Bopomofo
Type	Semisyllabary (letters for onsets and rimes; diacritics for tones)
Languages	Chinese languages, Formosan languages
Creator	Commission on the Unification of Pronunciation
Time period	1913 to the present, now used as ruby characters in Taiwan for Chinese, and as the principal script for Formosan
Parent systems	Oracle Bone Script Seal Script Clerical Script Bopomofo
Sister systems	Simplified Chinese, Kanji, Hanja, Chữ Nôm, Khitan script
ISO 15924	Bopo, 285
Direction	Left-to-right
Unicode alias	Bopomofo
Unicode range	U+3100–U+312F, U+31A0–U+31BF
Note: This page may contain IPA phonetic symbols.

Zhuyin fuhao (simplified Chinese: 注音符号; traditional Chinese: 注音符號; pinyin: Zhùyīn fúhào; Zhuyin Fuhao: ㄓㄨˋ ㄧㄣ ㄈㄨˊ ㄏㄠˋ; literally "phonetic symbol"), often abbreviated as zhuyin and colloquially called bopomofo,^[1] is a phonetic system for transcribing Chinese, especially Mandarin. It was introduced in the 1910s.

Consisting of 37 characters and four tone marks, it transcribes all possible sounds in Mandarin. Although phased out in Mainland China in the 1950s, this system is still widely used as an educational tool and Chinese computer input method in Taiwan.

Name[link]

Zhuyin is often called bopomofo which is derived from the names of the first four characters of the system (ㄅㄆㄇㄈ) and occasionally used to refer to pinyin in mainland China. In official documents, it is occasionally called the "Mandarin Phonetic Symbols I" (國語注音符號第一式), abbreviated as the "MPS I" (注音一式).

In English translations, the system is often called either Chu-yin or the Mandarin Phonetic Symbols.^[2][3] A romanized version of bopomofo, released in 1984, is called MPS II.

History[link]

The Commission on the Unification of Pronunciation, led by Woo Tsin-hang from 1912 to 1913, created a system called Guóyīn Zìmǔ (國音字母 "National Pronunciation Letters") or Zhùyīn Zìmǔ (註音字母 or 注音字母 "Sound-annotating Letters")^[2] which is based on Zhang Binglin's shorthands.

A draft was released on July 11, 1913, by the Republic of China National Ministry of Education, but it was not officially proclaimed until November 23, 1928.^[2] zhùyīn zìmǔ was renamed zhùyīn fúhào in April 1930.

The symbols were initially called Zhùyīn Zìmǔ ("Phonetic Alphabet"); later they were also called Guóyīn Zìmǔ ("National Phonetic Alphabet"). The fear that they might be considered an alphabetic system of writing independent of characters led to their being renamed Zhùyīn Fúhào ("Phonetic Symbols") in 1930.^[4]

After 1949, bopomofo was superseded in mainland China by the pinyin system promulgated by the People's Republic of China, but its use is retained in Taiwan.

Modern use[link]

Bopomofo remains the predominant phonetic system in teaching reading and writing in elementary school in Taiwan. It is also one of the most popular ways to enter Chinese characters into computers and look up characters in a dictionary in Taiwan.

In elementary school, particularly in the lower years, Chinese characters in textbooks are often annotated with bopomofo as ruby characters as an aid to learning. Additionally, one newspaper in Taiwan, the Mandarin Daily News annotates all articles with bopomofo ruby characters.

In teaching Mandarin, Taiwan institutions and some overseas communities still use bopomofo as a learning tool.

Besides transcribing Chinese, bopomofo is also used as the primary writing system for a few aboriginal languages of Taiwan, such as Atayal,^[5] Seediq,^[6] Paiwan,^[7] or Tao.^[8] It is sometimes used to annotate Taiwanese Hokkien,^[9] a widely spoken Chinese language in Taiwan, however pe̍h-ōe-jī romanization is more common in use.

Etymology[link]

The zhuyin letters were created by Zhang Binglin, and mainly taken from "regularized" forms of ancient Chinese characters, the modern readings of which contain the sound that each letter represents.

