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Thirty-seven symbols annotating Mandarin sound.
Also known as: Bopomofo, Zhuyin
The Chinese phonetic notation of thirty-seven symbols, used to annotate pronunciation and as the standard input method in Taiwan.
Annotate the pronunciation of a Chinese character.
Contexts: Language and transcription, History
Is nicknamed bopomofo after its first four symbols, in the same way the alphabet is named after alpha and beta; the set was adopted in 1918 and remains the standard in Taiwan where the mainland adopted Pinyin in 1958.
Contexts: Language and transcription, History
Is written vertically beside the character rather than above or below it, which is what lets it annotate a text without disturbing the character grid — a property Latin-letter Pinyin does not have and the reason the two notations are used in different places.
Contexts: Language and transcription, History
A set of short symbols each of a few strokes, derived from fragments of Chinese characters, written in a narrow column to the right of the character they annotate.
The other phonetic notation for the same language.