Modern Literal Taiwanese (MLT), also known as Modern Taiwanese Language (MTL), is an orthography

Orthography

The orthography of a language specifies a standardized way of using a specific writing system to write the language. Where more than one writing system is used for a language, for example Kurdish, Uyghur, Serbian or Inuktitut, there can be more than one orthography...

 in the Latin alphabet

Latin alphabet

The Latin alphabet, also called the Roman alphabet, is the most recognized alphabet used in the world today. It evolved from a western variety of the Greek alphabet called the Cumaean alphabet, which was adopted and modified by the Etruscans who ruled early Rome...

 for Taiwanese based on the Taiwanese Modern Spelling System (TMSS). MLT is able to use the ASCII

ASCII

The American Standard Code for Information Interchange is a character-encoding scheme based on the ordering of the English alphabet. ASCII codes represent text in computers, communications equipment, and other devices that use text...

 character set to indicate the proper variation of pitch without any subsidiary scripts or diacritic

Diacritic

A diacritic is a glyph added to a letter, or basic glyph. The term derives from the Greek διακριτικός . Diacritic is both an adjective and a noun, whereas diacritical is only an adjective. Some diacritical marks, such as the acute and grave are often called accents...

 symbols.

Phonology

>

Consonant

Consonant

In articulatory phonetics, a consonant is a speech sound that is articulated with complete or partial closure of the vocal tract. Examples are , pronounced with the lips; , pronounced with the front of the tongue; , pronounced with the back of the tongue; , pronounced in the throat; and ,...

s

			Alveolar Alveolar consonant Alveolar consonants are articulated with the tongue against or close to the superior alveolar ridge, which is called that because it contains the alveoli of the superior teeth...	Palato-alveolar Palato-alveolar consonant In phonetics, palato-alveolar consonants are postalveolar consonants, nearly always sibilants, that are weakly palatalized with a domed tongue...	Bilabial Bilabial consonant In phonetics, a bilabial consonant is a consonant articulated with both lips. The bilabial consonants identified by the International Phonetic Alphabet are:...	Alveolar Alveolar consonant Alveolar consonants are articulated with the tongue against or close to the superior alveolar ridge, which is called that because it contains the alveoli of the superior teeth...	Velar Velar consonant Velars are consonants articulated with the back part of the tongue against the soft palate, the back part of the roof of the mouth, known also as the velum)....	Glottal Glottal consonant Glottal consonants, also called laryngeal consonants, are consonants articulated with the glottis. Many phoneticians consider them, or at least the so-called fricative, to be transitional states of the glottis without a point of articulation as other consonants have; in fact, some do not consider...
Stop Stop consonant In phonetics, a plosive, also known as an occlusive or an oral stop, is a stop consonant in which the vocal tract is blocked so that all airflow ceases. The occlusion may be done with the tongue , lips , and &...	voiceless Voice (phonetics) Voice or voicing is a term used in phonetics and phonology to characterize speech sounds, with sounds described as either voiceless or voiced. The term, however, is used to refer to two separate concepts. Voicing can refer to the articulatory process in which the vocal cords vibrate...	unaspirated Tenuis consonant In linguistics, a tenuis consonant is a stop or affricate which is unvoiced, unaspirated, and unglottalized. That is, it has a "plain" phonation like , with a voice onset time close to zero, as in Spanish p, t, ch, k, or as in English p, t, k after s .In transcription, tenuis consonants are not...			p	t	k	' (ʔ)
		aspirated Aspiration (phonetics) In phonetics, aspiration is the strong burst of air that accompanies either the release or, in the case of preaspiration, the closure of some obstruents. To feel or see the difference between aspirated and unaspirated sounds, one can put a hand or a lit candle in front of one's mouth, and say pin ...			ph	th	kh
	voiced Voice (phonetics) Voice or voicing is a term used in phonetics and phonology to characterize speech sounds, with sounds described as either voiceless or voiced. The term, however, is used to refer to two separate concepts. Voicing can refer to the articulatory process in which the vocal cords vibrate...	unaspirated			b		g
Affricate Affricate consonant Affricates are consonants that begin as stops but release as a fricative rather than directly into the following vowel.- Samples :...	voiceless	unaspirated	z	c
		aspirated	zh	ch
	voiced	unaspirated		j
Fricative Fricative consonant Fricatives are consonants produced by forcing air through a narrow channel made by placing two articulators close together. These may be the lower lip against the upper teeth, in the case of ; the back of the tongue against the soft palate, in the case of German , the final consonant of Bach; or...	voiceless	unaspirated	s	s
		aspirated						h
Nasal Nasal consonant A nasal consonant is a type of consonant produced with a lowered velum in the mouth, allowing air to escape freely through the nose. Examples of nasal consonants in English are and , in words such as nose and mouth.- Definition :...	voiced	unaspiration			m/v	n	ng/v
Lateral Lateral consonant A lateral is an el-like consonant, in which airstream proceeds along the sides of the tongue, but is blocked by the tongue from going through the middle of the mouth....	voiced	unaspiration				l

