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Mandarin Chinese / Putonghua is used in most of northern & southwestern China as well as parts of Singapore, Indonesia, Malaysia, and in other Chinese communities around the world.
| Varieties shown below: | Northern and Southern Mandarin |
Mandarin can be written several different ways, as illustrated by the Southern Mandarin translations below:
| Simplified characters within China, | |
| Simplified and traditional characters outside of China, | |
| Zhuyin Fuhao (Bopomofo) phonetic ruby and linear text |
Various romanization schemes have been developed for Chinese over the years, some are illustrated below using the Southern Mandarin translations:
| Gwoyeu Romatzyh, Hanyu Pinyin, IPA, Mandarin Phonetic Symbols II, Tongyong Pinyin, Wade-Giles, and Yale, |
Northern Mandarin
Northern Mandarin using simplified characters, as written in China:
![[Northern Mandarin using simplified characters, as written in China]](mandarinn__simplifiedinsidechina.gif)
![[Northern Mandarin using Hanyu Pinyin romanization]](mandarinn__hanyupinyin1.gif)
Southern Mandarin
Southern Mandarin using simplified characters, as written in China:
![[Southern Mandarin using simplified characters, as written in China]](mandarin__simplifiedinsidechina.gif)
![[Southern Mandarin using Hanyu Pinyin romanization]](mandarin__hanyupinyin1.gif)
Southern Mandarin using simplified characters, as written outside of China such as in Singapore:
![[Southern Mandarin using simplified characters, as written outside of China]](mandarin__simplifiedoutsidechina.gif)
Southern Mandarin using traditional characters, as written outside of China:
![[Southern Mandarin using traditional characters, as written outside of China]](mandarin__traditional.gif)
Southern Mandarin with Zhuyin Fuhao (Bopomofo) phonetic ruby text:
![[Southern Mandarin with Zhuyin Fuhao (Bopomofo) phonetic ruby text]](mandarin__bopomoforuby.gif)
Southern Mandarin as Zhuyin Fuhao (Bopomofo) phonetic linear text:
![[Southern Mandarin with Zhuyin Fuhao (Bopomofo) linear text]](mandarin__bopomofolinear.gif)
Romanization Schemes for Mandarin Chinese
Various romanization schemes have been developed for Chinese over the years. Several are shown below representing Southern Mandarin:
Gwoyeu Romatzyh romanization:
Woo ·de farngjian tzay naalii?Gwoyeu Romatzyh information at Wikipedia and Omniglot
Hanyu Pinyin romanization with tone diacritics and tone numbers:
![[Southern Mandarin using Hanyu Pinyin romanization]](mandarin__hanyupinyin2.gif)
Hanyu Pinyin information at Wikipedia and Omniglot
International Phonetic Alpahabet (IPA), shown with and without tones:
![[Southern Mandarin using IPA]](mandarin__ipa.gif)
IPA information at Wikipedia and Omniglot
IPA fonts and a comprehensive Unicode test page for IPA in the Gallery of Unicode Fonts
Mandarin Phonetic Symbols II (MPS II):
![[Southern Mandarin using MPS II]](mandarin__mps2.gif)
MPS II information at Wikipedia
Tongyong Pinyin
![[Southern Mandarin using Tongyong Pinyin]](mandarin__tongyongpinyin.gif)
Tongyong Pinyin information at Wikipedia
Wade-Giles romanization:
Wo3 te fang2-chian1 tsai4 na3-li3?Wade-Giles information at Wikipedia and Omniglot
Yale romanization:
![[Southern Mandarin using Yale romanization]](mandarin__yale.gif)
Yale information at Wikipedia and Omniglot
Chinese fonts in the Gallery of Unicode Fonts
Language information at Wikipedia and Ethnologue
Free, Unicode enabled online dictionaries for Chinese can be found at primezero labs
Chinese writing system information (general and Mandarin-specific) at Omniglot
Alternate names for Mandarin Chinese include Mandarin, Putonghua, Guanhua, Beifang Fangyan, and Guoyu
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