Bopomofo

Bopomofo, also called Zhuyin Fuhao (/dʒuːˌjɪn fuːˈhaʊ/ joo-YIN foo-HOW; 注音符號; Zhùyīn fúhào; 'phonetic symbols'), or simply Zhuyin, is a transliteration system for Standard Chinese and other Sinitic languages. It is the principal method of teaching Mandarin pronunciation in Taiwan. It consists of 37 characters and five tone marks, which together can transcribe all possible sounds in Mandarin Chinese.

Bopomofo was first introduced in China during the 1910s by the Beiyang government, where it was used alongside Wade–Giles, a romanization system which used a modified Latin alphabet. Today, Bopomofo is more common in Taiwan than on the mainland, and is used as the primary electronic input method for Taiwanese Mandarin, as well as in dictionaries and other non-official documents.

Bopomofo is the name used for the system by the International Organization for Standardization (ISO) and Unicode. Analogous to how the word alphabet is derived from the names of the first two letters alpha and beta, the name bopomofo derives from the first four syllabographs in the system's conventional consonant order: ㄅ, ㄆ, ㄇ, and ㄈ.

In Taiwan, the system is commonly known by its official name Zhuyin fuhao (注音符號; 'phonetic symbols'), or simply as zhuyin (注音; 'phonetic notation'). In official documents, it is occasionally called Mandarin Phonetic Symbols I (國語注音符號第一式), abbreviated as "MPS I" (注音一式), to distinguish it from the Mandarin Phonetic Symbols II (MPS II) system published in 1984. Formerly, the system was named Guoyin zimu (國音字母; 'national language alphabet') and Zhuyin zimu (注音字母; 'phonetic alphabet').

The Commission on the Unification of Pronunciation, led by Wu Zhihui from 1912 to 1913, created a system called Zhuyin Zimu, which was based on Zhang Binglin's shorthand. It was used as the official phonetic script to annotate the sounds of the characters in accordance with the Old National Pronunciation. A draft was released on 11 July 1913, by the Republic of China National Ministry of Education, but it was not officially proclaimed until 23 November 1928. It was first named Guóyīn Zìmǔ 'national pronunciation alphabet', but in April 1930 was renamed Zhùyīn Fúhào 'phonetic symbols' to address fears that the alphabetic system might independently replace Chinese characters.

Bopomofo is the predominant phonetic system in teaching reading and writing in elementary school in Taiwan. In elementary school, particularly in the lower years, Chinese characters in textbooks are often annotated with Bopomofo as ruby characters as an aid to learning. Additionally, one children's newspaper in Taiwan, the Mandarin Daily News, annotates all articles with Bopomofo ruby characters.

It is also the most popular way for Taiwanese to enter Chinese characters into computers and smartphones and to look up characters in a dictionary.

In teaching Mandarin, Taiwan institutions and some overseas communities such as Filipino Chinese use Bopomofo.