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Does anybody know why this decision was made in Pinyin, about not writing any hint of the sound /O/ in liu, instead of writing something like liou or liow ?

Because the first reaction of any newcomer to Chinese, and moreover, non chinese speakers, is to say lee-oo instead of lee-ow.

edit: some arbitrary decision seems to have been made by choosing you instead of yu, but with other initials, the choice was: liu, niu, jiu, etc. when the phoneme /ou/ in all cases is the same and one could reasonably expect them to be written the same, or at least to be a good reason as to why it isn't the case.

edit2: Happens something similar to the final -ui which is pronounced -uei

Does anybody know why this decision was made in pinyin, about not writing any hint of the sound /o/ in liu, instead of writing something like liou or liow ?

The first reaction of any newcomer to Chinese, and also, non-Chinese speakers, is to say lee-oo instead of lee-ow.

Edit: some arbitrary decision seems to have been made by choosing you instead of yu, but with other initials, the choice was: liu, niu, jiu, etc. when the phoneme /ou/ in all cases is the same and one could reasonably expect them to be written the same, or at least to be a good reason as to why it isn't the case.

Edit2: Happens something similar to the final -ui which is pronounced -uei

Does anybody know why this decision was made in Pinyin, about not writing any hint of the sound /O/ in liu, instead of writing something like liou or liow ?

Because the first reaction of any newcomer to Chinese, and moreover, non chinese speakers, is to say lee-oo instead of lee-ow.

edit: some arbitrary decision seems to have been made by choosing you instead of yu, but with other initials, the choice was: liu, niu, jiu, etc. when the phoneme /ou/ in all cases is the same and one could reasonably expect them to be written the same, or at least to be a good reason as to why it isn't the case.

edit2: Happens something similar to the final -ui which is pronounced -uei

Note: I've seen answers to this and other questions that take my questions as sort of attacks or critiques to the chinese language, not true at all. I in fact study chinese not because I need it, but because I like it. I'm just asking questions about why and how the language actually is.

Does anybody know why this decision was made in Pinyin, about not writing any hint of the sound /O/ in liu, instead of writing something like liou or liow ?

Because the first reaction of any newcomer to Chinese, and moreover, non chinese speakers, is to say lee-oo instead of lee-ow.

edit: some arbitrary decision seems to have been made by choosing you instead of yu, but with other initials, the choice was: liu, niu, jiu, etc. when the phoneme /ou/ in all cases is the same and one could reasonably expect them to be written the same, or at least to be a good reason as to why it isn't the case.

edit2: Happens something similar to the final -ui which is pronounced -uei

Does anybody know why this decision was made in Pinyin, about not writing any hint of the sound /O/ in liu, instead of writing something like liou or liow ?

Because the first reaction of any newcomer to Chinese, and moreover, non chinese speakers, is to say lee-oo instead of lee-ow.

edit: some arbitrary decision seems to have been made by choosing you instead of yu, but with other initials, the choice was: liu, niu, jiu, etc. when the phoneme /ou/ in all cases is the same and one could reasonably expect them to be written the same, or at least to be a good reason as to why it isn't the case.

Note: I've seen answers to this and other questions that take my questions as sort of attacks or critiques to the chinese language, not true at all. I in fact study chinese not because I need it, but because I like it. I'm just asking questions about why and how the language actually is.

Does anybody know why this decision was made in Pinyin, about not writing any hint of the sound /O/ in liu, instead of writing something like liou or liow ?

Because the first reaction of any newcomer to Chinese, and moreover, non chinese speakers, is to say lee-oo instead of lee-ow.

edit: some arbitrary decision seems to have been made by choosing you instead of yu, but with other initials, the choice was: liu, niu, jiu, etc. when the phoneme /ou/ in all cases is the same and one could reasonably expect them to be written the same, or at least to be a good reason as to why it isn't the case.

edit2: Happens something similar to the final -ui which is pronounced -uei

Note: I've seen answers to this and other questions that take my questions as sort of attacks or critiques to the chinese language, not true at all. I in fact study chinese not because I need it, but because I like it. I'm just asking questions about why and how the language actually is.