>

Vowel

Vowel

In phonetics, a vowel is a sound in spoken language, such as English ah! or oh! , pronounced with an open vocal tract so that there is no build-up of air pressure at any point above the glottis. This contrasts with consonants, such as English sh! , where there is a constriction or closure at some...

s

	Front Front vowel A front vowel is a type of vowel sound used in some spoken languages. The defining characteristic of a front vowel is that the tongue is positioned as far in front as possible in the mouth without creating a constriction that would be classified as a consonant. Front vowels are sometimes also...	Central Central vowel A central vowel is a type of vowel sound used in some spoken languages. The defining characteristic of a central vowel is that the tongue is positioned halfway between a front vowel and a back vowel...	Back Back vowel A back vowel is a type of vowel sound used in spoken languages. The defining characteristic of a back vowel is that the tongue is positioned as far back as possible in the mouth without creating a constriction that would be classified as a consonant. Back vowels are sometimes also called dark...
Close Close vowel A close vowel is a type of vowel sound used in many spoken languages. The defining characteristic of a close vowel is that the tongue is positioned as close as possible to the roof of the mouth without creating a constriction that would be classified as a consonant.This term is prescribed by the...	i		u
Close-mid Close-mid vowel A close-mid vowel is a type of vowel sound used in some spoken languages. The defining characteristic of a close-mid vowel is that the tongue is positioned two-thirds of the way from a close vowel to a mid vowel...	e		ø(2)
Mid Mid vowel A mid vowel is a vowel sound used in some spoken languages. The defining characteristic of a mid vowel is that the tongue is positioned mid-way between an open vowel and a close vowel...		ø(1)
Open-mid Open-mid vowel An open-mid vowel is a type of vowel sound used in some spoken languages. The defining characteristic of an open-mid vowel is that the tongue is positioned two-thirds of the way from an open vowel to a mid vowel...			o
Open Open vowel An open vowel is defined as a vowel sound in which the tongue is positioned as far as possible from the roof of the mouth. Open vowels are sometimes also called low vowels in reference to the low position of the tongue...	a

Universal Declaration of Human Rights

MLT

English

Lienhabkog seakaix jinkhoaan soangieen Te id tiaau Langlaang svilai zuxiuu, zai zungiaam kab khoanli siong itlut pengterng. Yn huoiuo lysexng kab liongsym, peng irnie hviati koanhe ee cviasiin hoxsiong tuiethai.

Universal Declaration of Human Rights Universal Declaration of Human Rights The Universal Declaration of Human Rights is a declaration adopted by the United Nations General Assembly . The Declaration arose directly from the experience of the Second World War and represents the first global expression of rights to which all human beings are inherently entitled... Article 1 All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights. They are endowed with reason and conscience and should act towards one another in a spirit of brotherhood.

