Romanization

Introduction

This information is focused on Hanyu Pinyin, but much of it applies equally to other romanization systems that use tone marks. For a list of correspondences, see: http://www.pinyin.info/romanization/index.html

Pinyin is scattered among the Latin-1, Latin Extended-A, and Latin Extended-B blocks in Unicode:

  • ā á ǎ à a ē é ě è e ī í ǐ ì i ō ó ǒ ò o ū ú ǔ ù u ǖ ǘ ǚ ǜ ü
  • Ā Á Ǎ À A Ē É Ě È E Ī Í Ǐ Ì I Ō Ó Ǒ Ò O Ū Ú Ǔ Ù U Ǖ Ǘ Ǚ Ǜ Ü

For a discussion of the inconsistencies within Hanyu Pinyin and what could be done about them, see here: Reforming Pinyin.

Input Modes

Wenlin is the easiest way to type more than a few words of Pinyin with tone marks. Just select the "Typing 1-4 adds tone marks" option in the Options menu. Typing "wang2" produces wáng, and so on.

See Language Tools.

Biaoyin is a CIN-format Unicode plug-in input method for OS X 10.5 and above. It allows you to type the Pinyin, Yale, and MPS-2 (國語注音符號第二式) romanizations in an intuitive way, one syllable at a time. You can download it here:

Keyboard Layouts

Apple's U.S. Extended (name changed to "ABC Extended" in OS X 10.11) keyboard layout supports all Unicode Pinyin characters in OS X 10.3 and above. It contains two distinct input modes:

  • Option+key sequence (dead keys): Type the "dead key" for the tone mark first, then the base character. Option+a for first tone, option+e for second tone, option+v for third tone, and option+` for fourth tone. For Pinyin characters with ü, type v after the dead key.
  • Shift+option+key sequence (combining diacritics): Type the base character first, then the "combining diacritic" for the tone mark. Shift+option+a for first tone, shift+option+e for second tone, shift+option+v for third tone, and shift+option+` for fourth tone. For Pinyin characters with ü, type u then shift+option+u (or option+u then u) then the tone mark.

There are several ways to make your own keyboard layouts. One is to edit the XML in a copy of an existing layout. See Apple's Technical Note on this. If you are a building an entirely new layout, it may be easier to use Ukelele.

Pinyin Fonts

In OS X 10.3 and 10.4, Chalkboard, Courier, and Lucida Grande support Pinyin via Unicode. All the Simplified Chinese fonts and Hiragino Japanese fonts support lower-case Pinyin characters, along with the LiHei Pro and LiSong Pro fonts.

In OS X 10.5 and above, more than a few fonts support Pinyin, including American Typewriter, Avenir, Avenir Next, Baskerville, Chalkboard, Courier, Helvetica, Helvetica Neue, Lucida Grande, Palatino, and Times, among others. Microsoft's Arial, Courier New, and Times New Roman do as well. All Simplified Chinese fonts and the Hiragino Japanese fonts support lower-case Pinyin characters, along with the LiHei Pro and LiSong Pro fonts.

Free Unicode fonts that support Pinyin include:

Transliteration

Pinyin Dictionary transliterates traditional and/or simplified Chinese text into Zhuyin, MPS-2, Hanyu Pinyin, Tongyong Pinyin, and Wade-Giles. You can display tones by either numbers or diacritical marks. Punctuation and line breaks can be preserved. Also supports word segmentation in OS X 10.5 and above.

See: http://www.ideographer.com/pinyindictionary/

Hànzi + Pinyin

You can also get fonts that have a Pinyin transliteration included with each Chinese character [漢字/汉字 = hànzi]. They are usually comprised of six fonts, in order to provide up to six readings for any one character. A good test case is 和, which has seven readings: hé, hú, huó, huò, hè, hē, huō.

The 2016 Pro, Home, and Office (i.e., all) editions of DynaFont's TrueType font bundle include two complete sets of these fonts (24 fonts each: Pinyin above, below; capitalized, not capitalized) for both Simplified and Traditional Chinese. [Pro PDF] [Home PDF] [Office PDF]

See: R&B Computer Systems LTD (Hong Kong)