CJKV Information Processing, 2nd Edition

Latin Characters, Transliteration, and Romanization

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37

Chinese tone mark examplesTable 2-4.

Tone Tone name Number

a

Example Meaning

None

/輕聲 (qīngshēng)

None

ma ()

Question particle

Flat

/陰平 (yīnpíng)

1

ma1 or mā ()

mother

Rising

/陽平 (yángpíng)

2

ma2 or má ()

hemp, ax

Falling-Rising

/上聲 (shǎngshēng)

3

ma3 or mǎ ()

horse

Falling

/去聲 (qùshēng)

4

ma4 or mà ()

cursing, swearing

Microsoft’s Pinyin input method uses the numeral 5 to indicate no tone.a.

It is also common to nd reference works in which Pinyin readings have no tone marks at

all—that is, no numerals and no diacritic marks. I have observed that tone marks can be

eectively omitted when the corresponding hanzi are in proximity, such as on the same

page; the hanzi themselves can be used to remove any ambiguity that arises from no in-

dication of tones. Pinyin readings provided throughout this book use diacritic marks to

indicate tone.

Japanese Transliteration Methods

ere are four Japanese transliteration systems worth exploring in the context of this

book:

e Hepburn system ( hebon shiki)

Popularized by James Curtis Hepburn, an American missionary, in 1887 in the third

edition of his dictionary, this is considered the most widely used system. is trans-

literation system was developed two years earlier, in 1885, by the Roman Character

Association ( rōmajikai).

e Kunrei system ( kunrei shiki)

Developed in 1937, this