding u syllables, it is often replaced with v on a computer, making it easier to type on a standard keyboard.

When preceded by a consonant, iou, uei, and uen are simplified as iu, ui, and un (which do not represent the actual pronunciation).

As in zhuyin, what are actually pronounced as buo, puo, muo, and fuo are given a separate representation: bo, po, mo, and fo.

The apostrophe (') is used before a syllable starting with a vowel (a, o, or e) in a multiple-syllable word when the syllable does not start the word (which is most commonly realized as [ɰ]), unless the syllable immediately follows a hyphen or other dash. This is done to remove ambiguity that could arise, as in Xi'an, which consists of the two syllables xi ("西") and an ("安") as opposed to xian for such words as "先". (This ambiguity does not occur when tone marks are used: The two tone marks in "Xīān" unambiguously show that the word consists of two syllables. However, even with tone marks, the city is usually spelled with an apostrophe as "Xī'ān".)

Eh alone is written as ê; elsewhere as e. Schwa is always written as e.

zh, ch, and sh can be abbreviated as ẑ, ĉ, and ŝ (z, c, s with a circumflex). However, the shorthands are rarely used due to difficulty of entering them on computers, and are confined mainly to Esperanto keyboard layouts.

ng has the uncommon shorthand of ŋ.

The letter v is unused (except in spelling foreign languages, languages of minority nationalities, and some dialects), despite a conscious effort to distribute letters more evenly than in Western languages. However, sometimes, for ease of typing into a computer, the v is used to replace a ü.

Most of the above are used to avoid ambiguity when writing words of more than one syllable in pinyin. For example uenian is written as wenyan because it is not clear which syllables make up uenian; uen-ian, uen-i-an and u-en-i-an are all possible combinations whereas wenyan is unambiguous because we, nya, etc. do not exist in pinyin. See the pinyin table article for a summary of possible pinyin syllables (not including tones).

Capitalization and word formation

Although Chinese characters represent single syllables, Mandarin Chinese is a polysyllabic language. Spacing in pinyin is based on whole words, not single syllables. However, there are often ambiguities in partitioning a word. Orthographic rules were put into effect in 1988 by the National Educational Commission (国家教育委员会, pinyin: Guójiā Jiàoyù Wěiyuánhuì ) and the National Language Commission (国家语言文字工作委员会, pinyin: Guójiā Yǔyán Wénzì Gōngzuò Wěiyuánhuì).

