The National Languages Committee was established in 1919 by the Ministry of Education of the Republic of China with the purpose of standardizing and popularizing the usage of Standard Chinese in the country. The committee was known in English as the Mandarin Promotion Council or the National Languages Promotion Committee until 2003, but the Chinese name has not changed. The phrase Guoyu ( 國語 "National language") typically refers to Standard Chinese, but could also be interpreted as referring to "national languages". The reorganization of the Executive Yuan made the duties of the National Languages Committee be transferred to the Department of Lifelong Education's fourth sector (Reading and Language Education) from 2013.
5-906: It was created as the Preparatory Commission for the Unification of the National Language by the Republic (then still based in Nanjing ) on 21 April 1919. On 12 December 1928, the commission was renamed to the Preparatory Committee for the Unification of the National Language, headed by Woo Tsin-hang and had 31 members. The committee was revived in 1983 as the Mandarin Promotion Council based on Taiwan . The decisions reached by
10-788: The Mandarin Promotion Council . The first meeting took place on 15 February 1913 in Beijing , with 44 delegates. The chairman was Wu; vice-chairman Wang Zhao . There were two representatives per each of the 26 provinces . The Tibetans , the Mongolians and the overseas Chinese each had one representative. Prominent members included: There were three main ideas of how the phonetic symbols should be: The three groups discussed for two months and adopted 15 symbols from Zhang Binglin 's all- Zhuanshu Jiyin Zimu ( 記音字母 ), which
15-572: The Council include: The Committee for National Language Romanization ( 羅馬字母拼音研究委員會 ) under the Council selects and modifies Romanization Systems. The official Mandarin romanization systems in the Republic of China have been: Since the Taiwanization movement took hold in government, the committee also handles: Commission on the Unification of Pronunciation The Commission on
20-480: The Unification of Pronunciation was established by the Republic of China in 1913 in order to address several aspects of Chinese language reform —including selecting an official phonetic transcription system for Mandarin Chinese , as well as standardizing pronunciations for basic Chinese characters . Delegates representing every Chinese province deliberated on the merits of numerous systems, ultimately selecting
25-585: The design of Zhang Binglin (1869–1936). Zhang's system would serve as the prototype for bopomofo , and would be officially adopted by the Republican government in 1918. It was decided in a draft on 7 August 1912, a month after a July 10 conference led by Cai Yuanpei , that a set of phonetic symbols were to be used for education purposes. The commission was set up in December and chaired by Wu Zhihui . The Commission ended on 22 May 1913. Wu would later chair
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