Romanization of Chinese

Romanization of Chinese represents Chinese speech or writing with the Latin alphabet. Systems differ in how they spell sounds, mark tones, and handle characters.

Chinese phonology: The sound systems and patterns of the Sinitic languages, including their syllables, tones, and phonological contrasts. Romanization systems encode selected sound distinctions defined by Chinese phonology.
Hanyu Pinyin: The official romanization system for Standard Chinese in the People's Republic of China. Its letter values and tone notation make it the dominant contemporary system.
Thomas Francis Wade: A British diplomat and sinologist who developed an early romanization system for Mandarin. His system became the foundation of Wade–Giles.
Chinese input methods: Techniques for entering Chinese characters into digital devices using keyboards or other interfaces. Pinyin input converts romanized syllables into candidate Chinese characters.
Bopomofo: A phonetic notation system used chiefly in Taiwan to teach and annotate Mandarin pronunciation. It represents Mandarin sounds without using the Latin alphabet.
Chinese tones: Pitch patterns that distinguish words or grammatical forms in many varieties of Chinese. Tone marks or numbers preserve contrasts that unmarked Latin spellings can erase.
Wade–Giles: A romanization system for Mandarin developed by Thomas Wade and revised by Herbert Giles. Its apostrophes and spellings encode distinctions differently from Pinyin.
Herbert Giles: A British diplomat and sinologist who revised Wade's Mandarin romanization system. His revisions established the form now commonly called Wade–Giles.
Chinese language education: The teaching and learning of Chinese languages in formal and informal settings. Romanization supports pronunciation instruction and beginner reading, especially through Pinyin.
Chinese braille: A tactile writing system that represents Chinese pronunciation using braille cells. It encodes spoken forms through a non-Latin script rather than ordinary roman letters.

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