Romanization

Introduction

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

You need a Unicode-savvy application to use all the Pinyin characters scattered among the Latin-1, Latin Extended-A, and Latin Extended-B blocks in Unicode. More information is available from Helmer Aslaksen.

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 Study Tools.

Pinyin Tone Widget converts Pinyin text with tone numbers to PInyin text with tone marks. For OS X 10.4 and above. From Konrad Lawson.

Biaoyin and Biauyin are Apple-format input method plug-ins that allow you to type the Pinyin, MPS-2, and Yale romanizations in an intuitive way. Biaoyin is for the Simplified Chinese Input Method in OS X 10.2 to 10.4. Biauyin is for the Traditional Chinese Input Method in OS X 10.3 and 10.4.

Biaoyin 2 is a CIN-format Unicode plug-in input method for OS X 10.5 only.

The source files are included. You can download them here:

Update: As of November 2007, all of the above have been updated to include shéi (shei2).

Keyboard Layouts

Apple's U.S. Extended 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.

The Asian Extended keyboard layout allows the input of all Unicode Pinyin characters in OS X 10.2 and above.

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 Alex Eulenberg's Unicode Keyboards for the Mac OS online utility for OS 9 and/or OS X. Another option is Ukelele.

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

DimSum can add Hanyu Pinyin to text files, RTF files, and HTML pages. You can display tones by either numbers or diacritical marks, and you can parse the text either by word or by individual character. Also supports Zhuyin, MPS-2, GR, Yale, French, Wade-Giles, and Tongyong Pinyin. Includes a romanization converter. See Study Tools.

MacKEY can display Hanyu Pinyin or various Cantonese romanizations alongside Chinese character texts. See Study Tools.

Pinxie saves a copy of any Simplified Chinese (GB) and Japanese (Shift-JIS) document with the Pinyin text under each line. Tones are indicated by number. The program can also produce Zhuyin output (from GB only), as well as Katakana (from Shift-JIS only). XiaoPinxie does the same thing, via a small dialogue window into which you input or paste the Simplified Chinese (or Japanese) text. See: http://www2u.biglobe.ne.jp/~kitabo/

Pinyin Fonts

Unicode

In OS X 10.1 and 10.2, the Lucida Grande font contains all Pinyin characters. All Simplified Chinese fonts and Hiragino Japanese fonts support lower-case Pinyin characters.

In OS X 10.3 and 10.4, Chalkboard, Courier, and Lucida Grande support Pinyin. 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, more than a few fonts that come with the system support Pinyin, including American Typewriter, Arial, Chalkboard, Courier, Courier New, Helvetica, Lucida Grande, Times, and Times New Roman, among others. All the Simplified Chinese fonts and Hiragino Japanese fonts support lower-case Pinyin characters, along with the LiHei Pro and LiSong Pro fonts. ST Heiti Light also supports upper-case Pinyin characters.

Free Unicode fonts that support Pinyin include:

MacRoman

MacRoman is the original Latin-text encoding for the Mac OS. As a result, these modified MacRoman fonts will work with any Macintosh application in System 7 and above. Konrad Lawson has compiled an informative web page with links to many: http://www.foolsworkshop.com/pfc/pinyinfonts.html

Zev Handel's TimesPinyin is a good choice, and it includes italics. It maps the Pinyin vowels to the most-closely corresponding MacRoman characters. If you were to remove TimesPinyin from your system, the text would not become gibberish. The second and fourth tone vowels would be unchanged, first tone would get diaeresis (two dots) over them and third tone would be converted to vowels with circumflexes: http://www.namkung.com/zev/TimesPinyin.html

Pinyin Font Converter is a free utility for converting text between different MacRoman Pinyin fonts (including numbers for tones after each syllable).

Hanzi + Pinyin

These fonts have a Pinyin pronunciation included with each Chinese character (hanzi). They are usually comprised of six fonts, in order to provide up to six readings for any one hanzi. A good test case is 和 (with six readings).

The DynaFont TrueType 28 package (available from PenPower) contains two of these fonts (6 fonts each). The DynaFont 金蝶 2006 package includes two complete sets (Pinyin above, below, capitalized, not capitalized, 24 fonts each) and two Pinyin-only (no hanzi) fonts. The DynaFont 注音小老師 package includes an extensive array of options for both Pinyin and Zhuyin. Arphic's 注音小博士 is a similar package that can be purchased on the Arphic site.