New Resource: The Article “Pīnyīn is a Good, Workable Writing System On Its Own”
The article “Pīnyīn is a Good, Workable Writing System On Its Own” is now available to be read on 3lines.org. Its contents were taken from the Introductions of recent Pīnyīn web resources, and it should serve as a brief overview of why it’s important for those of us in the Mandarin field to recognize that Pīnyīn is a full writing system, not just a pronunciation aid. (The article “Pīnyīn Was Plan A” provides a more in-depth discussion of how we in the Mandarin field should view Pīnyīn.)
Here is a link to the newly posted article:
- “Pīnyīn is a Good, Workable Writing System On Its Own”
(The login information required is the same as for anywhere else on 3lines.org. If you’re already on the 3lines.org site, you can find this article in the folder Misc ▶ Articles.)
The subject of Pīnyīn and the Chinese characters may be one of the most important subjects I have ever written about, since it deals with facing the most difficult fundamental aspect of the Mandarin language, the language that is the very reason that the Mandarin field exists. This article is a distillation of months of research and analysis regarding this subject, and of decades of experience in learning and teaching Mandarin in the Mandarin field. I highly recommend that anyone in or interested in the Mandarin field read it, and that they also go on to read the more in-depth article, “Pīnyīn Was Plan A”. Please feel free to pass on the information about these articles to any Witness you know who is in or interested in the Mandarin field. (Many of the principles discussed in these articles apply to the Cantonese field as well, which is evidently consolidating on the Sidney Lau system as the romanization system of choice.)
