Phonetic Spelling Movement (End of 19th century)
  • 1892，Lu Xizhang published "First Steps to Clarity at a Glance" (What are cut-sound characters?), marking an important beginning for Romanized phonetic schemes.
  • Around the same time, Wei Xu's "Rapid Sound Transmission Characters", Qi Baoqi's "Easy Character Method", and Wang Zhao's "Pinyin Method" (a government pronunciation scheme inspired by compound spelling) were introduced.
  • The official pronunciation movement of this period had a civil and commercial character, originating from the private sector.
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Simplified Character Movement (1900–1912)
  • 1900，Wang Zhao published "Mandarin Combined Phonetic Alphabet", a more developed system than the earlier Cut-Sound Movement, and began widespread publicity and promotion.
  • In addition, phonetic teaching and Mandarin teaching also flourished, though they still operated in a non-governmental capacity.
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Zhuyin Alphabet Movement Period (1913–1928)
  • 1913，The Ministry of Education of the Republic of China convened the "Pronunciation Unification Conference," which determined the standard pronunciation for 6,500 characters and created the current Zhuyin symbols.
  • 1916，The Beiyang Government formally approved the "National Alphabet," and the work of promoting its teaching began.
  • 1918，The Zhuyin alphabet was officially promulgated nationwide, and the National Language Dictionary was published.
  • 1920，The Ministry of Education reorganized the Chinese Character Commission, and schools began implementing education using Zhuyin.
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National Language Romanization Movement Period (1928–1949)
  • 1928，The "National Academy of China" promulgated the "Official National Language Romanization," marking the formal beginning of its use as an official pinyin tool.
  • 1932，The Ministry of Education of the Republic of China announced the National Language Romanization (Pinyin Guoyu), establishing a unified system of Romanization symbols.
  • 1931，The Institute of Oriental Studies of the Soviet Academy of Sciences and the Chinese Language Reform Research Society issued a written standard.
  • 1940，The National Language Dictionary (Four-Tone Edition) was officially published, becoming the daily-use pinyin standard for studying the national language and Chinese language norms.
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Stage of Script Reform
(People's Republic of China)
(1949-1960)
  • 1956，In the early years of the People's Republic of China, the first pinyin scheme was introduced, attracting the attention and cooperation of many linguists.
  • 1958，The People's Republic of China officially promulgated the Scheme for the Chinese Phonetic Alphabet of the People's Republic of China (Hanyu Pinyin), establishing it as the legal phonetic annotation system for Chinese.
  • 1960，The Modern Chinese Dictionary was published, establishing norms for the use of Chinese characters and laying the foundation for the promotion of pinyin writing.