This is my personal proposal for romanization of Standard Mandarin Chinese (官話) in Taiwan. I think both of Hanyu Pinyin (漢語拼音) and Tongyong Pinyin of Mandarin (華語通用拼音) are not familiar to customary romanized spellings in Taiwan, so I suggest another scheme modifying Wade–Giles (WG; 威妥瑪拼音).
MWG should be a modified and modernized version of Wade–Giles because the Taiwanese people are familiar with it.
The letter for ㄖ should be changed from j to r to reflect the contemporary pronunciation [ɻ]. The symbol for rhotic coda should be changed from the digraph rh to r to save the space and be unified with the homophony initial ㄖ. Note that the rhoticized coda is also simplified from the original -’rh to r (without any kind of syllable separators) in MWG.
Unaspirated initials should be changed to in the voiced counterparts in English orthography. Exceptionally, ㄗ[ts] should be changed to tz like as in Gwoyeu Romatzyh (GR, 國語羅馬字) and Mandarin Phonetic Symbols II (MPS2, 國語注音符號第二式). The diagraphtz has been also used in original WG, so it is familiar to Taiwanese people, although its usage is different.
Aspirated initials should be changed the voiceless consonants without any additional mark such as ‘ (Unicode: MODIFIER LETTER TURNED COMMA, U+02BB), ʽ (MODIFIER LETTER REVERSED COMMA, U+02BD), ‘ (LEFT SINGLE QUOTATION MARK, U+2018), ’ (RIGHT SINGLE QUOTATION MARK, U+2019) or ʼ (MODIFIER LETTER APOSTROPHE, U+02BC). Note that ㄘ[tsʰ] is written as ts.
ㄩ[y] is always written as yu like as in Tongyong Pinyin. However, ㄩㄥ[iʊŋ] is exceptionally written as iung/yung, unlike Tongyong Pinyin but like as in original WG and MPS2, to reflect actual pronunciation and preserve the familliar spelling for Taiwanese people.
The finals should be more regular and simpler.
The spelling for ㄭ[ɨ] is unified to ih like as in Tongyong Pinyin because ih and ŭ in original WG are actually synchronic variants of the one phoneme ㄭ[ɨ] and it is a diachronic variant of i ㄧ[i]. Hence, the ŭ in original WG is removed and merged with ih in MWG. In original WG, ts, ts‘ and s before ŭ should be changed to tz, tz‘ and ss respectively (i.e. tzŭ, tz‘ŭ and ssŭ), but there is no such rule in MWG.
The trigraph for ㄧㄢ[iɛn] should be changed from ien to ian to unify ㄢ[an] as an like as in many other romanizations of Mandarin.
ㄜ[ɤ], ㄝ[ɛ], ㄛ[o] and ㄨㄛ[uo] should be written e, eh, o and uo (or wo when the syllable is zero-initial) respectively.
Finals should be limited up to two variant spellings: a spelling with any initial and the other without any initial.
In MWG, A y should be always written as the first letter of a syllable that begins with ㄧ without any intials. In original WG, on the other hand, the single vowel final ㄧ without any other vowels or consonants should be always written as i even if no intial is preceded, but y's should be always written as the first letter of a syllable that begins with ㄧ without any intials. WG's rules relating ㄧ are less regular than other Mandarin romanization schemes, so they are revised like as in Hanyu Pinyin, Tongyong Pinyin and others.
ㄧㄡ[i(o)u] should be written as iu (with an initial) and you (without any initial), but never as yu because the yu is exclusively assigned for ㄩ[y].
ㄨㄟ[u(e)i] should be written as ui (with an initial) and wei (without any initial), but never as uei.
Exceptionally, the combination of ㄒ[ɕ]hs and ㄩ[y]yu should be hsu not hsyu to save the space and reflect the familliar Wade–Giles spelling without diacritics.
The first to fourth tones are represented by diacritics over syllabic phonemes and the neutral tone is represented by a middle dot before a syllable.
Italicized letters are obsolete in Taiwanese Mandarin in the Old National Pronunciation and some other Mandarin variants.
ㄯ (or sometimes simply written as ㄋ) n, ㆬ (simply ㄇ) m and ㆭ (simply ㄫ) ng in the table above are uesd for interjections, onomatopoeias or some loanwords (e.g. 噷 hm, 嗯 ńg). If a nasal consonant is the only phoneme in the final, it is a syllabic consonant. Only nasal syllabic nasal consonants are shown in the table above and other situations are not shown because they are occured only in exceptional loanwords such as names of Latin alphabet letters (e.g. Nㄝㄯ or ㄝㄋ ēhn[1]).
