Editing Pinyin (section)

== Comparison with other orthographies ==
Pinyin superseded older romanization systems such as Wade–Giles and [[postal romanization]], and replaced bopomofo as the method of Chinese phonetic instruction in [[mainland China]]. The ISO adopted pinyin as the standard romanization for modern Chinese in 1982 (ISO 7098:1982, superseded by ISO 7098:2015). The [[United Nations]] followed suit in 1986.{{sfnp|Fox|2017}}<ref name="lin">{{Cite news |last=Lin Mei-chun |date=2000-10-08 |title=Official challenges romanization |url=http://www.taipeitimes.com/News/local/archives/2000/10/08/56460 |work=Taipei Times}}</ref> It has also been accepted by the [[government of Singapore]], the United States's [[Library of Congress]], the [[American Library Association]], and many other international institutions.<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Ao |first=Benjamin |date=1997-12-01 |title=History and Prospect of Chinese Romanization |url=http://www.white-clouds.com/iclc/cliej/cl4ao.htm |journal=Chinese Librarianship: An International Electronic Journal |publisher=Internet Chinese Librarians Club |issue=4 |issn=1089-4667 |access-date=2008-09-20}}</ref>{{failed verification|date=January 2017}}
Pinyin assigns some Latin letters sound values which are quite different from those of most languages. This has drawn some criticism as it may lead to confusion when uninformed speakers apply either native or English assumed pronunciations to words. However, this problem is not limited only to pinyin, since many languages that use the Latin alphabet natively also assign different values to the same letters. A recent study on Chinese writing and literacy concluded, "By and large, pinyin represents the Chinese sounds better than the Wade–Giles system, and does so with fewer extra marks."{{sfnp|Taylor|Taylor|2014|p=124}}

As pinyin is a phonetic writing system for modern [[Standard Chinese]], it is not designed to replace characters for writing [[Literary Chinese]], the standard written language prior to the early 20th century. In particular, Chinese characters retain semantic cues that help distinguish differently pronounced words in the ancient classical language that are now [[homophone]]s in Mandarin. Thus, Chinese characters remain indispensable for recording and transmitting the corpus of Chinese writing from the past.

Pinyin is not designed to transcribe [[Chinese language varieties|varieties]] other than Standard Chinese, which is based on the phonological system of Beijing Mandarin. Other romanization schemes have been devised to transcribe those other Chinese varieties, such as [[Jyutping]] for Cantonese and [[Pe̍h-ōe-jī]] for [[Hokkien]].

=== Comparison charts ===
{{Pinyintable}}