Unicode Demystified

Bopomofo

The Han characters always have both phonetic and semantic values, but sometimes it's necessary to use characters that have a purely phonetic purpose. The National Phonetic Alphabet (Zhuyin Zimu, or Zhuyin for short; also called Chu Yin and Guoyin) was invented in 1911 for this purpose, as part of a general literacy campaign in China after the fall of the Manchu regime. This alphabet is nicknamed “Bopomofo,” which is the names of the first four letters run together into one word.

Bopomofo includes 21 consonants, 16 vowels, and 4 tone marks (Figure 10.1). The characters are either written on a horizontal line from left to right or on a vertical line from top to bottom, just like the Han characters. They are written in pronunciation order ...