20th c., from Mandarin Chinese 拼音 (pīnyīn, literally “spelled sounds”).
Meanings
A system of romanization for Standard Mandarin, used in the People’s Republic of China, and more recently in other Mandarin Chinese-speaking areas as well.
The Chinese government began using the new system Jan. 1 in all its foreign language publications, including the English-language service of the New China News Agency. This is an important source for American journalists writing about China. The United Nations and U.S. government agencies have adopted the new spellings called by the Chinese "Pinyin" meaning "phonetic spelling."[…]
The old spelling system, named the Wade-Giles system after the two 19th century Britons who developed it, made correct pronunciation unnecessarily difficult. It used apostrophes to distinguish aspirated consonants, such as p'ai pronounced with a "p" sound, from unaspirated, such as pai pronounced with a "b" sound. The new Pinyin system eliminates this distinction, which most newspapers ignored anyway. "Beijing" is much closer to the Chinese pronunciation that "Peking", and Vice Premier "Deng" is better rendering than "Teng." But the new system uses some letters in ways that still confuse English speakers. Thers difficult letters are: "c" which should be prounced in this system like the "ts" in "its"; "q" which should be pronounced like the "ch" in "cheek"; "x" which should be pronounced like the "sh" in "she"; and "zh" which should be pronounced like the "j" in "jump".[…]
Reading the alphabetized words still presents problems for the Chinese, however, because the spellings do not distinguish the flur separate tones in the Chinese language that can significantly change meaning. The word "ma" can mean "mother", "horse", or "scold", depending on what tone is used. Under the Pinyin system, two neighboring provinces of northern China are both spelled "Shanxi". In this special case, one of the provinces is now spelled "Shaanzi", to indicate a different tone in the first syllable. 1979 March 5, Jay Mathews, “China Is China, But Hangchow Is Hangzhou”, in The Washington Post, →ISSN, →OCLC, archived from the original on 29 Dec 2023:
mk пи́нјин (romanization of Mandarin Chinese) · fi pinyin (romanization of Mandarin Chinese) · cmn 拼音 (romanization of Mandarin Chinese) · ru ханью́й пиньи́нь (romanization of Mandarin Chinese) · ro pinyin (romanization of Mandarin Chinese) · ar بِينْيِن (romanization of Mandarin Chinese) · cmn 漢語拼音 /汉语拼音 (romanization of Mandarin Chinese) · de Pinyin (romanization of Mandarin Chinese) · ko 한어 병음 (romanization of Mandarin Chinese) · lv piņjiņs (romanization of Mandarin Chinese) · fr pinyin (romanization of Mandarin Chinese) · hi पिन्यिन (romanization of Mandarin Chinese) · ru пиньи́нь (romanization of Mandarin Chinese) · eo pinjino (romanization of Mandarin Chinese) · pt piniim (romanization of Mandarin Chinese) · pl pinyin (romanization of Mandarin Chinese) · bg пини́н (romanization of Mandarin Chinese) · kk пінін (romanization of Mandarin Chinese) · ja 併音 (romanization of Mandarin Chinese) · be піньі́нь (romanization of Mandarin Chinese) · sh пинјин (romanization of Mandarin Chinese) · hy փինյին (romanization of Mandarin Chinese) · cs pinyin (romanization of Mandarin Chinese) · fa پینیین (romanization of Mandarin Chinese) · mr फीनयीन (romanization of Mandarin Chinese) · ug پىنيىن (romanization of Mandarin Chinese) · sh pinyin (romanization of Mandarin Chinese) · uk піньї́нь (romanization of Mandarin Chinese) · vi bính âm (romanization of Mandarin Chinese) · ja 拼音 (romanization of Mandarin Chinese) · yue 漢語拼音 /汉语拼音 (romanization of Mandarin Chinese) · pt pinyin (romanization of Mandarin Chinese) · ar بِينْيِن (romanization of Mandarin Chinese) · el πινγίν (romanization of Mandarin Chinese) · sh pinjin (romanization of Mandarin Chinese) · th พินอิน (romanization of Mandarin Chinese) · he פין־יין (romanization of Mandarin Chinese) · mn пинь-инь (romanization of Mandarin Chinese) · es pinyin (romanization of Mandarin Chinese) · ka პინ-ინი (romanization of Mandarin Chinese) · hu pinjin (romanization of Mandarin Chinese) · yue 拼音 (romanization of Mandarin Chinese) · ta பின்யின் (romanization of Mandarin Chinese) · cs pchin-jin (romanization of Mandarin Chinese) · ja ピン音 (romanization of Mandarin Chinese) · ko 병음 (romanization of Mandarin Chinese) · ja ピンイン (romanization of Mandarin Chinese)