ㄩ (except for ㄩㄥ iung/yung: e.g. 永 yǔng, 迥 jiǔng, 雄 hsiúng) is always written as yu (e.g. 語 yǔ, 略 lyuèh), but the y is omitted if the initial is hs (e.g. 許 hsǔ, 靴 hsuēh).
ㄧㄡ is always written as you without an initial (e.g. 有 yǒu) and iu with an initial (e.g. 劉 liú) like as in Hanyu Pinyin. Unlike original WG, the yu is never used for ㄧㄡ because the digraph is exclusively assigned for ㄩ in MWG. Unlike GR, MPS2 and Tongyong Pinyin, iou is also never used in MWG.
ㄨㄟ is always written as wei without an initial (e.g. 位 wèi) and ui with an initial (e.g. 瑞 ruì, 揆 kuí) like as in Hanyu Pinyin. Unlike original WG, the uei is never used in MWG.
ㄨㄥ is written as weng without an intial (e.g. 翁 wèng) and ung with an initial (e.g. 東 dūng), but wung without an initial is also possible when it is interjections or onomatopoeias (e.g. 嗡 wēng or wūng[2]).
The first to fourth tone marks are identical to Hanyu Pinyin, e.g. ˉ (macron) for the first tone, ´ (acute accent) for the second tone, ̌ (caron) for the third tone, ` (grave accent) for the fourth tone).
Marks of the first to fourth tones are written above syllabic phonemes. If the vowel with a tone mark is i, the dot above (tittle) is omitted (e.g. 壹 yī). If a syllabic vowel is omitted (e.g. u + ei → ui), tone marks are written over the final vowel (e.g. 瑞 ruì). If a syllabic phoneme is a consonant (e.g. interjections or onomatopoeias), the tone marks are written over it. If a syllabic consonant is ng, tone marks are written over the n (e.g. 嗯 ńg).
The neutral tone should be represented by a middle dot (·) before the syllabic phoneme in principle (e.g. 嗎 ·ma).
A Middle dot may be omitted in simplified spellings.
If a syllable can be read as both of one of the first to fourth tone or the neutral tone, the both of tone marks should be written (e.g. 朋友 péng·yǒu: It can be read as both péngyǒu and péng·you).
The entering tone (入聲) in the Old National Pronunciation or some other Mandarin variants is represented as ’h (or 'h; an apostrophe and an H) after the syllable without other tone marks (e.g. 北 be’h or be'h).
The Old National Pronunciation and the current National Language pronunciation may be shown in one spelling. For example, 北 běi’h (be’h in the Old National Pronunciation and běi in the National Language), 清 ts/chīng (tsīng in the Old National Pronunciation and chīng in the National Language).
Tone sandhi of the repeated third tone should not be reflected to spellings in principle (e.g. 有點yǒudiǎn, not yóudiǎn). Tone sandhis of 七 and 八 should not be reflected to in principle also (e.g. 七萬chī wàn, not chí wàn; 八萬bā wàn, not bá wàn). However, tone sandhis of 一 and 不 should be reflected to spellings in principle (e.g. 一天yì tiān, not yī tiān; 一年yì nián, not yī nián; 一點yìdiǎn, not yīdiǎn; 不是bú shìh, not bù shìh) unlike many other Mandarin romanizations because they are too exceptional and they are never pronounced as their original tones in such situations.
However, hyphenation of family names (surnames), temple names, posthumous names, era names, non-Sinitic names (such as some Chinese and Taiwanese ethnic minority people's names, non-Sino-Korean names of some Koreans, most of Japanese personal names, Japonic names (大和名Yamatu-nā or modern names) of Ryukyuans and non-East Asian personal names are not recommended.
However, if a family name is a combination of two or more other family names (複姓 fùhsìng), it should be always hyphenated and the first letters after hyphens should be always capitalized (e.g. 林鄭月娥Lín-Jèng Yuèh-é). This rule may be also applied to non-Sinitic family names.
Spaces should be added between words.
The first letter of every sentence should be capitalized.
The rules for tones above are also applied to other Mandarin variants even if actual tone contours are different to the counterparts of Standard Mandarin.
The nn should be added to the end of the nasalizedvowel letters in the syllable.
[ɛ], [iɛ], [yɛ], [ɛ̃], [iɛ̃] and [yɛ̃] are written as ae, iae/yae, yuae, aenn, iaenn/yaenn and yuaenn respectively.