MLT greetings

MLT	Translation	Remarks
Ciaqpar`boe?	Greetings.	("Have you eaten?")
Sitlea!	Sorry for my impoliteness!	(lit., "Disrespect")
Goar thviaf bøo.	I don't understand.	(lit., "I hear not")
Piexnsor ti tøfui?	Where's the bathroom?	(lit., "bathroom is where?")
Loflat! Kafmsia!	Thank you
Ho taf `laq!	Cheers!	(lit., Let it [the cup/glass] be dry [empty]!)
Lie karm korng Engguo?	Do you speak English?
Siensvy korng, hagsefng tiaxmtiam thviaf.	The teacher talks, the students quietly listen.
Kin'afjit hit'ee zabor-gyn'ar laai goarn taw khvoax goar.	Today that girl came to my house to see me.
Kin'axm larn beq khix Suxliim Iaxchi'ar.	Tonight, we want to go to Shilin Night Market.

The current system

The MLT alphabet adopts the Latin alphabet of 26 letters to express the basic sounds of Taiwanese:

a b c ch e f g h i j k kh l m n ng ø o p ph q r s t th u v y z zh

A MLT word, like each English word, can be formed by only one syllable or several syllables, with the two syllables being the most typical. Each syllable in MLT follows either one of the two underlying patterns (phonemes inside the bracket [] are optional):

• [Consonant] + [front nasal-sound] + vowel + [tone indicator]
• [Consonant] + vowel + [tone indicator] + [rear nasal-sound]

Consonants

• Bilabial: b, p, ph, m
• Alveolar: t, th, n, l
• Velar: g, k, kh, h
• Palatal: c, ch, s, j
• Dental: z, zh, s, j

Vowels

• Simple: a, i, u, e, o, ø, m, ng
• Compound: ai, au, ia, iu, iø, iau, ui, oa, oe, øe, oai
• Special High Tone (1st tone of i, u): y, w
• Special Shouting-Out Tone (2nd tone of ai, i, u, e, au): ae, ie, uo, ea, ao
• Front Nasal (indicator only, must be followed by a vowel): v
• Rear Nasal: m, n, ng

The nasals m, n, and ng can be appended to any of the vowels and some of the diphthongs.
In addition, m and ng can function as independent syllables by themselves.

The stops h/q, k/g, p/b and t/d can appear as the last letter in a syllable, in which case they are pronounced as unreleased stop

Unreleased stop

An unreleased stop or unreleased plosive is a plosive consonant without an audible release burst. That is, the oral tract is blocked to pronounce the consonant, and there is no audible indication of when that occlusion ends...

s. (The finals h and q stand for a glottal stop

Glottal stop

The glottal stop, or more fully, the voiceless glottal plosive, is a type of consonantal sound used in many spoken languages. In English, the feature is represented, for example, by the hyphen in uh-oh! and by the apostrophe or [[ʻokina]] in Hawaii among those using a preservative pronunciation of...

 of high and low tone, respectively.)

TMSS originally prescribed two special characters: the Greek letter ν

Nu (letter)

Nu , is the 13th letter of the Greek alphabet. In the system of Greek numerals it has a value of 50...

 and an o crossed by a backslash

Backslash

The backslash is a typographical mark used mainly in computing. It was first introduced to computers in 1960 by Bob Bemer. Sometimes called a reverse solidus or a slosh, it is the mirror image of the common slash....

. These were replaced with the Latin letter v and number 0, respectively. Because mixing numbers into words is problematic for spell checker

Spell checker

In computing, a spell checker is an application program that flags words in a document that may not be spelled correctly. Spell checkers may be stand-alone capable of operating on a block of text, or as part of a larger application, such as a word processor, email client, electronic dictionary,...

s, 0 was subsequently replaced by ø

Ø

Ø — minuscule: "ø", is a vowel and a letter used in the Danish, Faroese, Norwegian and Southern Sami languages.It's mostly used as a representation of mid front rounded vowels, such as ø œ, except for Southern Sami where it's used as an [oe] diphtong.The name of this letter is the same as the sound...

