Jonne

do you mean bopomofo? the chinese name for that is zhu4 yin1 fu3 hao4 / 注音府号

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-Jonne
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Tiyz

yes,you're partly right,the pronounciation signs that stand by the characters to give the pronounciation.
one characters usually have one kind of pronouncation
but a few characters have 2-3 kind of pronouncations, but the sound is similar.
for example: 朝 has 2 kind of pronouncations "zhao"and "chao" , "zh" and "ch" sound similar,but "zh" is sonant "ch" is surd.

It's same to English,"excuse" have 2 kind of pronouncations /ekskju:s/ and /ekskju:z/ but "s" is surd "z" is sonant

however,some pronounciations have changed in the history. but the characters haven't changed. So the pronounciation signs can give the pronounciation,but not completely.because the characters haven't changed. But people can know the ancient prose esaily, only need to learn the ancient Chinese grammar,needn't to remember the ancient word.

Jonne

zhuyin fuhao = xingshen zi ?

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DigitaL MasteR

I don't know, maybe it’s only my opinion, but I don't
think that Chinese language could be spoken all
over the world, I just find it difficult to believe,
I don't mean that it doesn't deserve, but I just
have to point to 2 points:

1- people look for easiness, and Chinese is the most difficult.
2- people nowadays are aware of the importance of their
languages, meaning that they feel and know that the remaining
of their languages means the remaining of their nation.

so I don't think that Chinese is likely to be the globe language,
but I believe that people should learn different languages to
exchange knowledge and culture, this is because learning gives
the same outcome, and keeps the uniqueness of each language
on it’s own.

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Because true friendship exists to remain and progress.
The real challenge is finding the kind of friendship;
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MikeL

It's a pity that many people feel possessive about their own language and take objective comments as if they were personal criticisms. To some extent language equates to national identity, and the link between national language and national culture is very strong. Therefore it is not surprising that purely scientific and linguistic arguments get submerged in political and cultural contentions.
However, I maintain that objective and practical arguments can be put forward for and against particular languages becoming global means of communication.
One of the most important considerations must surely be the ease with which the writing system can be acquired. Objective statistics can easily prove that the length of time it takes, for example, a Spanish or Russian child to acquire competence in reading and writing is quite different from the length of time it takes a Chinese child to reach the same level of literacy.

Tiyz

No,But I want to expain it
In China there are four phonogram, Mongolian phonogram,Tibetan phonogram,zhuyin fuhao and Pinyin
Mogolian phonogramIn 13th century,The mongoilian controled Chinese,but then they accepted Chinese culture,so They wanted to learn Chinese, so they invented the Mongolian phonogram,but other race didn't know Mongolian alphabet, so it was canceled then.
Tibet phonogram In Tang dynasty,Tibet submited to the king of Tang without any war,so Tang people and Tibetan are commuicate very close the Tibetan want to learn Chinesem, so they invented the Tibetan phonogram.
for the some reason,it was canceled then.

Zhuyin fuhao注音符号or 注音符號-------is used before 1949 in China mainland,and now used in Taiwan province. the new phonogram is based by a new alphabat.
Pinyin-- after 1949, The China mainland are controled by CCP,Taiwan are controled by KMT.So CCP create a new phonogram called pinyin to go against KMT.the new phonogram is based by latin alphabat.
xingshen zi --a part of Chinese characters which can not only express the meaning but aslo can express how to pronounce.

pluiepoco

I admire FD's insight into Chinese language, and HE is the first person that I know here who understands Chinese language in such a scientific way, because He himself is a scientist.

English is a language spoken primarily by Englishman, and other ethnic groups in the Great Britain priorly did not speak that single language, like Welsh or Scotish, Irish, they just had their own languages, some of them still exist with numerous litterature and speakers. Today's British English is a single language that expands to more than a single ethnic group in that island.

Likewise in China, we Chinese nation comprises more than 56 ethnic groups, here we call minorities, speak their own languages (different from Chinese in writing and pronoucing) and sub-languages (same in writing but different in pronoucing), but as an offical language--the Mandarin--provides a universal language both in writing and speaking uses for ordinary people to use and promote everywhere, not only in Chinese Chinese but also in Foreign Chinese.

And the same emphasis is still shared by these languages other than Mandarin, experts are studying on them separately, their peoples are speaking them, writing them and filing them to continue their ethnic group and every characteristics including the very languages.

So in a universal way, we Chinese understand each other quite well in writing, but not the same in case of speaking communication. Those are just different languages, sometimes.

Primarily, the Chinese linguistic demography can be divided into more than 8 regions, and the languages in these regions is called regionalects.

These data were disclosed in The CambridgeYearbook of Linguistics 1996

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