Taiwanese Phonetic Symbols


Taiwanese Phonetic Symbols is a system of phonetic notation for the transcription of Taiwanese languages, especially Taiwanese Hokkien. The system is designed by Professor Chu Chao-hsiang, a member of National Languages Committee in Taiwan, in 1946. The system is derived from Mandarin Phonetic Symbols by creating additional symbols for the sounds that do not appear in Mandarin phonology. It has been one of the officially promoted phonetic notation system by Taiwan's Ministry of Education.

Symbols

There are 49 symbols used in standard Taiwanese Hokkien. Of these 49 symbols, 26 are from the original Mandarin Phonetic Symbols, while 23 are additional, created for Taiwanese languages.
Images below are a collection of Taiwanese Phonetic Symbols:

Other features

Combined rhymes

Tones

Example

Note: 恬恬 is Taiwanese Hokkien. Synonyms would be 安靜 or 靜靜. 先生, in this context, means "teacher".

Unicode support

The Mandarin Phonetic Symbols were added to the Unicode Standard in October 1991 with the release of version 1.0. The Unicode block for Mandarin Phonetic Symbols is U+3100... U+312F.
The extended phonetic symbols were added to the Unicode Standard in September 1999 with the release of version 3.0. The Unicode block for the extended symbols is U+31A0... U+31BF.
Four symbols for Cantonese and one for Minnan and Hakka coda were released in 2020 with the publication of version 13.0. One can learn more information from the proposals.

Font Support

The Academia Sinica of Taiwan has released three sets of fonts for Taiwanese Hokkien: "吳守禮標楷台語注音字型", "吳守禮細明台語注音字型", "吳守禮台語注音字型". When the above fonts are used, the Bopomofo Phonetic Symbols will automatically appear. For words with more than one pronunciation, user can choose "破音" fonts to find the desired pronunciation. The user manual can be downloaded here.