Editing Pinyin (section)

===Development===
Hanyu Pinyin was designed by a group of mostly Chinese linguists, including [[Wang Li (linguist)|Wang Li]], [[Lu Zhiwei]], [[Li Jinxi]], [[Luo Changpei]], as well as [[Zhou Youguang]] (1906–2017), an economist by trade, as part of a Chinese government project in the 1950s. Zhou, often called "the father of pinyin",{{sfnp|Fox|2017}}<ref>{{Cite web |date=26 March 2009 |title=Father of pinyin |url=http://www.china.org.cn/books&magazines/2009-03/26/content_17504026.htm |access-date=12 July 2009 |website=[[China Daily]]}} Reprinted in part as {{Cite news |title=Father of Pinyin |first=Alan |last=Simon |agency=Xinhua |newspaper=[[China Daily#Asia Weekly|China Daily Asia Weekly]] |location=Hong Kong |date=21–27 Jan 2011 |page=20}}</ref><ref>{{Cite news |last=Dwyer |first=Colin |date=14 January 2017 |title=Obituary: Zhou Youguang, Architect of a Bridge Between Languages, Dies at 111 |url=https://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2017/01/14/509820277/zhou-youguang-architect-of-a-bridge-between-languages-dies-at-111 |access-date=2018-12-20 |work=NPR |publisher=[[National Public Radio]]}}</ref>{{sfnp|Branigan|2008}} worked as a banker in New York when he decided to return to China to help rebuild the country after the People's Republic was established. Earlier attempts to [[Romanization of Chinese|romanize Chinese writing]] were mostly abandoned in 1944. Zhou became an economics professor in Shanghai, and when the [[Ministry of Education of the People's Republic of China|Ministry of Education]] created the Committee for the Reform of the Chinese Written Language in 1955, Premier [[Zhou Enlai]] assigned him the task of developing a new romanization system, despite the fact that he was not a linguist by trade.{{sfnp|Fox|2017}}

Hanyu Pinyin incorporated different aspects from existing systems, including [[Mongolian language|Mongolian]], [[Latinxua Sin Wenz]] (1931), and the [[diacritic]]s from [[bopomofo]] (1918).{{sfnp|Rohsenow|2004|p=23}} "I'm not the father of pinyin", Zhou said years later; "I'm the son of pinyin. It's [the result of] a long tradition from the later years of the Qing dynasty down to today. But we restudied the problem and revisited it and made it more perfect."{{sfnp|Branigan|2008}}

An initial draft was authored in January 1956 by [[Ye Laishi]], Lu Zhiwei and Zhou Youguang. A revised Pinyin scheme was proposed by Wang Li, Lu Zhiwei and Li Jinxi, and became the main focus of discussion among the group of Chinese linguists in June 1956, forming the basis of Pinyin standard later after incorporating a wide range of feedback and further revisions.{{sfnp|Wang|1995}} The first edition of Hanyu Pinyin was approved and officially adopted at the Fifth Session of the [[1st National People's Congress]] on 11 February 1958. It was then introduced to primary schools as a way to teach Standard Chinese pronunciation and used to improve the literacy rate among adults.<ref name="Asiaone">{{Cite news |date=2008-02-11 |title=Hanyu Pinyin system turns 50 |url=http://www.asiaone.com/News/The%2BStraits%2BTimes/Story/A1Story20080211-48960.html |access-date=2008-09-20 |work=[[Straits Times]]}}</ref>

Despite its formal promulgation, pinyin did not become widely used until after the tumult of the [[Cultural Revolution]].<ref name=":Mullaney">{{Cite book |last=Mullaney |first=Thomas S. |title=The Chinese Computer: a Global History of the Information Age |date=2024 |publisher=[[The MIT Press]] |isbn=9780262047517 |location=Cambridge, MA}}</ref>{{Rp|page=189}} In the 1980s, students were trained in pinyin from an early age, learning it in tandem with characters or even before.<ref name=":Mullaney" />{{Rp|page=200}}

During the height of the Cold War the use of pinyin system over Wade–Giles and [[Yale romanization of Mandarin|Yale romanizations]] outside of China was regarded as a political statement or identification with the mainland Chinese government.<ref>{{Cite conference |last=Wiedenhof |first=Jeroen |year=2004 |title=Purpose and effect in the transcription of Mandarin |url=http://www.wiedenhof.nl/ul/tk/pbl/articles/purp&eff.pdf |conference=Proceedings of the International Conference on Chinese Studies 2004 漢學研究國際學術研討會論文集 |publisher=[[National Yunlin University of Science and Technology]] |pages=387–402 |isbn=986-00-4011-7 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130602161106/http://www.wiedenhof.nl/ul/tk/pbl/articles/purp&eff.pdf |archive-date=2 June 2013 |access-date=2009-07-18 |quote=In the Cold War era, the use of this system outside China was typically regarded as a political statement, or a deliberate identification with the Chinese communist regime. (p390) |url-status=live}}</ref> Beginning in the early 1980s, Western publications addressing mainland China began using the Hanyu Pinyin romanization system instead of earlier romanization systems; this change followed the [[Joint Communiqué on the Establishment of Diplomatic Relations]] between the United States and China in 1979.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Terry |first=Edith |title=[[How Asia got rich: Japan, China and the Asian miracle]] |publisher=M. E. Sharpe |year=2002 |isbn=978-0-7656-0355-5 |series=A Pacific Basin Institute book |location=Armonk, NY |pages=632–633}}</ref><ref>{{Cite news |date=4 February 1979 |title=Times Due To Revise Its Chinese Spelling |url=https://www.nytimes.com/1979/02/04/archives/times-due-to-revise-its-chinese-spelling-adoption-of-new-system.html |access-date=2024-07-09 |work=The New York Times |issn=0362-4331 |page=10}}</ref> In 2001, the Chinese government issued the ''National Common Language Law'', providing a legal basis for applying pinyin.<ref name="Asiaone" /> The current specification of the orthography is GB/T 16159–2012.{{sfnp|GB/T 16159|2012}}