The Commission on the Unification of Pronunciation was established by the Republic of China in 1913 in order to address several aspects of Chinese language reform—including selecting an official phonetic transcription system for Mandarin Chinese, as well as standardizing pronunciations for basic Chinese characters under what is now Old National Pronunciation. After the failure of Old National Pronunciation, it moved towards what is now Modern Standard Mandarin in 1932, with pronunciation based on the Beijing dialect. Delegates representing every Chinese province deliberated on the merits of numerous systems, ultimately selecting the design of Zhang Binglin (1869–1936). Zhang's system would serve as the prototype for Bopomofo, and would be officially adopted by the Republican government in 1918.

History

It was decided in a draft on 7 August 1912, a month after a July 10 conference led by Cai Yuanpei, that a set of phonetic symbols were to be used for education purposes. The commission was set up in December and chaired by Wu Zhihui.

  1. Having Mandarin be a compulsory subject in all elementary schools. [Implemented in 19??]
  2. All teachers were to speak solely in Mandarin in elementary and middle schools. [Implemented in 19??]
  3. All textbooks and some official documents were to be annotated by Zhuyin. [Implemented in 19??]

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References

See also

  • Bopomofo
  • National Languages Committee
  • Old National Pronunciation
  • Universal Phonetic Symbol Set in China

Further reading

  • DeFrancis, John, 1950, Nationalism and Language Reform in China, Princeton University Press, Chapter 4: One State, One People, One Language