Pin-yin

Proper noun (1)

Pinyin

1. A system of romanization for Standard Mandarin, used in the People’s Republic of China, and more recently in other Mandarin Chinese-speaking areas as well.
   • The Chinese government began using the new system Jan. 1 in all its foreign language publications, including the English-language service of the New China News Agency. This is an important source for American journalists writing about China. The United Nations and U.S. government agencies have...
   • The old spelling system, named the Wade-Giles system after the two 19th century Britons who developed it, made correct pronunciation unnecessarily difficult. It used apostrophes to distinguish aspirated consonants, such as p'ai pronounced with a "p" sound, from unaspirated, such as pai pronounced...
   • Reading the alphabetized words still presents problems for the Chinese, however, because the spellings do not distinguish the flur separate tones in the Chinese language that can significantly change meaning. The word "ma" can mean "mother", "horse", or "scold", depending on what tone is used....1979 March 5, Jay Mathews, “China Is China, But Hangchow Is Hangzhou”, in The Washington Post, →ISSN, →OCLC, archived from the original on 29 Dec 2023

   Synonyms:

   Hanyu Pinyin

Proper noun (2)

Pinyin

1. A Grassfields Bantu language of Cameroon.

See all 3 meanings of pinyin