Cui Xiuwen, the Last Supper, after Da Vinci
“Effectively
implement the Latin
movement, the more
widespread, the
better!”
But then, what is Pinyin or Hanyu Pinyin
汉语拼音?
Pinyin is the Romanized form of Chinese
characters. The Hanyu Pinyin system was
developed in the 1950s based on earlier
forms of Romanization that go back to
the end of the 16th century when the first
Italian Jesuits arrived in China. The official
Pinyin system was published by the Chinese
government in 1958 and revised several
times. Still controversial to this day, Hanyu
Pinyin has nevertheless been successful.
Pinyin without tone marks is often used in
foreign publications to spell Chinese names
and may be utilized as an input method to
enter Chinese characters into computers.
Few of us know that Romanization has been
one of Modern China’s dreams. It started
when the prominent leader of the New
Culture Movement (1910’s-1920’s) Lu Xun
exclaimed: “If Chinese characters aren’t
abolished, China will undoubtedly fail.”
This Latin movement blossomed less than
one hundred years ago. It kept its sharp, leftBUSINESS