#General ##Single meaning: Words with a single meaning, which are usually set up of two characters (sometimes one, seldom three), are written together and not capitalized: rén (, person); péngyou (, friend), qiǎokèlì (, chocolate) ##Combined meaning (2 characters): Same goes for words combined of two words to one meaning: hǎifēng (, sea breeze); wèndá (, Q&A;), quánguó (, 'pan-national') ##Combined meaning (4 or more characters): Words with four or more characters having one meaning are split up with their original meaning if possible: wúfèng gāngguǎn (, seamless steel-tube); huánjìng bǎohù guīhuà (, environmental protection planning) #Duplicated words ##AA: Duplicated characters (AA) are written together: rénrén (, everybody), kànkàn (, to have a look), niánnián (, every year) ##ABAB: two characters duplicated (ABAB) are written separated: yánjiū yánjiū (, to study, to research), xuěbái xuěbái (, snow-white) ##AABB: A hyphen is used with the schema AABB: láilái-wǎngwǎng (, go back and forth), qiānqiān-wànwàn (, numerous) #Nouns and names (míngcí): Nouns are written in one: zhuōzi (, table), mùtou (, wood) ##Even if accompanied by a prefix and suffix: fùbùzhǎng (, vice minister), chéngwùyuán (, conductor), háizimen (, children) ##Words of position are separated: mén wài (, outdoor), hé li (, in the river), huǒchē shàngmian (, on the train), Huáng Hé yǐnán (, south of the Yellow River) ###Exceptions are words traditionally connected: tiānshang (, in the sky), dìxia (, on the ground), kōngzhōng (, in the air), hǎiwài (, overseas) ##Surnames are separated from the given name: Lǐ Huá, Zhāng Sān. If the given name consists of two syllables, it should be written as one: Wáng Jiàngguó. ##Titles following the name are separated and are not capitalized: Wáng bùzhǎng (minister Wang), Lǐ xiānsheng (Mr. Li), Tián zhǔrèn (director Tian), Zhào tóngzhì (comrade Zhao). ##The forms of addressing people with Lǎo, Xiǎo, Dà and A are capitalized: Xiǎo Liú ([young] Ms./Mr. Liu), Dà Lǐ ([great;elder] Mr. Li), A Sān (Ah San), Lǎo Qián ([senior] Mr. Qian), Lǎo Wú ([senior] Mr. Wu) ###Exceptions are: Kǒngzǐ (Master Confucius), Bāogōng (Judge Bao), Xīshī (a historical person), Mèngchángjūn (a historical person) ##Geographical names of China: Běijīng Shì (City of Beijing), Héběi Shěng (Province of Hebei), Yālù Jiāng (Yalu River), Tài Shān (Mt. Taishan), Dòngtíng Hú (Lake Donting), Táiwān Hǎixiá (Taiwan strait) #Verbs (dòngcí): Verbs and their suffixes (-zhe, -le and -guo) are written as one: kànzhe/kànle/kànguo (to see/saw/seen), jìngxíngzhe (to implement). Le as it appears in the end of a sentence is separated though: Huǒchē dào le (The train [has] arrived). ##Verbs and their objects are separated: kàn xìn (read a letter), chī yú (eat fish), kāi wánxiào (to be kidding). ##If verbs and their complements are each monosyllabic, they are written together, if not, separated: gǎohuài ("to make broken"), dǎsǐ (hit to death), huàwéi ("to become damp"), zhěnglǐ hǎo (to straighten out), gǎixiě wéi (rewrite a screenplay) #Adjectives (xíngróngcí): A monosyllabic adjective and its reduplication are written as one: mēngmēngliàng (dim), liàngtāngtāng (shining bright) ##Complements of size or degree (as xiē, yīxiē, diǎnr, yīdiǎnr) are written separated: dà xiē (a little bigger), kuài yīdiānr (a bit faster) #Pronouns (dàicí) ##The plural suffix -men directly follows up: wǒmen (we), tāmen (they) ##The demonstrative pronoun zhè (this), nà (that) and the question pronoun nǎ (which) are separated: zhè rén (this person), nà cì huìyì (that meeting), nǎ zhāng bàozhǐ (which newspaper) ###Exceptions are: nàli (there), zhèbian (over here), zhège (this piece), zhème (so), zhèmeyàng (that way)... and similar ones. #Numerals and measure words (shùcí hé liàngcí) ##Words like gè/měi (every, each), mǒu (any), běn (that), gāi (that), wǒ (mine, our), are separated from the measure words following them: gè guó (every nation), gè gè (everyone), měi nián (every year), mǒu gōngchǎng (a certain factory), wǒ xiào (our school), liǎng ge rén (two people). ##Numbers up to 100 are written as single words: sānshísān (thirty-three). Above that, the hundreds, thousands, etc. are written as separate words: jiǔyì qīwàn èrqiān sānbǎi wǔshíliù (900,072,356). ##The dì of ordinal numerals is hyphenated: dì-yī (first), dì-356 (356th). #Hyphenation In addition to the ordinals mentioned above, there are three situations where words are hyphenated. ##Coordinate and disjunctive compound words, where the two elements are conjoined or opposed, but retain their individual meaning: gōng-jiàn (bow and arrow), kuài-màn (speed: "fast-slow"), shíqī-bā suì (17–18 years old), dǎ-mà (beat and scold), Yīng-Hàn (English-Chinese [dictionary]), Jīng-Jīn (Beijing-Tianjin), lù-hǎi-kōngjūn (army-navy-airforce). ##Abbreviated compounds (luèyǔ): gōnggòng guānxì (public relations) → gōng-guān, chángtú diànhuà (long-distance telephone call) → cháng-huà. Exceptions are made when the abbreviated term has become established as a word in its own right, as in chūzhōng for chūjí zhōngxué (elementary high school). Abbreviations of proper-name compounds, however, should always be hyphenated: Běijīng Dàxué (Beijing University) → Běi-Dà. ##Four-syllable idioms: fēngpíng-làngjìng (calm and tranquil: "wind calm, waves down"), huījīn-rútǔ (spend money like water: "throw gold like dirt"), zhǐ-bǐ-mò-yàn (paper-brush-ink-inkstone [four coordinate words]). (The AA-BB reduplication above is an instance of this.)

Tones

The pinyin system also uses diacritics to mark the four tones of Mandarin. The diacritic is placed over the letter that represents the syllable nucleus, unless that letter is missing (see below). Many books printed in China use a mix of fonts, with vowels and tone marks rendered in a different font from the surrounding text, tending to give such pinyin texts a typographically ungainly appearance. This style, most likely rooted in early technical limitations, has led many to believe that pinyin's rules call for this practice and also for the use of a Latin alpha ("") rather than the standard style of the letter ("") found in most fonts. The official rules of Hanyu Pinyin, however, specify no such practice.

# The first tone (Flat or High Level Tone) is represented by a macron (ˉ) added to the pinyin vowel: #: # The second tone (Rising or High-Rising Tone) is denoted by an acute accent (ˊ): #: # The third tone (Falling-Rising or Low Tone) is marked by a caron/háček (ˇ). It is not the rounded breve (˘), though a breve is sometimes substituted due to font limitations. #: # The fourth tone (Falling or High-Falling Tone) is represented by a grave accent (ˋ): #: # The fifth tone (Neutral Tone) is represented by a normal vowel without any accent mark: #: :(In some cases, this is also written with a dot before the syllable; for example, ·ma.)

These tone marks normally are only used in Mandarin textbooks or in foreign learning texts, but they are essential for correct pronunciation of Mandarin syllables, as exemplified by the following classic example of five characters whose pronunciations differ only in their tones:

The words are "mother", "hemp", "horse", "scold" and a question particle, respectively.

Numerals in place of tone marks

Before the advent of computers, many typewriter fonts did not contain vowels with macron or caron diacritics. Tones were thus represented by placing a tone number at the end of individual syllables. For example, tóng is written tong2. The number used for each tone is as the order listed above, except the neutral tone, which is either not numbered, or given the number 0 or 5, e.g. ma5 for 吗/嗎, an interrogative marker.

Rules for placing the tone mark

Briefly, the tone mark should always be placed by the order--'a','o','e','i','u','ü', with the only exception being 'iu', where the tone mark is placed on the 'u' instead. Pinyin tone marks appear primarily above the nucleus of the syllable, for example as in kuài, where k is the initial, u the medial, a the nucleus, and i the coda. The exception is syllabic nasals like /m/, where the nucleus of the syllable is a consonant, the diacritic will be carried by a written dummy vowel.

