Pe̍h-ōe-jī

Pe̍h-ōe-jī, also called Church Romanization, is a special way to write Hokkien Southern Min using the Latin alphabet with some extra marks. It was made by Western missionaries who worked with Chinese people in Southeast Asia in the 1800s. This system helps people write the sounds of the Hokkien language, which is spoken in places like Taiwan and Xiamen.

At its peak, many people could read and write using Pe̍h-ōe-jī. It was very popular in Taiwan before World War II and was used for books, newspapers, and religious materials. One of the first newspapers in Taiwan, the Taiwan Church News, used this system.

Even though Pe̍h-ōe-jī had hard times in the past, it is still used today by some Taiwanese Christians, language learners, and people who love the Hokkien language. In 2004, Pe̍h-ōe-jī became easier to use on computers when it was added to Unicode. This writing system has helped keep the Hokkien language alive for many years.

Name

The name Pe̍h-ōe-jī (Chinese: 白話字; pinyin: Báihuà zì) means "vernacular writing". This is writing that uses everyday spoken language. This name is mainly used for the Southern Min writing system. It was created by Presbyterian missionaries in the 1800s.

These missionaries sometimes used other names for the system, like "Romanized Amoy Vernacular." Because it was used a lot in Christian communities, some people today call it "Church Romanization." However, not everyone agrees on which name is best. The system is used by both Christians and non-Christians today.

History

The history of Pe̍h-ōe-jī was shaped by how leaders saw the Southern Min languages and by Christian groups who helped spread it. Early use of a writing system for Southern Min began with Spanish missionaries in Manila in the 1500s. However, this did not affect the development of Pe̍h-ōe-jī. In the early 1800s, China was closed to Christian missionaries, so they worked with Chinese communities in South East Asia. The beginnings of Pe̍h-ōe-jī can be traced to a small book printed in 1820 by Walter Henry Medhurst. He later published a bigger dictionary in 1832.

Medhurst’s work was the first major reference for Pe̍h-ōe-jī, though it looked quite different from the modern version. He was influenced by Robert Morrison’s work on Mandarin Chinese but made changes to fit Southern Min. One big change he made was adding clear marks for tones.

Later, Elihu Doty published a book in 1853 that showed a new version of Pe̍h-ōe-jī. This version was closer to what we use today. Missionaries in Xiamen, also called Amoy, helped spread Pe̍h-ōe-jī to places like Taiwan. They created books and religious materials using this writing system.

In Taiwan, Pe̍h-ōe-jī became very popular. In 1880, James Laidlaw Maxwell helped promote it for writing the Bible, hymns, newspapers, and magazines. He gave a printing press to a local church, which led to the first newspaper in Taiwan, the Taiwan Prefectural City Church News, in 1885.

During the time when Japan ruled Taiwan (1895–1945), efforts were made to stop the use of Pe̍h-ōe-jī. The Japanese government banned classes and publications in Pe̍h-ōe-jī. After World War II, the government of Taiwan also tried to limit the use of Pe̍h-ōe-jī and other local languages. However, interest in Pe̍h-ōe-jī grew again in the late 1980s as people began to value their native languages more.

Current system

See also: Comparison of Hokkien writing systems and Written Hokkien

The current system of Pe̍h-ōe-jī has been the same since the 1930s, with only a few small changes. It is very similar to the Vietnamese alphabet. It uses special letters and marks to show different sounds in Hokkien.

POJ uses letters and marks to write Hokkien sounds. It has special ways to show tones and sounds that change depending on where a word is in a sentence. There are rules for where to place marks on letters.

Chinese phonology studies how sounds are used. In Hokkien, words can end with sounds that are not found in other Chinese languages like Mandarin. These endings can change how a word sounds.

Vowels are important parts of words:

Words can also end with special sounds called coda endings.

POJ has a set number of allowed word shapes, but there is some disagreement about which ones are correct.

Tone markings

In standard Amoy or Taiwanese Hokkien, there are seven different tones. These tones are shown with special marks above letters. When words are used together in a sentence, their tones can change, but POJ always writes the original tone. Readers need to adjust the tones when saying the words.

There are rules for where to place the tone marks on certain vowel combinations.

Hyphens

A single hyphen connects parts of a word. What counts as a connected word can vary. Examples include “forty” and “circus”.