Origin of zhuyin symbols

Consonants
Zhuyin	Origin	IPA	Pinyin	WG	Example
ㄅ	From 勹, the ancient form and current top portion of 包 bāo	p	b	p	八 (ㄅㄚ, bā)
ㄆ	From 攵, the combining form of 攴 pū	pʰ	p	p'	杷 (ㄆㄚˊ, pá)
ㄇ	From 冂, the archaic character and current radical 冖 mì	m	m	m	馬 (ㄇㄚˇ, mǎ)
ㄈ	From 匚 fāng	f	f	f	法 (ㄈㄚˇ, fǎ)
ㄉ	From the archaic form of 刀 dāo. Compare the bamboo form File:Dao1 knife bamboo graph.png.	t	d	t	地 (ㄉㄧˋ, dì)
ㄊ	From the upside-down 子 seen at the top of 充	tʰ	t	t'	提 (ㄊㄧˊ, tí)
ㄋ	From File:Nai3 chu silk form.png/𠄎, ancient form of 乃 nǎi	n	n	n	你 (ㄋㄧˇ, nǐ)
ㄌ	From the archaic form of 力 lì	l	l	l	利 (ㄌㄧˋ, lì)
ㄍ	From the obsolete character 巜 guì/kuài" 'river'	k	g	k	告 (ㄍㄠˋ, gào)
ㄎ	From the archaic character 丂 kǎo	kʰ	k	k'	考 (ㄎㄠˇ, kǎo)
ㄏ	From the archaic character and current radical 厂 hàn	x	h	h	好 (ㄏㄠˇ, hǎo)
ㄐ	From the archaic character 丩 jiū	tɕ	j	ch	叫 (ㄐㄧㄠˋ, jiào)
ㄑ	From the archaic character ㄑ quǎn, graphic root of the character 巛 chuān (modern 川)	tɕʰ	q	ch'	巧 (ㄑㄧㄠˇ, qiǎo)
ㄒ	From 丅, an ancient form of 下 xià.	ɕ	x	hs	小 (ㄒㄧㄠˇ, xiǎo)
ㄓ	From File:Zhi1 seal.png/㞢, archaic form of 之 zhī.	ʈʂ	zh	ch	主 (ㄓㄨˇ, zhǔ)
ㄔ	From the character and radical 彳 chì	ʈʂʰ	ch	ch'	出 (ㄔㄨ, chū)
ㄕ	From the character 尸 shī	ʂ	sh	sh	束 (ㄕㄨˋ, shù)
ㄖ	Modified from the seal script form of 日 rì	ʐ	r	j	入 (ㄖㄨˋ, rù)
ㄗ	From the archaic character and current radical 卩 jié, dialectically zié	ts	z	ts	在 (ㄗㄞˋ, zài)
ㄘ	Variant of 七 qī, dialectically ciī. Compare semi-cursive form File:Qi1 seven semicursive.png and seal-script File:Qi1 seven seal.png.	tsʰ	c	ts'	才 (ㄘㄞˊ, cái)
ㄙ	From the archaic character 厶 sī, which was later replaced by its compound 私 sī.	s	s	s	塞 (ㄙㄞ, sāi)
Rhymes & Medials
Zhuyin	Origin	IPA	Pinyin	WG	Example
ㄚ	From 丫 yā	a	a	a	大 (ㄉㄚˋ, dà)
ㄛ	From the obsolete character 𠀀 hē, inhalation, the reverse of 丂 kǎo, which is preserved as a phonetic in the compound 可 kě.[10]	ɔ	o	o	多 (ㄉㄨㄛ, duō)
ㄜ	Derived from its allophone in Standard Chinese, ㄛ o	ɤ	e	o/ê	得 (ㄉㄜˊ, dé)
ㄝ	From 也 yě. Compare the Warring States bamboo form File:Ye3 also chu3jian3 warring state of chu3 small.png	ɛ	ê	eh	爹 (ㄉㄧㄝ, diē)
ㄞ	From 𠀅 hài, bronze form of 亥.	aɪ	ai	ai	晒 (ㄕㄞˋ, shài)
ㄟ	From 乁 yí, an obsolete character meaning 移 yí "to move".	eɪ	ei	ei	誰 (ㄕㄟˊ, shéi)
ㄠ	From 幺 yāo	ɑʊ	ao	ao	少 (ㄕㄠˇ, shǎo)
ㄡ	From 又 yòu	oʊ	ou	ou	收 (ㄕㄡ, shōu)
ㄢ	From the obsolete character ㄢ hàn "to bloom", preserved as a phonetic in the compound 犯 fàn	an	an	an	山 (ㄕㄢ, shān)
ㄣ	From 乚 yǐn	ən	en	ên	申 (ㄕㄣ, shēn)
ㄤ	From 尢 wāng	ɑŋ	ang	ang	上 (ㄕㄤˋ, shàng)
ㄥ	From 厶, an obsolete form of 厷 gōng	ɤŋ	eng	êng	生 (ㄕㄥ, shēng)
ㄦ	From 儿, the bottom portion of 兒 ér used as a cursive form	əɻ	er	êrh	而 (ㄦˊ, ér)
ㄧ	From 一 yī	i	i/y	i	逆 (ㄋㄧˋ, nì)
ㄨ	From 㐅, ancient form of 五 wǔ.	u	u/w	u/w	努 (ㄋㄨˇ, nǔ)
ㄩ	From the ancient character 凵 qū, which remains as a radical	y	ü/yu/u	ü/yü	女 (ㄋㄩˇ, nǚ)
ㄭ	Perhaps 市, in addition to ㄓ. It is the minimal vowel of ㄓ, ㄔ, ㄕ, ㄖ, ㄗ, ㄘ, ㄙ.	z̩/ʐ̩	-i	ih/û	資 (ㄗ, zī)

The zhuyin characters are represented in typographic fonts as if drawn with an ink brush (as in Regular Script). They are encoded in Unicode in the bopomofo block, in the range U+3105 ... U+312D.

Writing[link]

Stroke order[link]

Bopomofo is written in the same stroke order rule as Chinese characters. Note that ㄖ is written with three strokes, unlike the character from which it is derived (日, Hanyu Pinyin: rì), which has four strokes.