When the nucleus is /ə/ (written e or o), and there is both a medial and a coda, the nucleus may be dropped from writing. In this case, when the coda is a consonant n or ng, the only vowel left is the medial i, u, or ü, and so this takes the diacritic. However, when the coda is a vowel, it is the coda rather than the medial which takes the diacritic in the absence of a written nucleus. This occurs with syllables ending in -ui (from wei: (wèi → -uì) and in -iu (from you: yòu → -iù.) That is, in the absence of a written nucleus the finals have priority for receiving the tone marker, as long as they are vowels: if not, the medial takes the diacritic.

An algorithm to find the correct vowel letter (when there is more than one) is as follows:

# If there is an "a" or an "e", it will take the tone mark. # If there is an "ou", then the "o" takes the tone mark. # Otherwise, the second vowel takes the tone mark.

Worded differently, # If there is an "a", "e", or "o", it will take the tone mark; in the case of "ao", the mark goes on the "a". # Otherwise, the vowels are "-iu" or "-ui", in which case the second vowel takes the tone mark.

If the tone is written over an i, the tittle above the i is omitted, as in yī.

Phonological intuition

The placement of the tone marker, when more than one of the written letters a, e, i, o, and u appears, can also be inferred from the nature of the vowel sound in the medial and final. If the spelling of a diphthong begins with i (as in ia) or u (as in ua), which here serves as a near-semi-vowel, this letter does not take the tone marker. Likewise, if the spelling of a diphthong ends with o or u representing a near-semi-vowel (as in ao or ou), this letter does not receive a tone marker. In a triphthong spelled with three of a, e, i, o, and u (with i or u replaced by y or w at the start of a syllable), the first and third letters coincide with near-semi-vowels and hence do not receive the tone marker (as in iao or uai or iou). But if no letter is written to represent a triphthong's middle (non-semi-vowel) sound (as in ui or iu), then the tone marker goes on the final (second) vowel letter.

Using tone colors

In addition to tone number and mark, tone color has been suggested as a visual aid for learning. Although there are no formal standards, the de facto standard has been to use red (tone 1), orange (tone 2), green (tone 3), blue (tone 4) and black (tone 5).

The character "ü"

A trema is placed over the letter u when it occurs after the initials l and n in order to represent the sound [y]. This is necessary in order to distinguish the front high rounded vowel in lü (e.g. 驴/驢 donkey) from the back high rounded vowel in lu (e.g. 炉/爐 oven). Tonal markers are added on top of the trema, as in lǘ.

However, the ü is not used in other contexts where it represents a front high rounded vowel, namely after the letters j, q, x and y. For example, the sound of the word 鱼/魚 (fish) is transcribed in pinyin simply as yú, not as yǘ. This practice is opposed to Wade-Giles, which always uses ü, and Tongyong pinyin, which always uses yu. Whereas Wade-Giles needs to use the trema to distinguish between chü (pinyin ju) and chu (pinyin zhu), this ambiguity cannot arise with pinyin, so the more convenient form ju is used instead of jü. Genuine ambiguities only happen with nu/nü and lu/lü, which are then distinguished by a trema (diacritic).

Many fonts or output methods do not support a trema for ü or cannot place tone marks on top of ü. Likewise, using ü in input methods is difficult because it is not present as a simple key on many keyboard layouts. For these reasons v is sometimes used instead by convention. For example, it is common for cellphones to use v instead of ü. Additionally, some stores in China use v instead of ü in the transliteration of their names. Occasionally, uu (double u), u: (u followed by a colon) or U (capital u) is used in its place.

Although nüe written as nue, and lüe written as lue are not ambiguous, nue or lue are not correct according the rules; nüe and lüe should be used instead. However, some Chinese input methods (e.g. Microsoft Pinyin IME) support both nve/lve (typing v for ü) and nue/lue.

Note: in the case of "Lu'an city六安市", (pinyin: Liù ān) the spelling is Lu'an using a local dialect.

Pinyin in Taiwan

Taiwan (Republic of China) adopted Tongyong pinyin, a modification of Hanyu pinyin, as the official romanization system on the national level between October 2002 and January 2009, when it switched to Hanyu pinyin. Tongyong pinyin ("official phonetic"), a variant of Pinyin developed in Taiwan, was designed to romanize languages and dialects spoken on the island in addition to Mandarin Chinese. The Kuomintang (Chinese Nationalist Party) resisted its adoption, preferring the Hanyu pinyin system used in China and in general use internationally. Romanization preferences quickly became associated with issues of national identity. Preferences split along party lines: the Kuomintang and its affiliated parties in the pan-blue coalition supported the use of Hanyu Pinyin while the Democratic Progressive Party and its affiliated parties in the pan-green coalition favored the use of Tongyong Pinyin.

Tongyong pinyin was made the official system in an administrative order that allowed its adoption by local governments to be voluntary. A few localities with governments controlled by the Kuomintang (KMT), most notably Taipei, Hsinchu, and Kinmen County, overrode the order and converted to Hanyu pinyin before the January 1, 2009 national-level switch, Primary education in Taiwan continues to teach pronunciation using zhuyin (MPS or Mandarin Phonetic Symbols).

Comparison with other orthographies

Pinyin is now used by foreign students learning Chinese as a second language.

Pinyin assigns some Roman letters phonological values which are quite different from that of most languages. This has drawn some criticism as it may lead to confusion when uninformed speakers apply either native or English assumed pronunciations to words. However this is not a specific problem of pinyin, since many languages that use the Latin alphabet natively assign different values to the same letters.