. However, ø is not part of the ASCII character set. To avoid the use of "ø", Modern Taiwanese Language (MTL) replaces it with a "Q" in smaller font and replaces øe with oe (the distinction between these two sounds is blurred in common usage).

Tones

Not only consonants and vowel sounds, but also tones are represented by letters in the MLT system. Certain letters have no sound of their own and are merely used as tone indicators. Others letters represent vowels or vowel combinations which have certain tones.
For example, "f", "r", and "x" are tone indicators only, and have no sound of their own in MLT. "Af" represents the "a" sound with a "high" tone, "ar" represents the same vowel sound but with a "shouting" tone, "ax" is the "a" sound with the low falling tone. A "y" or "w" indicates a high tone "i" and "u", respectively, while certain diphthongs, such as "ie" and "uo", are treated as "shouting" tones. The basic tone is represented by a normal, simple vowel (or voiced consonant—e.g. the nasals, "m" or "ng") without any special spelling modification.

High Tone

A high tone is derived by raising the pitch of the voice to a level somewhat above the basic tone and is normally represented by adding the tone indicator "f" after a vowel, with the exception of the “i” and “u” sounds in a syllable. A high tone "i" and a high tone "u" are denoted by "y" and "w", respectively.

(The high tone would be near the top of one's normal speaking register. It may possibly be compared to the sort of high intonation used by English speakers when imitating a singer warming up with a high but level "mi, mi, mi, mi, mi".)

Shouting-out Tone

A shouting-out [or just "shouting"] tone is derived from shouting out a basic tone, and is normally represented by adding a tone indicator "r" after a vowel. When compound vowels are present in the shouting tone, however, sounds which by the normal rule would otherwise be written (“air”, “ir”, “ur”, “er”, and “aur”) are instead spelled "ae", "ie", "uo", "ea", and "ao", respectively. Exceptions occur when this rule overlaps with other rules. For example, the shouting tone of "lin" is written "lirn", not "lien" (interpreted as a compound vowel in basic tone) even though "lie" is the "shouting" counterpart to "li".

(Note that the so-called "shouting" tone is not literally a shout, but refers to the sort of quick, falling tone used, e.g., in shouting out a single-syllable word. It may be understood by English speakers by comparing the neutral tone in the normal pronunciation of the vowel in the name "Bob" with the quick, falling tone used when shouting the name (or saying the name quietly but with urgency), "Bob!" Similarly, saying "No!" achieves the same quick, downward tone in English.)

Low-falling tone

The low-falling tone is always marked by appending an "x" to the rearmost vowel. (Think of the low, almost guttural tone used in muttering a flat "Huh." or "Hmph." in English.)

Rising tone

The rising tone is denoted according to the following rules:

• Simple vowel: simply repeat the vowel. (E.g., "guu".)
• Compound vowel: repeat the last vowel letter except when it contains an “a”, then just repeat the “a”. (E.g., "zoaa".) In the case of ø, use øo rather than øø.

(Just as an urgent, quick "No!" can provide an example of the "shouting" tone in English, a questioning "No?" may represent the rising tone.)

Short tone

The low stopping tones are indicated by switching the final stops with the high stopping tones' as follows: h->q, t->d, p->b, k->g.

Examples

Examples for the seven tones:

• 1 (High): ty (豬, pig)
• 2 (Shouting-out): bea (馬, horse)
• 3 (Low-falling): pax (豹, leopard)
• 4 (Low stop): aq (鴨, duck)
• 5 (Rising): zoaa (蛇, snake)
• 7 (Basic): chviu (象, elephant)
• 8 (High stop): lok (鹿, deer)

Special Symbols

The apostrophe

Apostrophe

The apostrophe is a punctuation mark, and sometimes a diacritic mark, in languages that use the Latin alphabet or certain other alphabets...

