This converter was created, first of all, for the specialists who not being sinologists yet need to render accurately and unambiguously the philosophical concepts, personal names, treatises titles by the means of Ukrainian language. In this particular case the creation of converter was stimulated by the experience of solving the problems of transcription of Chinese vocabulary in the process of writing author's own monograph.

The transcription systems used in this converter (tables of syllables are given according to: [Ошанин 1983, pp. 440–442]):

• Pinyin (full name: Hanyu Pinyin 汉语拼音) – modern standard international transcription of Chinese language
• TRT – traditional Russian transcription (Palladius system)

Ukrainian transcription. Now there are different approaches to its creation (see Bibliography). The Ukrainian transcription of the syllables of Chinese language used in the converter is based on the following principles:

• possibility of unambiguous conversion in writing from a set of syllables in one transcription to a set of syllables in another one
• succession with respect to traditional Russian transcription (TRT)
• accent on preservation of recognizability of the vocabulary of terms and proper names traditionally used in Ukrainian and Russian scholarly texts and abstention in this regard from introducing radical changes to the TRT.

SHORT REMARKS

r = «ж»

In Chinese language there is no sound «р» («річка») at all, but there is sound «л» («ліс»); it is notable that in Japanese, conversely, there is no sound «л», but there is sound «р». Due to this fact the letter r resulted unused. Thus, it was decided to designate by the Latin r the Chinese sound «ж» (ren = «жень»).

n = «нь», ng = «н»

In Chinese language the words consist not of letters but of syllables (one syllable is one character). Every syllable ends in vowel or in consonant «н», which may be conditionally soft or hard: n («нь») or ng («н», but not «нг»); only one syllable in Chinese alphabet ends in different consonant – r (here pronounced not as «ж», but like French r).

«і» or «и»

When transcribing the Eastern languages, and Chinese in particular, by the means of Ukrainian language we encounter the problem of whether to apply the "9's rule" (правило дев’ятки).

In which syllables do we write «и»:

In which syllables do we write «і»:

As we can see, the 9's rule cannot be applied here, otherwise the distinction between several groups of syllables would be lost:

Thus, when і (Latin) is hard, we render it with «и» (as in «цибуля», «сир», «зиск»), and when it is soft – with «і» (as in «ціна», «сік», «зірка»).

It is obvious that the authors of Ukrainian orthography did not aim at all at the creation of scientific transcription of Chinese language. However, the progress of Ukrainian science and development of interdisciplinary relations between its different branches require from us to take into account, first of all, the specifics of one or another object of research.

hui = «хуй»/«хуей»

Following I. M. Oshanin, we render the syllables chui, cui, dui, gui, hui, kui, rui, shui, sui, tui, zhui, zui as «чуй», «цуй», «дуй», «ґуй», «хуй», «куй», «жуй», «шуй», «суй», «туй», «чжуй», «цзуй» respectively. This designation (ui) in writing of the Chinese final, which sounds as uеi (е sounds shortly), is an established standard, and therefore in scientific usage we don't see need to extract from this row the syllable hui and to transcribe it as «хуей». Because in such a case we should change the spelling of all the rest of these syllables to: «чуей», «цуей», «дуей», «ґуей» etc. Moreover, using the variant «хуей» results in loss of unambiguity and, as a result, makes impossible the reproduction of original Pinyin syllable: since it is impossible to decide whether it is supposed to represent one syllable hui («хуй») or two syllables hu'ei («ху»+«ей» = «хуей») are meant.

wu = «у» or «ву»?
yі = «і» or «ї»?

The syllables of Chinese alphabet are formed by adding to the initial (consonant) one of its possible finales (one vowel / diphthong / triphthong), for instance: g+a=ga, g+ui=gui, g+uai=guai or k+a=ka, k+ui=kui, k+uai=kuai etc. When the finals are used separately, as independent syllables, they look like this (in the case of set of finales beginning with u and i):

Thus, in the beginning of a syllable u is written as w, and i as y. In the case of a single u, or i, formally it is impossible to form such syllable, and therefore it is written as wu, or yi, respectively (according to the explanation to the table of Pinyin syllables in the documentation of ISO 7098:2015).

Accordingly, w and y are not initials, and from the very beginning were specially introduced – not to render the phonetic sounding, but only for the purposes of conventional designation in writing of the beginning of a new syllable (due to this convention, between two syllables there is no need to use apostrophe before w and y; while we need apostrophe before syllables beginning with a, e, o).

We may note as well that in the IPA (International Phonetic Alphabet) yi is transcribed as [i]. The system of Wade-Giles uses i as well.

Thus, there is no need to render wu as «ву» and yi as «ї» in Ukrainian transcription.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Китайско-русский словарь 汉俄词典 / Под ред. Ся Чжун-и  夏仲毅. – Пекин: «Шанъу иньшугуань» 北京:商务印书馆, 1990. – 1250 с.

Кірносова Н.А. Засади транскрибування китайської лексики українською мовою // Сходознавство. – Вип. 45–46. – Київ, 2009. – C. 38–57. – Режим доступу:
http://dspace.nbuv.gov.ua/handle/123456789/20786.

Колодко С.А. Китайсько-український словник: 80 000 слів. – К.; ТОВ «Видавництво «Консультант», 2004. – 1176 с.

Несина І. Кодифікація китайських лексичних запозичень у словниках // Мовні і концептуальні картини світу. – 2013. – Вип. 46(3). – С. 57–65. – Режим доступу:
http://nbuv.gov.ua/UJRN/Mikks_2013_46(3)__11.

Таблица записи слогов китайского языка новым китайским фонетическим алфавитом и в традиционной русской транскрипции // Большой китайско-русский словарь (華俄大辭典) в 4-х томах / Под ред. И. М. Ошанина. – Т. 1. – М.: Главная редакция восточной литературы издательства «Наука», 1983. – С. 440–442.

Cihai 辞海 (Encyclopedic Dictionary of Chinese Language "Cihai"). – Shanghai: Shanghai cishu chubanshe 上海:上海辞书出版社, 1979. – 2216 p.

ISO 7098:2015(E). Information and documentation – Romanization of Chinese. Standard, International Organization for Standardization, Geneva, CH, 2015. – 19 p.