Pinyin is purely a representation of the sounds of Mandarin, therefore it lacks the semantic cues that Chinese characters can provide. It is also unsuitable for transcribing some Chinese spoken languages other than Mandarin.

Chart of comparison with other Romanizations

Computer input systems

Simple computer systems, able to display only 7-bit ASCII text (essentially the 26 Latin letters, 10 digits and punctuation marks), long provided a convincing argument in favor of pinyin over hanzi. Today, however, most computer systems are able to display characters from Chinese and many other writing systems as well, and have them entered with a Latin keyboard using an input method editor. Alternatively, some PDAs, tablet PCs and digitizing tablets allow users to input characters directly by writing with a stylus.

Other languages

Pinyin-like systems have been devised for other variants of Chinese. Guangdong Romanization is a set of romanizations devised by the government of Guangdong province for Cantonese, Teochew, Hakka (Moiyen dialect), and Hainanese. All of these are designed to use Latin letters in a similar way to pinyin.

In addition, in accordance to the Regulation of Phonetic Transcription in Hanyu Pinyin Letters of Place Names in Minority Nationality Languages (少数民族语地名汉语拼音字母音译转写法) promulgated in 1976, place names in non-Han languages like Mongolian, Uyghur, and Tibetan are also officially transcribed using pinyin. The pinyin letters (26 Roman letters, ü, ê) are used to approximate the non-Han language in question as closely as possible. This results in spellings that are different from both the customary spelling of the place name, and the pinyin spelling of the name in Chinese:

Tongyong pinyin was developed in Taiwan for use in rendering not only Mandarin Chinese, but other languages and dialects spoken on the island such as Taiwanese, Hakka and aboriginal languages.

See also

Bopomofo

Chinese Postal Map Romanization

Combining diacritic marks

Erhua (儿化)

Jyutping (most similar to IPA)

List of ISO transliterations

Pinyin method

Pinyin table

Tibetan pinyin

Tone number

Tongyong pinyin

Wade–Giles

Simplified Wade

Legge romanization

References

Further reading

Yin Binyong 尹斌庸 and Mary Felley (1990). Chinese Romanization. Pronunciation and Orthography (Hanyu pinyin he zhengcifa 汉语拼音和正词法). Beijing: Sinolingua. ISBN 7-80052-148-6 / ISBN 0-8351-1930-0.

Gao, J. K. (2005). Pinyin shorthand: a bilingual handbook = [Pinyin su ji fa]. Dallas, TX: Jack Sun. ISBN 1-59971-251-2

Kimball, R. L. (1988). Quick reference Chinese: a practical guide to Mandarin for beginners and travelers in English, Pinyin romanization, and Chinese characters. San Francisco, CA: China Books & Periodicals. ISBN 0-8351-2036-8

Wu, C.-j. (1979). The Pinyin Chinese–English dictionary. Hong Kong: Commercial Press. ISBN 0-471-27557-3

External links

Basic Rules for Hanyu Pinyin Orthography (National Standard of the People's Republic of China (ICS 01.140.10), 1996)

Interactive Pinyin Table

Standard Mandarin Pinyin Chart

pinyinAID

New Edition Hanyu Pinyin Syllable Table

Basic Rules of Hanyu Pinyin Orthography by Zhou Youguang (Pinyin.info)

Table of Combinations of Initials and Finals (Pinyin.info)

Chinese text annotation

Free Chinese Pronunciation Online

Pinyin Listening Test for 4 Tones

Pinyin Tone Recognition Test

Category:ISO standards Category:Chinese romanization Category:Phonetic alphabets Category:Chinese words and phrases Category:Mandarin words and phrases Category:Phonetic guides Category:Ruby characters

Coordinates	25°45′″N100°17′″N
Name	Jeff Buckley
Background	solo_singer
Birth name	Jeffrey Scott Buckley
Alias	Scott "Scotty" Moorhead
Born	November 17, 1966Anaheim, California, USA
Died	May 29, 1997Memphis, Tennessee, USA
Instrument	Vocals, guitar
Genre	Alternative rock, folk
Occupation	Singer-songwriter, musician
Years active	1991–1997
Label	Columbia
Associated acts	Tim Buckley, The A.M., Shinehead, Gods and Monsters
Url	www.jeffbuckley.com
Notable instruments	Voice, guitar

Jeffrey Scott "Jeff" Buckley (November 17, 1966 – May 29, 1997), raised as Scotty Moorhead, was an American singer-songwriter and guitarist. He was the son of Tim Buckley, also a musician. After a decade as a guitarist-for-hire in Los Angeles, Buckley amassed a following in the early 1990s by playing cover songs at venues in Manhattan's East Village, such as Sin-é, gradually focusing more on his own material. After rebuffing much interest from record labels and his father's manager Herb Cohen, he signed with Columbia, recruited a band, and recorded what would be his only studio album, Grace.

Over the following two years, the band toured widely to promote the album, including concerts in the U.S., Europe, Japan and Australia. In 1996, they stopped touring and made sporadic attempts to record his second album in New York with Tom Verlaine as producer. In 1997, Buckley moved to Memphis, Tennessee, to resume work on the album, to be titled My Sweetheart the Drunk, recording many four-track demos while also playing weekly solo shows at a local venue. While awaiting the arrival of his band from New York, he drowned during a spontaneous evening swim — fully clothed — in the Wolf River, when he was caught in the wake of a passing boat. His body was found on June 4, 1997.

