[Wikipedia] August 22: Gwoyeu Romatzyh

[Faraaz Damji]

   Gwoyeu Romatzyh (GR) is a system for writing Chinese in the Latin
   alphabet.  It was developed in the 1920s by a group of linguists led by
   Y.R. Chao, and is unique in its use of "tonal spelling" to indicate
   the four tones of Mandarin.  Tones are a fundamental part of the
   Chinese language: using the wrong tone sounds as puzzling as if one
   said bud in English, meaning "not good" or "the thing one sleeps in".
   Unlike other systems, which indicate tones with accents or numbers, GR
   modifies the spelling of the syllable: the four tones of guo, for
   example, are shown above (the second tone gwo, meaning "nation",
   occurs in Gwoyeu).  Some teachers believe that these distinctive
   spellings may help foreign students remember the tones.  In 1928 China
   adopted GR as the nation's official romanization system.  Although GR
   was mainly used in dictionaries, its proponents hoped one day to
   establish it as a writing system for a reformed Chinese script.  But
   despite support from trained linguists in China and overseas, GR met
   with public indifference and even hostility due to its complexity.
   Eventually GR lost ground to Pinyin and other later romanization
   systems.  However, its influence is still evident, as several of the
   principles introduced by its creators have been used in romanization
   systems that followed it.

Read the rest of this article:
   http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gwoyeu_Romatzyh


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Today's selected anniversaries:

1485:
   Lancastrian forces under Henry Tudor, Earl of Richmond defeated
   Yorkist forces under Richard III of England at the Battle of Bosworth
   Field, decisively ending the Wars of the Roses.
   (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Bosworth_Field)

1791:
   A slave rebellion erupted in the French colony of Saint-Domingue,
   starting the Haitian Revolution.
   (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haitian_Revolution)

1864:
   The Red Cross movement led by Henry Dunant officially began when
   twelve European nations signed the First Geneva Convention,
   establishing the International Committee of the Red Cross.
 
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Red_Cross_and_Red_Crescent_Movement)

1910:
   Korea was annexed by Japan with the signing of the Japan-Korea
   Annexation Treaty, beginning a period of Japanese rule of Korea that
   lasted until the end of World War II.
   (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Korea_under_Japanese_rule)

1922:
   Irish Civil War: Irish National Army commander-in-chief Michael
   Collins was assassinated in an ambush while en route through County
   Cork at the village of Béal na mBláth.
   (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Collins_%28Irish_leader%29)


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Wiktionary's Word of the day:

   reify: To regard something abstract as if it were a concrete material
   thing.
   (http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/reify)


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Wikiquote of the day:

   I wish to write down my musical dreams in a spirit of utter
   self-detachment.  I wish to sing of my interior visions with the naïve
   candour of a child.  No doubt, this simple musical grammar will jar on
   some people.  It is bound to offend the partisans of deceit and
   artifice.  I foresee that and rejoice at it.  -- Claude Debussy

   (http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Claude_Debussy)