Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • noun A system for transcribing the pronunciation of the standard variety of Mandarin using the Roman alphabet, officially adopted by the People's Republic of China in 1979.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • proper noun A Niger-Congo language of Cameroon.
  • proper noun A system of romanization (phonetic notation and transliteration to roman script) for Mandarin Chinese based on the Mandarin dialect of the Beijing area used in the People’s Republic of China.

Etymologies

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition

[Mandarin pīn yīn, to combine sounds into syllables, spell : pīn, to combine (from Middle Chinese pjiajŋ) + yīn, sound, syllable (from Middle Chinese ˀim).]

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

From Chinese Mandarin 拼音 (pīnyīn)

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Examples

  • Language Log links to an article in Pinyin News discussing how frequent it is now for Mandarin publications and informal writers to add .. "ing" to the Mandarin -- to look "cool and modern".

    Miscellaneous Maxine 2009

  • Language Log links to an article in Pinyin News discussing how frequent it is now for Mandarin publications and informal writers to add .. "ing" to the Mandarin -- to look "cool and modern".

    It's an ing mystery Maxine 2008

  • Language Log links to an article in Pinyin News discussing how frequent it is now for Mandarin publications and informal writers to add .. "ing" to the Mandarin -- to look "cool and modern".

    It's an ing mystery Maxine 2008

  • Language Log links to an article in Pinyin News discussing how frequent it is now for Mandarin publications and informal writers to add .. "ing" to the Mandarin -- to look "cool and modern".

    January 2008 Maxine 2008

  • Pinyin is finally catching on in Taiwan, so I have decided to use it for romanizing Chinese terms, including Taiwanese place names, but I do make two exceptions.

    How Taiwan Became Chinese 2006

  • However, the KMT supports switching to the Pinyin now used in the mainland PRC, while the more Taiwanese nationalist DPP wants to use a Taiwanese version of it, the Tonyoung Pinyin, which is more phonetically comprehensible by most English speakers.

    The Real Chiang Kaishek, Bryan Caplan | EconLog | Library of Economics and Liberty 2009

  • For most Chinese place names and personal names, use the official Chinese spelling system known as Pinyin: Zhu Rongji.

    Essential Guide to Business Style and Usage PAUL R. MARTIN 2002

  • For most Chinese place names and personal names, use the official Chinese spelling system known as Pinyin: Zhu Rongji.

    Essential Guide to Business Style and Usage PAUL R. MARTIN 2002

  • It took Zhou and his colleagues three years to come up with the system now known as Pinyin, which was introduced in schools in 1958.

    NPR Topics: News 2011

  • The Chinese have a phonetic system called Pinyin but, as far as I know, it's not used in everyday writing -- but they do have a system for character entry on keyboards and other digital devices.

    Evil Avatar 2010

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