Since his death, there have been many posthumous releases of his material, including a collection of four-track demos and studio recordings for his unfinished second album My Sweetheart the Drunk and expansions of debut album Grace and his Live at Sin-é EP. Chart success also came posthumously; with Leonard Cohen's song, "Hallelujah" he attained his first #1 on Billboard's Hot Digital Songs in March 2008 and reached #2 in the UK Singles Chart at Christmas 2008. Buckley and his work remain popular and are regularly featured in 'greatest' lists in the music press.

Early life

Born in Anaheim, California, while his father was the descendant of Irish immigrants from Cork. Buckley was raised by his mother and stepfather, Ron Moorhead, in Southern California, and had a half-brother, Corey Moorhead. Buckley moved many times in and around Orange County while growing up with a single mother, an upbringing Buckley called "rootless trailer trash". As a child, Buckley was known as Scott "Scotty" Moorhead based on his middle name and his stepfather's surname. After his father died of a drug overdose in 1975, he chose to go by Buckley and his real first name, which he found on his birth certificate. To members of his family he remained "Scotty".

Buckley was brought up around music. His mother was a classically trained pianist and cellist. His stepfather introduced him to Led Zeppelin, Queen, Jimi Hendrix, The Who, and Pink Floyd at an early age. Buckley grew up singing around the house and in harmony with his mother, later noting that all his family sang. Buckley began playing guitar at the age of five after discovering an acoustic guitar in his grandmother's closet. Led Zeppelin's Physical Graffiti was the first album he ever owned; the hard rock band Kiss was also an early favorite. At the age of 12, he decided to become a musician, He attended Loara High School, and played in the school's jazz band. During this time, he developed an affinity for progressive rock bands such as Rush, Genesis, and Yes, as well as jazz fusion guitarist Al Di Meola.

After graduating from high school, he moved north to Hollywood to attend the Musicians Institute, completing the one-year course at the age of 19. Buckley later told Rolling Stone the school was "the biggest waste of time",

Early career

Buckley spent the next six years working in a hotel and playing guitar in various struggling bands playing in styles from jazz, reggae, and roots rock to heavy metal. He toured with the dancehall reggae artist Shinehead and also played the occasional funk and R&B; studio session, collaborating with fledgling producer Michael J. Clouse to form X-Factor Productions. Throughout this period, Buckley limited his singing to backing vocals.

He moved to New York City in February 1990, but found few opportunities to work as a musician. He was introduced to Qawwali, the devotional music of Pakistan, and to Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan, one of its best-known singers. Buckley was an impassioned fan of Khan, and during his cafe days, he had often covered Khan's songs. In January 1996, he interviewed Khan for Interview and wrote liner notes for Khan's Supreme Collection, Vol. 1 compilation. Buckley also became interested in blues musician Robert Johnson and hardcore punk band Bad Brains during this time. Cohen and Buckley hoped to attract attention from the music industry with the demo tape.

Buckley flew back to New York early the following year to make his public singing debut at a tribute concert for his father called "Greetings from Tim Buckley". The event, produced by show business veteran Hal Willner, was held at St. Ann's Church in Brooklyn on April 26, 1991. With accompaniment by experimental rock guitarist Gary Lucas, Buckley performed "I Never Asked To Be Your Mountain", a song Tim Buckley wrote about an infant Jeff Buckley and his mother. Buckley returned to the stage to play "Sefronia – The King's Chain", "Phantasmagoria in Two", and concluded the concert with "Once I Was" performed acoustically with an impromptu a cappella ending, due to a snapped guitar string. Buckley's performance at the concert was counter-intuitive to his desire to distance himself musically from his father. Buckley later explained his reasoning to Rolling Stone: "It wasn't my work, it wasn't my life. But it bothered me that I hadn't been to his funeral, that I'd never been able to tell him anything. I used that show to pay my last respects."

On subsequent trips to New York in mid-1991, Buckley began co-writing with Gary Lucas resulting in the songs "Grace" and "Mojo Pin", and by late 1991 he began performing with Lucas' band Gods and Monsters around New York City. After being offered a development deal as a member of Gods and Monsters at Imago Records, Buckley moved back to New York to the Lower East Side at the end of 1991. The day after Gods and Monsters officially debuted in March 1992, Buckley decided to leave the band.

Buckley began performing at several clubs and cafés around Lower Manhattan, but Sin-é in the East Village became his main venue. and quickly earned a regular Monday night slot there. His repertoire consisted of a diverse range of folk, rock, R&B;, blues and jazz cover songs, much of it music he had newly learned. During this period, he discovered singers such as Nina Simone, Billie Holiday, Van Morrison, and Judy Garland. Buckley performed an eclectic selection of covers from a range of artists from Led Zeppelin, Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan, Bob Dylan, Édith Piaf, Elton John, The Smiths, Bad Brains, Leonard Cohen, Robert Johnson Original songs from the Babylon Dungeon Sessions, and the songs he'd written with Gary Lucas were also included in his set lists. Industry maven Clive Davis even dropped by to see him. for a three-album, essentially million-dollar deal in October 1992. Recording dates were set for July and August 1993 for what would become Buckley's recording debut, an EP of four songs which included a cover of Van Morrison's "The Way Young Lovers Do". Live at Sin-é was released on November 23, 1993, documenting this period of Buckley's life.

