Yale romanization of Mandarin

rdf:langString Yale romanization of Mandarin

rdf:langString The Yale romanization of Mandarin is a system for transcribing the sounds of Standard Chinese, based on Mandarin Chinese varieties spoken in and around Beijing. It was devised in 1943 by the Yale sinologist George Kennedy for a course teaching Chinese to American soldiers, and popularized by continued development of that course at Yale.The system approximated Chinese sounds using English spelling conventions in order to accelerate acquisition of pronunciation by English speakers. The Yale romanization was widely used in Western textbooks until the late 1970s; in fact, during the height of the Cold War, the use of the pinyin system over Yale romanization outside of China was regarded as a political statement or identification with the communist Chinese regime. The situation was reversed once the relations between the People's Republic of China and the West had improved. Communist China (PRC) became a member of the United Nations in 1971 by replacing Nationalist China (ROC). By 1979, much of the world adopted pinyin as the standard romanization for Chinese geographical names. In 1982, pinyin became an ISO standard; interest in Yale Mandarin declined rapidly thereafter.