Alternative spellings

• pinyin

Proper noun

Singular Pinyin

Plural -

Pinyin

1. A system of romanization (phonetic notation and transliteration to roman script) for Mandarin Chinese based on the Mandarin dialect of the Beijing area used in the People’s Republic of China.

Synonyms

• Romanized Chinese

Pinyin (Simplified / Traditional Chinese:拼音), or more formally Hanyu Pinyin (汉语拼音 / 漢語拼音), is currently the most commonly used romanization system for Standard Mandarin. Hànyǔ (汉语 / 漢語) means the Chinese language, and Pīnyīn (拼音) means "phonetics", or more literally, "spelling sound" or "spelled sound". The system is now used in mainland China, Hong Kong, Macau, parts of Taiwan, Malaysia and Singapore to teach Mandarin Chinese and internationally to teach Mandarin as a second language. It is also often used to spell Chinese names in foreign publications and can be used to enter Chinese characters (hanzi) on computers and cellphones.

The romanization system was developed by a government committee in the People's Republic of China (PRC), and approved by the Chinese government on February 11, 1958. The International Organization for Standardization adopted pinyin as the international standard in 1982, and since then it has been adopted by many other organizations. This romanization system also became the national standard in the Republic of China (ROC, commonly known as Taiwan) on January 1, 2009.