Grace

In mid-1993, Buckley began working on his first album with record producer Andy Wallace, who had mixed Nirvana's multi-platinum album Nevermind. Buckley assembled a band, composed of bassist Mick Grondahl and drummer Matt Johnson, and spent several weeks rehearsing. In September, the trio headed to Bearsville Studios in Woodstock, New York to spend six weeks recording basic tracks for what would become Grace. Buckley invited ex-bandmate Lucas to play guitar on the songs "Grace" and "Mojo Pin", and Woodstock-based jazz musician Karl Berger wrote and conducted string arrangements with Buckley assisting at times. Buckley returned home for overdubbing at studios in Manhattan and New Jersey where he performed take after take to capture the perfect vocals and experimented with ideas for additional instruments, and added textures to the songs.

In January 1994, Buckley left to go on his first solo North American tour to support Live at Sin-é. Buckley played clubs and coffeehouses and made in-store appearances. In June, Buckley began his first full band tour called the "Peyote Radio Theatre Tour" that lasted into August. Pretender Chrissie Hynde, Soundgarden's Chris Cornell, and The Edge from U2 were among the attendees of these early shows.

Grace was released on August 23, 1994. In addition to seven original songs, the album included three covers: "Lilac Wine", based on the version by Nina Simone; and "Hallelujah" by Leonard Cohen, based on John Cale's recording from the Cohen tribute album, I'm Your Fan. by Time, and is included on Rolling Stone's list of "The 500 Greatest Songs of All Time".

Sales of Grace were slow and it garnered little radio airplay, despite critical acclaim. The Sydney Morning Herald proclaimed it "a romantic masterpiece" and a "pivotal, defining work". Despite slow initial sales the album went gold in France and Australia over the next two years, and selling over six times platinum in Australia in 2006.

Grace won appreciation from a host of revered musicians, including members of Buckley's biggest influence, Led Zeppelin. Jimmy Page considered Grace close to being his "favorite album of the decade". Robert Plant was also complimentary. Others who had influenced Buckley's music lauded him: Bob Dylan named Buckley "one of the great songwriters of this decade", The album eventually went on to feature in Rolling Stone's 500 Greatest Albums of All Time in 2003, appearing at #303.

Concert tours

Buckley spent much of the next year and a half touring internationally to promote Grace. From the album's release, he played in numerous countries, from Australia, to the UK (Glastonbury Festival and the 1995 Meltdown Festival — at which he sang Henry Purcell's 'Dido's Lament' — at the invitation of Elvis Costello). Following Buckley's Peyote Radio Theater tour, the band began a European tour on August 23, 1994, starting with performances in the UK and Ireland. The tour continued in Scandinavia and, throughout September, numerous concerts in Germany were played. The tour ended on September 22 with a concert in Paris. A gig on September 24 in New York dovetailed on to the end of the European tour and Buckley and band spent the next month relaxing and rehearsing. The short tour largely consisted of promotional work in London and Paris.

In late January, the band did their first tour of Japan, playing concerts and appearing for promotion of the album and newly released Japanese single "Last Goodbye". The band returned to Europe on February 6 and toured various Western European countries before returning to the U.S. on March 6. Among the gigs performed during this period, Buckley and his band performed at a 19th century built French venue, the Bataclan, and material from the concert was recorded and later released in October of that year as a four track EP, Live from the Bataclan. Also, songs from a performance on February 25, at the venue Nighttown in Rotterdam, were subsequently released as a promotional-only CD, So Real.

Touring recommenced in April with dates across the U.S. and Canada. During this period Buckley and the band notably played Metro in Chicago, which was recorded on video and later released as Live in Chicago on VHS and later on DVD. In addition, on June 4 they played at Sony Music Studios for the Sony Music radio hour. Following this was a month long European tour between June 20 and July 18 in which they played many summer music festivals. During the tour, Buckley played two concerts at the Paris Olympia, a venue made famous by the French vocalist Édith Piaf, that he considered the finest performances of his career. Shortly after this Buckley attended the Festival de la Musique Sacrée (Festival of Sacred Music), also held in France, and performed "What Will You Say" as a duet with Alim Qasimov, an Azerbaijani mugham singer. Sony BMG has since released a live album, 2001's Live a L'Olympia, which has a selection of songs from both Olympia performances and the collaboration with Qasimov.

Buckley's Mystery White Boy tour, playing concerts in both Sydney and Melbourne, Australia, lasted between August 28 and September 6 and recordings of these performances were compiled and released on the live album Mystery White Boy. Buckley was so well received during these concerts that his album Grace went gold in Australia, selling over 35,000 copies, and taking this into account he decided a longer tour was needed and returned for a tour of New Zealand and Australia in February the following year.

Following Johnson's departure, the band, now without a drummer, was put on hold and did not perform live again until February 12, 1997. Due to the pressure from extensive touring, Buckley spent the majority of the year away from the stage. However, from May 2 to May 5 he played a short stint as bass guitarist with Mind Science of the Mind, with friend Nathan Larson, then guitarist of Shudder to Think.}}

Sketches for My Sweetheart the Drunk

After completing touring in 1996, Buckley started to write for a new album to be called My Sweetheart the Drunk. Buckley worked with Patti Smith on her 1996 album Gone Again and met fellow collaborater Tom Verlaine, an ex-Television member. Buckley asked Verlaine to be producer on the new album and he agreed. In the middle of 1996, Buckley and his band began recording sessions in Manhattan with Verlaine. Eric Eidel played the drums through these sessions as a stop-gap between the dates drummer Matt Johnson left and before Parker Kindred joined as full-time drummer. Around this time Buckley met Inger Lorre of The Nymphs in an East Village bar, struck up a fast and close friendship. Together, they contributed a track to , a Jack Kerouac tribute album. He became very attached to one of the songs from the album, "Yard of Blonde Girls", and covered it on Sketches for My Sweetheart the Drunk. Another recording session in Manhattan followed in early 1997, but Buckley and the band were unsatisfied and the album was not considered finished.