If the alveolo-palatal initials chㄑ[tɕʰ] and jㄐ[tɕ] are not followed by the iㄧ or the yuㄩ, the initials should be followed by an apostrophe (’ or '; e.g. 巧 ch’ǎo or ch'ǎo [tɕʰau˨˩˨], 件 j’àenn or j'àenn [tɕɛ̃˦˦]) to be distinguished from the retroflex initials ㄔ[ʈʂʰ] and ㄓ[ʈʂ] with same MWG spellings. If the alveolo-palatal intial hsㄒ[ɕ] is followed by the vowel ㄨ[u], an apostrophe should be added between the hs and the u to be distinguished (i.e. hs’u or hs'uㄒㄨ[ɕu]) from the original hsuㄒㄩ[ɕy] spelling.
In simplified spellings, tone marks, other diacritics, apostrophes and hyphens may be omitted.
In English documents:
The romanization of personal names or names of companies or organizations are based on the spelling they wish. Place names of Mainland China are written based on Hanyu Pinyin. Note that 山西 is written as Shanxi while 陝西 as Shaanxi reflecting the Gwoyeu Romatzyh spellings (Shanshi vs. Shaanshi).
In English documents, the MWG spellings are additionally shown for providing exact Mandarin pronunciations.
Tone marks may be replaced by the tone numbers (1, 2, 3, 4 and 0), spaces may be added between syllables, and capital letters may be replaced by small ones in computing (e.g. 中華民國的首都是臺北。Jūnghuá Mínguó ·de shǒudū shìh Táiběi. → jung1 hua2 min2 guo2 de0 shou3 du1 shih4 tai2 bei3.; A combined spelling 清 ts/chīng → ts/ching1).
The rhoticized coda may be written as separate syllable er0 or the original er2 (幾兒 jǐr → jir3, ji3 er0 or ji3 er2).
The entering tone may reprented by 5. Apostrophes as in ch’, ’h, ’s, j’, etc. may be replaced by a dot (.) as an alternative symbol to avoid technical restrictions (e.g. Old National Pronunciation 北 be’h → be.h5; a combined spelling 北 běi’h → bei.h3; Latin alphabet letter S ㄝㄙ ēh’s → eh.s1; Nanjing dialect 巧 ch’ǎo → ch.ao3, 件 j’àenn → j.aenn4).
The glyphs on the right are the preferrable forms of Ŋ and ŋ.ae, ch, eh, eh’s (or eh's), gn, hs, ih, ng, sh, ts, tz and yu may be replaced with ä (A with umlaut) c (C without any diacritics), ë (E with umlaut), ë’s (ë's or ës), ñ (N with tilde), š (S with caron), ï (I with umlaut, without tittle), ŋ (Eng or n with tail of opentail g), ŝ (S with circumflex), ȼ (slashed C), z (Z without any diacrtics) and ü (U with umlaut) in handwriting. The shape of the capital letter Ŋ may be written as both of the capital N with a tail of opentail g and the enlarged ŋ, but the latter is preferrable.
The initial symbol for ㄔ and ㄑ is identical (ch) and the symbol for ㄓ and ㄐ is also identical (j). If you want to differentiate them, the retroflexes ㄔ and ㄓ may be written as ĉh (C with circumflex and H), or simply ĉ, and ĵ (J with circumflex without tittle), and the alveolo-palatals ㄑ and ㄐ may be written as čh (C with caron and H), or simply č, and ǰ (J with caron without tittle) respectively.
The a's in ian/yan and yuan are pronunced as [ɛ]. If you want to emphasize the actual pronunciation, you may replace a with ae or simply ä (e.g. 眼 yǎn = yǎen = yä̌n, 連 lián = liáen = liä́n, 元 yuán = yuáen = yuä́n, 宣 hsuān = hsuāen = hsuǟn = šuān = šuāen = šuǟn).
If you want to notate tone sandhi of the repeated third tone bypassing the spelling in principle, you may write the transformed tone (the second tone) rather than the original third one (e.g. 有點 yǒudiǎn → yóudiǎn). If you want to notate the original tones of 一, 七, 八, 不 and others bypassing the spelling in principle, you may write the original tones rather than the transformed ones (e.g. 一點yìdiǎn ← yīdiǎn).
If you want to notate both of original tones and transformed ones due to tone sandhi, you can write both of the tone marks. The original tone mark is written below and the transformed tone mark is written above (e.g. 有點 yǒ́udiǎn, 一點 yī̀diǎn, 不是 bù́ shì).
In principle, punctuation marks and other auxillary marks in the modern Chinese orthography should be converted to the English style when you transliterate original Chinese texts into MWG.
If you want to transliterate a dash in the modern Chinese orthography into the MWG transliteration, you may use an en dash (–, U+2013) to avoid ambiguation with a hyphen–minus (-, U+002D). If you cannot input an en dash in computing, you may replace an en dash (–) with two repeated hyphens (--).
^A Chinese book written by Lin Yutang and first published in 1937. The title of its English edition is The Importance of Living and literal translation of the original Chinese title is "The Art of Living."
