Bopomofo, also called zhuyin or occasionally zhuyin fuhao (注音符號; 'Mandarin Phonetic Symbols'), is a transliteration system system for Standard Chinese and other Sinitic languages. It is commonly used in Taiwan. It consists of 37 characters and five tone marks, which together can transcribe all possible sounds in Mandarin Chinese.
Bopomofo was first introduced in China during the 1910s by the Beiyang government, where it was used alongside Wade–Giles, a romanization system which used a modified Latin alphabet. Today, bopomofo is more common in Taiwan than on the mainland, and is used as a secondary electronic input method for Taiwanese Mandarin, as well as in dictionaries and other non-official documents.
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