On February 4, 1997, Buckley played a short set at The Knitting Factory's tenth anniversary concert featuring a selection of his new songs: "Jewel Box", "Morning Theft", "Everybody Here Wants You", "The Sky is a Landfill" and "Yard of Blonde Girls". Lou Reed was there to watch Later that month, Buckley recorded a spoken word reading of the Edgar Allan Poe poem, "Ulalume", for the album Closed on Account of Rabies. This would be his last recording in New York; shortly after, he moved to Memphis, Tennessee.

Buckley became interested in recording at Easley McCain Recording in Memphis, at the suggestion of friend Dave Shouse from the Grifters. He rented a shotgun house there, of which he was so fond he contacted the owner about the possibility of buying it. Throughout this period, February 12 to May 26, 1997, Buckley played at Barristers', a bar located in downtown Memphis underneath a parking garage in an alley off of Jefferson Avenue. He played numerous times in order to work through the new material in a live atmosphere, at first with band and then solo as part of a Monday night residency. In early February, Buckley and the band did a third recording session with Verlaine, in Memphis, but Buckley expressed his dissatisfaction with the sessions and later called Grace producer, Andy Wallace, to step in as Verlaine's replacement. a slackwater channel of the Mississippi River, while wearing boots, all of his clothing, and singing the chorus of the song "Whole Lotta Love" by Led Zeppelin. Buckley had gone swimming there several times before. A roadie in Buckley's band, Keith Foti, remained on shore. After moving a radio and guitar out of reach of the wake from a passing tugboat, Foti looked up to see that Buckley had vanished. Despite a determined rescue effort that night, Buckley remained missing. On June 4, two locals spotted his body in the Mississippi River near a riverboat, and it was brought to land.

An autopsy to clarify the cause of Buckley's death showed no signs of drugs or alcohol in his system and the death was ruled as an accidental drowning. The following statement was released from the Buckley estate: }}

Legacy

After Buckley's death, a collection of demo recordings and a full-length album he had been reworking for his second album were released as Sketches for My Sweetheart the Drunk — the compilation being overseen by his mother, Mary Guibert, band members and old friend Michael J. Clouse, as well as Chris Cornell. The album achieved gold sales in Australia in 1998. Three other albums composed of live recordings have also been released, along with a live DVD of a performance in Chicago. A previously unreleased 1992 recording of "I Shall Be Released", sung by Buckley over the phone on live radio, was released on the album For New Orleans.

Since his death, Buckley has been the subject of numerous documentaries: Fall in Light, a 1999 production for French TV, Goodbye and Hello, a program about Buckley and his father produced for Netherlands TV in 2000 and Everybody Here Wants You, a documentary made in 2002 by the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC). An hour long documentary about Buckley called has been shown at various film festivals to critical acclaim. The film was released worldwide in 2009 by Sony BMG Legacy as part of the Grace Around The World Deluxe Edition. In the spring of 2009 it was revealed that Ryan Jaffe, best known for scripting the movie The Rocker, had replaced Brian Jun as screenwriter. Orion Williams is also set to co-produce the film with Michelle Sy. A separate project involving the book Dream Brother was allegedly cancelled.

PJ Harvey knew him personally and in the song "Memphis", she takes lines from a song on his unfinished album, "Morning Theft", and in her own words reflects on Buckley's death: "In Memphis...die suddenly, at a wonderful age, we're ready to go".

Rufus Wainwright, whose career had barely started when he met Buckley, wrote "Memphis Skyline" in tribute to him, singing "then came hallelujah sounding like Ophelia, for me in my room living, turn back and you will stay, under the Memphis Skyline".

Duncan Sheik also wrote and recorded the song "A Body Goes Down", from his 1998 album Humming in response to Buckley's death.

Steve Adey wrote a song tribute entitled "Mississippi" on his 2006 album All Things Real. The song contains the lyrics "Until the morning thief steals the humming of the Lord", a reference to Buckley's song "Morning Theft".

Willie Nile’s On The Road To Calvary from his 1999 album Beautiful Wreck Of The World was written as a tribute to Buckley.

Juliana Hatfield has written two songs related to her grieving for Buckley: "Trying Not To Think About It" on her EP Please Do Not Disturb and "Until Tomorrow" on Beautiful Creature.

Mike Doughty's song "Grey Ghost" from his album Haughty Melodic was written in response to Buckley's death.

Chris Cornell wrote a tribute song entitled "Wave Goodbye" on his first solo album Euphoria Morning.

In May and June 2007, Buckley's life and music were celebrated globally with tributes in Australia, Canada, England, France, Iceland, Israel, Ireland, Macedonia, Portugal and the U.S. Many of Buckley's family members attended the various tribute concerts across the globe, some of which they helped organize. There are three annual Jeff Buckley tribute events: the Chicago-based Uncommon Ground, featuring a three day concert schedule, An Evening With Jeff Buckley, an annual New York City tribute, and the Australia-based Fall In Light. The latter event is run by the Fall In Light Foundation, which in addition to the concerts runs a "Guitars for Schools" program. The name of the foundation is taken from the lyrics of Buckley's "New Year's Prayer".

On March 7, 2008, Buckley’s version of the Leonard Cohen song, “Hallelujah”, went to No. 1 on the iTunes chart, selling 178,000 downloads for the week, after being performed by Jason Castro on the seventh season of the television series American Idol. The song debuted at #1 that week on Billboards Hot Digital Songs chart, giving Buckley his first #1 on any Billboard chart.

