Writing systems for Taiwanese
A widely held belief about written Chinese is that it is the unified language which brings together the disparate 'dialects' of Chinese. In fact, written Chinese is a form of standardized Mandarin and consequently is like learning a foreign language for speakers of Chinese variants other than Mandarin.
Over the years a number of methods have been devised for writing in Taiwanese. These systems fall in to three basic categories: character-based, romanizations, and other phonetic scripts. Historically the most popular has been romanization, particularly the Peh-oe-ji system. However, many modern authors now use mixed-orthography Taiwanese, which combines Chinese characters and romanization.
Within these categories there are a number of different systems. If you'd like to go directly to the individual pages on particular systems, you can choose them from this list:
- Han-ji • Exclusively Chinese characters
- Han-lo • Mixed Chinese characters and romanization
- Kana • Adapted Japanese phonetic symbols
- Peh-oe-ji • The original romanization
- Phofsit Daibuun • Romanization with tonal spelling
- Tai-lo • A POJ-based government-backed system
- Taioanji • A Hangul-style phonetic system
- Taiwanese Phonetic Symbols • Adapted Zhuyin (Bopomofo)
- TLPA • Another POJ-based system
- Tongiong • based on Tongyong for Mandarin