The Shwa Alphabet for Chinese	Contents
刷文

By Chinese, I mean 中囯话 zhōngguóhuà , also known as 普通话 pǔtōnghuà or 汉语 hànyǔ, the national standard language spoken by about three quarters of the Han Chinese in a swath from Manchuria to Yunnan. I don't mean:

• the Beijing dialect 北京话 běijīnghuà
• the national language of Taiwan 國語 guóyǔ (although it's very close)
• the national standard written language 中文 zhōngwén or 白话 báihuà
• the old Imperial standard written language, Mandarin or 官話 guānhuà
• the Wu (Shanghaiese), Min (Fukienese or Taiwanese), Yue (Cantonese), Kejia (Hakka), Xiang or Gan languages
• any other language of the People's Republic of China, for example Korean, Manchu, Mongolian, Uighur, Tibetan, Miao or Zhuang

Almost every Chinese syllable fits a neat formula: an initial consonant is followed by a medial semivowel , then a vowel, and finally a coda: a consonant or off-glide (the word coda is the Italian word for "tail"). The whole syllable is also spoken with a tone, which we mark on the vowel. Some of these five elements may be missing or hidden in the written form.

Initials

In Chinese, there are 21 initials (声母 shēngmu), shown below with their pinyin romanizations and their IPA transcriptions (in green) where they're different.

The sounds in the fourth column (zh ch sh r) are retroflex, while the sounds in the fifth column (j q x) are palatal.

Semivowels

The semivowels form a simple pattern: they are all formed high in the mouth - they're the consonant versions of closed vowels. Two are front semivowels, and two are back semivowels. One of each pair is pronounced with lips rounded; the other with lips spread.

The semivowel is always there, but it's not written when it's followed by the matching vowel. The spread back semivowel is never written, unless there's no initial consonant, in which case the semivowel is always written. For example, bwu is written bu, but wu is written wu. Likewise, mɰa is written ma but ɰa is written ɰa.

Codas

Before considering the vowels, let's look at the codas. There are five of them:

• The -u coda is sometimes written -o in pinyin.
• The -r coda is actually a contraction of another coda plus the word 兒 ér (written 儿 in simplified form). This often entails a change in pronunciation, which we'll discuss below.
• It's also possible for a syllable to have no coda.

Vowels

Now we're ready to consider the vowels. There are actually only two of them: mid e and open a. What makes it interesting it that the vowel takes on the characteristics of the semivowel before it and the coda after it. The two vowels have one form for when they're front, another for when they're central, and another for when they're back (for which we use round letters, even though they're not very round in Chinese).

Here are the rules for which form each vowel takes in the standard dialect, although you don't have to memorize them - write each main vowel as you pronounce it (or hear it), and it will be understood:

• The low vowel a is normally pronounced centrally.
• Before back codas -u and -ng, a becomes back ɑ.
• Otherwise, between front semivowels and front nasal coda -n, a becomes front æ.

• The mid vowel e is normally pronounced centrally.
• Before back -u, e moves back to become back ɤ.
• Before front -i, e moves forward to become front ɛ.
• After a back semivowel, e moves forward before front -n and back before back -ng.
• But after a front semivowel (y or ÿ), e becomes a high vowel before any nasal coda (-n or ng).

It's also possible for a syllable to have "no" vowel, which is realized as the high vowel that corresponds to the semivowel, as in shı, xi, shu and xü.

The combination of semivowel, vowel and coda is called the final (韻母 yùnmu ). Here's a chart showing all the finals of Chinese, in Alphabet gait and in pinyin:

Pinyin spelling has some variations that Shwa doesn't need :

• The final -o (as in bo po mo fo) is spelled -uo in Shwa.
• The finals -ui -iu -un are spelled -uei -iou -uen in Shwa.
• The word weng is spelled wong in Shwa.
• The word me is spelled ma in Shwa.

Rhotics

The only Chinese syllable that doesn't fit this pattern is er, as in the number 2 二 èr. This sound is written with no initial when it stands alone:

But when it spells the diminutive suffix 兒 or 儿, it combines with the preceding syllable to produce a rhoticized final: the coda becomes -r and the vowel also changes :

• In most cases the low vowel is pronounced as back -ɑr
• In most cases the mid vowel keeps its non-rhoticized pronunciation
• The -r doesn't replace -u: they merge to form -aur or -ur
• Between a back semivowel and front oral -i, e is not so far forward: it's pronounced as central -ər
• The high vowels all become mid vowels
• The -ng final is nasalized to -ɑ̃r or -ũr

Tones

Shwa also marks the tone. The tones of Chinese are contour tones: it's the change in pitch that counts, not the pitch itself. The five tones are:

The first and third tones use the same accent mark, but it's written over the vowel in 3rd tone. Here are the five tones applied to the vowel ah :

1st	2nd	3rd	4th	5th

The third tone is pronounced differently and written differently when followed by another tone in the same word. If the following tone is different (not another third tone), the third tone is written as a low falling tone. If there are two third tones in sequence, the first one is written as a low rising tone and the second one is written as a low falling tone.

	→
mǎi yú		mài yú
	→
nǐ hǎo		ní hào

Hànzì Gait

Chinese is normally written in Syllabary gait, in which the elements are arranged to form a square character. The details of Syllabary gait are explained on the Gaits page, so we'll just give you some examples here.

Putting it all together, why don't you try reading a sentence?

知者不言, 言者不知
zhīzhĕbùyán, yánzhĕbùzhī