Tonal marks[link]

The tone marks used in Bopomofo for the second, third, and fourth tones are the same as the ones used in Hanyu Pinyin. In Bopomofo, no marker is used for the first tone and a dot denotes the neutral tone, whereas in Pinyin, a dash (¯) represents the first tone and no marker is used for the neutral tone.

Unlike Hanyu Pinyin, bopomofo aligns well with the hanzi characters in books whose texts are printed vertically, making bopomofo better suited for annotating the pronunciation of vertically oriented Chinese text.

Bopomofo, when used in conjunction with Chinese characters, are typically placed to the right of the Chinese character vertically or to the top of the Chinese character in a horizontal print (see Ruby character).

Below is an example for the word "bottle" (pinyin: píngzi):

Comparison[link]

Bopomofo and pinyin are based on the same Mandarin pronunciations, hence there is a 1-to-1 correspondence between the two systems. In the table below, the 'bopomofo' and 'pinyin' columns show equivalency.

Other languages[link]

Zhuyin is used to write several varieties of Chinese as well as some Formosan languages.^{[citation needed]}

Three letters formerly used in non-standard dialects of Mandarin are now also used to write other Chinese languages. Some bopomofo fonts do not contain these letters; see External links for PDF pictures.

In addition, diacritics were used to create new letters for Min-nan and Hakka.

Extended bopomofo

Zhuyin		IPA	POJ	Pinyin		Zhuyin		IPA	POJ	Pinyin		Zhuyin		IPA	POJ	Pinyin		Zhuyin		IPA	POJ	Pinyin
ㆠ		b	b	bb		ㆦ		ɔ	o͘	oo		ㆬ		m̩	m	m		ㆲ		ɔŋ	ong	ong
ㆡ		dz	j	zz		ㆧ		ɔ̃	oⁿ	onn		ㆭ		ŋ̍	ng	ng		ㆳ		Same as ㆪ
ㆢ		dʑ	ji	zzi		ㆨ		ɨ	u	ir		ㆮ		ãĩ	aiⁿ	ainn		ㆴ		p̚	-p	-p
ㆣ		ɡ	g	gg		ㆩ		ã	aⁿ	ann		ㆯ		ãũ	auⁿ	aunn		ㆵ		t̚	-t	-t
ㆤ		e	e	e		ㆪ		ĩ	iⁿ	inn		ㆰ		am	am	am		ㆶ		k̚	-k	-k
ㆥ		ẽ	eⁿ	enn		ㆫ		ũ	uⁿ	unn		ㆱ		ɔm	om	om		ㆷ		ʔ	-h	-h

Computer uses[link]

Input method[link]

An example of a bopomofo keypad for Taiwan.

Bopomofo can be used as an input method for Chinese characters. It is one of the few input methods that can be found on most modern personal computers without the user having to download or install any additional software. It is also one of the few input methods that can be used for inputting Chinese characters on certain cell phones.

A typical keyboard layout for bopomofo on computers.

Unicode[link]

Bopomofo was added to the Unicode Standard in October, 1991 with the release of version 1.0.

The Unicode block for Bopomofo is U+3100 ... U+312F:

Extended Bopomofo was added to the Unicode Standard in September, 1999 with the release of version 3.0.

The Unicode block for Extended Bopomofo is U+31A0 ... U+31BF:

See also[link]

• Furigana
• Zhuyin table
• Chinese language
• Mandarin Chinese
• Standard Chinese
• Pinyin
• Chinese input methods for computers
• Ruby character
• Taiwanese Hokkien
• Written Hokkien
• Fanqie

References[link]

External links[link]

Look up bopomofo in Wiktionary, the free dictionary.

• Unicode reference glyphs for bopomofoPDF (69.6 KB) and extended bopomofoPDF (61.6 KB)
• Bopomofo annotations – adds inline and pop-up annotations with bopomofo pronunciation and English definitions to Chinese text or web pages.
• Mandarin Dictionary – needs Chinese font for Big5 encoding
• Chinese Phonetic Conversion Tool – converts between Pinyin, Zhuyin and other phonetic systems
• Chinese Romanization Converter – converts between Hanyu Pinyin, Wade-Giles, Gwoyeu Romatzyh and other known or (un-)common Romanization systems
• Bopomofo -> Wade-Giles -> Pinyin -> Word List
• NPA->IPA National Phonetic Alphabet (bopomofo) spellings of words transliterated into the International Phonetic Alphabet. The vowel values have been verified against the official IPA site. See IPA help preview, SIL International website. See IPA help preview, SIL International website. (Accessed 23-12-2010).
• Bopomofo to Pinyin converter and reverse
• bopomofo syllable chart, with Hanyu Pinyin equivalents
• Pinyin Annotator – adds bopomofo (bopomofo) or pinyin on top of any Chinese text, prompts alternative pronunciations to homonyms, has the option of exporting into OpenOffice Writer for further editing
• 《請利用螢幕上的小鍵盤輸入注音符號》 – online keyboard for bopomofo which can turn it into Chinese characters
• Online Zhuyin-Bopomofo Input Method Editor 免费在线中文输入法，使用注音