In a similar vein, the 2008 UK X Factor winner, Alexandra Burke, released a cover of "Hallelujah" with the intent to top the UK Singles Chart as the Christmas number one single. Buckley fans countered this, launching a campaign with the aim of propelling Buckley's version to the number one spot. The campaign picked up support through social network websites and it soon spread to the mainstream media. Buckley's version of the song entered the UK charts at #49 on November 30 and by December 21 it had reached #2; in spite of the fact that it had not been released in a physical format.

In 2009, actress and singer Scarlett Johansson covered Buckley's "Last Goodbye" for the soundtrack of her film He's Just Not That Into You.

Discography

Grace (1994)

Sketches for My Sweetheart the Drunk (1998)

Awards and nominations

The Académie Charles Cros awarded Buckley the "Grand Prix International Du Disque" on April 13, 1995 in honor of his debut album Grace. Rolling Stone magazine nomination for Best New Artist, 1995. In 2006, Mojo named Grace the #1 Modern Rock Classic of all Time. It was also rated as Australia's second favorite album on My Favourite Album, a television special aired by the Australian Broadcasting Corporation on December 3, 2006. Grammy Award nomination for Best Male Rock Vocal Performance for "Everybody Here Wants You", 1998. On the Triple J Hottest 100 of All Time, 2009, Buckley's version of "Hallelujah" was voted in 3rd place, Last Goodbye was 7th, Lover, You Should've Come Over was 56th and Grace came in 69th.

Equipment

Buckley used several guitars, but mainly played a 1983 Fender Telecaster and a Rickenbacker 360/12.

Detailed equipment list

;Guitars

1983 Fender Telecaster (main guitar) - cream color with chrome pickguard and Seymour Duncan Hot Lead Stack STK-T2b pickup in the bridge.

Gibson Les Paul Custom 'Black Beauty'

Rickenbacker 360/12 sunburst

Ibanez Talman green color

Fender Jaguar cream color

Guild acoustic

Bentley Series 10 Telecaster flower painted

Hagström I black

Silhouette Music Man black

Yamaha fg-470S acoustic

Gibson Guitar Corporation Robert Johnson L-1

Fender Jazz Bass black

Dobro Resonator

Indian string sitar with bow in wooden case

;Amplification

Fender Twin Reverb

Fender Vibroverb

Mesa Boogie Tremoverb 33x34x42 Mesa 4x12 guitar cabinets (2)

Fender Custom Vibrolux Reverb

;Effects

Alesis Quadraverb

Boss Hyper Fuzz

Boss power supply & master switch

Dunlop Tremolo volume pedal

MXR Fuzz Unit

MXR Blue Box

DOD Buzz Box

Morley A/B Switch Box

Real Tube Overdrive

Marshall Drive Master

Digitech Whammy II with Microphones

Hi band Flanger

Whirlwind A/B boxes

Mesa Rectifier Switches

Boss Chromatic Tuners

TC Electronic Stereo Chorus

Electrro-Harmonix Hot Tubes Overdrive Simulator

Boss Power supply and master switch

Stewart Direct Boxes

Instrumentation

Buckley was primarily a singer and guitarist; however, he also played other instruments on various studio recordings and sessions, including bass, dobro, mandolin, harmonium (intro to Lover, You Should've Come Over), organ, dulcimer (Dream Brother intro), tabla, esraj, harmonica.

Notes

References

Browne, David. . HarperEntertainment. 2001, 2002. ISBN 0-380-80624-X

Kane, Rebecca. "Kingdom for a Kiss—The Jeff Buckley F.A.Q.". 1998, 1999. Retrieved on 2008-06-13.

Biography from jeffbuckley.com Retrieved on 2008-06-13.

Further reading

Price, Chris & Harland, Joe. Live Fast, Die Young: Misadventures in Rock & Roll America. Summersdale. 2010. ISBN 978-1-84953-049-1

Apter, Jeff. A Pure Drop: The Life of Jeff Buckley. Backbeat Books. 2009. ISBN 978-0-87930-954-1

David Bret Trailblazers: The Tragic Lives of Gram Parsons, Nick Drake & Jeff Buckley, JR Books, London, 2009

Brooks, Daphne. Jeff Buckley's Grace. Continuum International Publishing Group. 2005. ISBN 0-8264-1635-7

Buckley, Jeff. Jeff Buckley Collection. Hal Leonard. 2002. ISBN 0-634-02265-2

Cyr, Merri and Buckley, Jeff. Wished for Song: A Portrait of Jeff Buckley Hal Leonard. 2002. ISBN 0-634-03595-9

External links

Official site

Amazing Grace documentary

'Hallelujah – Jeff Buckley (Written By Leonard Cohen)' Mini-Review on Stray Poetry

Jeff Buckley Videos Official Sony BMG music videos

Category:1966 births Category:1997 deaths Category:American male singers Category:American rock guitarists Category:American rock singer-songwriters Category:American rock singers Category:American tenors Category:American countertenors Category:Songwriters from California Category:Musicians from California Category:Columbia Records artists Category:Deaths by drowning Category:American people of Greek descent Category:American musicians of French descent Category:American musicians of Irish descent Category:American people of Irish descent Category:Musicians from New York Category:People from Greenwich Village, New York Category:American people of Panamanian descent Category:People from Anaheim, California Category:Torch singers Category:Accidental deaths in Tennessee