The Taiwanese Romanization System (Taiwanese Romanization: Tâi-uân Lô-má-jī Phing-im Hong-àn, Chinese: 臺灣閩南語羅馬字拼音方案; pinyin: Táiwān Mǐnnányǔ Luómǎzì Pīnyīn Fāng'àn; Pe̍h-ōe-jī: Tâi-ôan Lô-má-jī Pheng-im Hong-àn; often referred to as Tâi-lô) is a transcription system for Taiwanese Hokkien. It is derived from Pe̍h-ōe-jī and since 2006 has been one of the officially promoted phonetic notation system by Taiwan's Ministry of Education.[1]
It is nearly identical to Taiwanese Language Phonetic Alphabet (TLPA) Romanization for Hakka apart from using ts tsh j instead of c ch j for the fricatives /ts tsʰ dz/.
Taiwanese Romanization System uses 16 basic Latin letters (A, B, E, G, H, I, J, K, L, M, N, O, P, S, T, U), 7 digraphs (Kh, Ng, nn, Oo, Ph, Th, Ts) and a trigraph (Tsh). In addition, it uses 6 diacritics to represent tones.
"nn" is only used after a vowel to express nasalization, so it has no capital letter.
Palatalization occurs when "J, S, Ts, Tsh" followed by "i", so "Ji, Si, Tsi, Tshi" sometimes governed as trigraphs and tetragraphs.
Of the 10 unused basic Latin letters, "R" is sometimes used to express dialectal vowels, while the others (C, D, F, Q, V, W, X, Y, Z) are only used in loanwords.
o pronounced [ə] ㄜ in general dialect in Kaohsiung and Tainan, [o] ㄛ in Taipei.
-nn forms the nasal vowels
There is also syllabic m and ng.
Vowel(s)
Open syllabus
Nasal
Plosive
[m]
[n]
[ŋ]
[p̚]
[t̚]
[k̚]
[ʔ]
[a]
a
ann
am
an
ang
ap
at
ak
ah
annh
[ai]
ai
ainn
aih
ainnh
[au]
au
auh
[e]
e
enn
eh
ennh
[i]
i
inn
im
in
ing
ip
it
ik
ih
innh
[ia]
ia
iann
iam
ian
iang
iap
iat
iak
iah
iannh
[iau]
iau
iaunn
iauh
[iə]
io
ioh
[iɔ]
iong
iok
[iu]
iu
iunn
iuh
iunnh
Vowel(s)
Open syllabus
Nasal
Plosive
[m]
[n]
[ŋ]
[p̚]
[t̚]
[k̚]
[ʔ]
[ə]
o
oh
[ɔ]
oo
onn
om
ong
op
ok
ooh
onnh
[u]
u
un
ut
uh
[ua]
ua
uann
uan
uat
uah
[uai]
uai
uainn
[ue]
ue
ueh
[ui]
ui
[m̩]
m
-
mh
[ŋ̍]
ng
-
ngh
ing pronounced [ɪəŋ], ik pronounced [ɪək̚].
Tones
Tone No.
1
2
3
4
5
7
8
Name
陰平
上聲
陰去
陰入
陽平
陽去
陽入
im-pîng
siōng-siann
im-khì
im-ji̍p
iông-pîng
iông-khì
iông-ji̍p
Symbol
None
Acute
Grave
None (-p, -t, -k, -h)
Circumflex
macron
Vertical line above (-p, -t, -k, -h)
´
`
ˆ
ˉ
̍
Pitch
˥˥
˥˩
˧˩
˧ʔ
˨˦
˧˧
˥ʔ
55
51
31
3ʔ
24
33
5ʔ
Example
tong (東)
tóng (黨)
tòng (棟)
tok (督)
tông (同)
tōng (洞)
to̍k (毒)
A hyphen links elements of a compound word. A double hyphen indicates that the following syllable has a neutral tone and therefore that the preceding syllable does not undergo tone sandhi.