 (', typewriter apostrophe) is used to demarcate syllables when there is ambiguity. A hyphen

Hyphen

The hyphen is a punctuation mark used to join words and to separate syllables of a single word. The use of hyphens is called hyphenation. The hyphen should not be confused with dashes , which are longer and have different uses, or with the minus sign which is also longer...

 (-) is used to join two or more isolated words to make a new compound word with its own meaning. When a word contains a grave accent

Grave accent

The grave accent is a diacritical mark used in written Breton, Catalan, Corsican, Dutch, French, Greek , Italian, Mohawk, Norwegian, Occitan, Portuguese, Scottish Gaelic, Vietnamese, Welsh, Romansh, and other languages.-Greek:The grave accent was first used in the polytonic orthography of Ancient...

 (`), all the syllables after this mark are accented in the low tone (low-falling for the long tones, and low-short for short tones).

History of MLT

The Pe̍h-ōe-jī (POJ) system, introduced in the 19th century, provides a basis for phonetic transcription of the Taiwanese language using the Latin alphabet. It initially developed a significant user base, but the number of users declined during the period of Japanese colonization of Taiwan

Taiwan under Japanese rule

Between 1895 and 1945, Taiwan was a dependency of the Empire of Japan. The expansion into Taiwan was a part of Imperial Japan's general policy of southward expansion during the late 19th century....

, when the use of POJ was suppressed in preference to katakana

Katakana

is a Japanese syllabary, one component of the Japanese writing system along with hiragana, kanji, and in some cases the Latin alphabet . The word katakana means "fragmentary kana", as the katakana scripts are derived from components of more complex kanji. Each kana represents one mora...

, and also during the Kuomintang

Kuomintang

The Kuomintang of China , sometimes romanized as Guomindang via the Pinyin transcription system or GMD for short, and translated as the Chinese Nationalist Party is a founding and ruling political party of the Republic of China . Its guiding ideology is the Three Principles of the People, espoused...

 era of martial law

Martial law

Martial law is the imposition of military rule by military authorities over designated regions on an emergency basis— only temporary—when the civilian government or civilian authorities fail to function effectively , when there are extensive riots and protests, or when the disobedience of the law...

, during which Mandarin

Standard Chinese

Standard Chinese, or Modern Standard Chinese, also known as Mandarin or Putonghua, is the official language of the People's Republic of China and Republic of China , and is one of the four official languages of Singapore....

 was promoted.

Prof. Liim Keahioong, formerly of the National Cheng Kung University

National Cheng Kung University

National Cheng Kung University is a national university in Tainan City, Taiwan. Its abbreviation is NCKU. In Chinese, its name is shortened to 成大...

 in Tainan, Taiwan, pioneered the Taiwanese Modern Spelling System (TMSS) in 1943, with the intent to avoid the diacritical markings of POJ as well as the cumbersome difficulty of inputting Chinese character

Chinese character

Chinese characters are logograms used in the writing of Chinese and Japanese , less frequently Korean , formerly Vietnamese , or other languages...

s with the available technology. TMSS served as the basis for Modern Literal Taiwanese (MLT), also known as Modern Taiwanese Language (MTL).

Other variants of MLT exist, such as Phofsit Daibuun

Phofsit Daibuun

Phofsit Daibuun is an orthography in the Latin alphabet for Taiwanese Hokkien based on Modern Literal Taiwanese. It is able to use the ASCII character set to indicate the proper variation of pitch without any subsidiary scripts or diacritic symbols....

and Simplified MLT (SMLT).

External links

• 21st Century Taiwanese Language & Art Web - website run by Prof. Liim Keahioong, EDUTECH Foundation, Tainan, Taiwan
• Hydonsingore ee Hunhoarloo - a blog written in MLT
• Modern Taiwanese Language Association
• SMLT Homepage(簡式台語現代文)