Chinese, <zhùyīn phonetic notation (<zhù notes + yīn sound) + zìmǔ letters of the alphabet (<zì word, character + mǔ mother).
Meaning & use
1938–
The national phonetic alphabet of China made up of symbols based on Chinese characters, first adopted in 1918. Also elliptical as zhuyin.
1938
North Mandarin colloquial, Peking dialect, or Kuoyü... Chu Yin phonetics... Wang Chao phonetics... Roman characters.
Book Thousand Tongues (Amer. Bible Soc.) 89/1
1960
A set of thirty-nine phonetic symbols, chu-yin tzu-mu, officially promulgated in 1918 by the government.
Chang-tu Hu et al., China v. 107
1968
The purpose of the first official Chinese phonemic transcription called zhùyīn zìmŭ ‘Pronunciation Alphabet’..was to serve as a stepping stone towards learning the characters, and also as a tool for promulgating the National Language.
P. Kratochvíl, Chinese Language Today v. 168
1978
The thirty-nine letters of the zhuyin zimu alphabet were taken from old, very simple Chinese characters.
Some consonants can take the function of the vowel in unstressed syllables. Where necessary, a syllabic marker diacritic is used, hence /ˈpɛtl/ but /ˈpɛtl̩i/.
Vowels
iːfleece
ihappy
ɪkit
ɛdress
atrap, bath
ɑːstart, palm, bath
ɒlot
ɔːthought, force
ʌstrut
ʊfoot
uːgoose
əletter
əːnurse
ɪənear
ɛːsquare
ʊəcure
eɪface
ʌɪpride
aʊmouth
əʊgoat
ɔɪvoice
ãgratin
ɒ̃salon
ᵻ(/ɪ/-/ə/)
ᵿ(/ʊ/-/ə/)
Other symbols
The symbol ˈ at the beginning of a syllable indicates that that syllable is pronounced with primary stress.
The symbol ˌ at the beginning of a syllable indicates that that syllable is pronounced with secondary stress.
Round brackets ( ) in a transcription indicate that the symbol within the brackets is optional.