A double hyphen shows that the next part of a word should be said in a special, neutral tone. It also tells the reader that the tone of the word before the double hyphen does not change.

Audio examples

Regional differences

There are some special ways to write words in different areas. For example, in parts of Taiwan, Malaysia, and China, some words end with a special sound that is written differently than in standard Taiwanese Hokkien.

Texts

Because Pe̍h-ōe-jī started in the Christian church, many books written with it are about religion. These books include translations of the Bible, hymn books, and guides about good behavior. The Tainan Church Press began in 1884 and has been printing these books ever since. There were times when printing stopped, such as in the early 1940s and from about 1955 to 1987. Before 1955, over two million books were printed.

Some of these books include:

• Lán ê Kiù-chú Iâ-so͘ Ki-tok ê Sin-iok (1873 translation of the New Testament)
• Lāi-goā-kho Khàn-hō͘-ha̍k, by George Gushue-Taylor, 1917
• Chinese–English dictionary of the vernacular or spoken language of Amoy, by Carstairs Douglas, 1873
• Lear Ông, translation of King Lear by Tē Hūi-hun

Computing

At first, computers had trouble showing POJ because of the special marks it needed. Now, there are better tools to help write and see POJ correctly. There are several ways to type POJ using Unicode, such as OpenVanilla for macOS and Microsoft Windows, a special input method from the Ministry of Education that works on many computers, and a Firefox tool that lets you type POJ while browsing.

When POJ was first used on computers, it wasn’t fully supported by Unicode, so people had to find workarounds. Some used special sections of Unicode that needed custom fonts, while others replaced tricky characters with similar ones. Since 2004, Unicode has included the needed characters, but not all fonts can show them correctly.

Special marks are needed for the tones in POJ, and they should use combining marks instead of other symbols used by bopomofo. Because POJ isn’t part of Big5, some letters need to be typed using combining marks.

Some characters, especially the O͘ series, need special shapes in fonts to show up right on computers.

Fonts that support POJ include:

• Charis SIL
• DejaVu
• Doulos SIL
• Linux Libertine
• Taigi Unicode
• Source Sans Pro
• I.Ming (version 8.00 and up) from the Ichiten Font Project
• Fonts made by the justfont foundry
• Fonts changed and shared on GitHub in the POJFonts group: POJ Phiaute, Gochi Hand POJ, Nunito POJ, POJ Vibes, and POJ Garamond.
• Fonts changed by But Ko based on Source Han Sans: Genyog, Genseki, Gensen; and based on Source Han Serif: Genyo, Genwan, Genryu.

Han-Romanization mixed script

One of the most popular ways of writing Taiwanese uses a mixed style called Hàn-lô, also known as Han-Romanization mixed script. This style mixes Chinese characters and romanization, much like written Japanese or old Korean.

The romanization used is often POJ, but some newer texts use Taiwanese Romanization System (Tâi-lô) spellings. Using only Chinese characters for Southern Min can be tricky because some words don’t have a clear character. Writers solve this problem in different ways.

There are two main reasons for using this mixed writing style. First, it helps people who already know Chinese characters. Second, it aims to move people toward fully romanized text. Modern Hàn-lô texts include religious, teaching, scholarly, and literary works.

Adaptations for other Chinese varieties

POJ has been changed to work with other varieties of Chinese. For Hakka, people made special books like a Bible, hymn book, textbooks, and dictionaries. These books use a special way of writing called Pha̍k-fa-sṳ.

A changed version of POJ was also made for Teochew.

Current status

Many people who speak Southern Min in Taiwan don’t know about POJ or other ways to write their language. Some even say, “Taiwanese has no writing.” When they learn about POJ, they usually prefer using Chinese characters instead.

POJ still has the most books, dictionaries, and literature of any writing system for Southern Min. In 1999, about 100,000 people could read POJ. Groups work to help more people learn it.

Outside Taiwan, POJ is hardly used. For example, Xiamen University in Xiamen uses a different system called Bbánlám pìngyīm, based on Pinyin. In places like Singapore, campaigns encourage people to speak Mandarin instead of Hokkien.

In 2006, Taiwan’s Ministry of Education picked an official way to write Southern Min for schools. POJ was considered, but they chose a mix called the Taiwanese Romanization System or Tâi-lô. It keeps many POJ rules but changes a few letters. Because of past government actions against local languages, it’s not clear if Tâi-lô or POJ will be used more in the future.