Is the Ong sound absent from zhuyin?

Question

In the “group a finals” rows of the Wikipedia pinyin and zhuyin tables I see an “ong” row present in the pinyin table absent from the zhuyin table.

Zhuyin expresses this final with the combination of “ㄨ+ㄥ”, that is like an “u+eng” sound. But this sound, even with the components slurred together quickly, seems to be very different than the “ong” sound from pinyin.

While neither phonetic system is more correct than the other, one of these sounds must be more correct than the other because they are so different. If both sounds are “correct” in that they are the sounds spoken by native speakers, then native speakers must speak distinctly different depending on which table they used to learn.

This is the first functional inconsistency I find between the two phonetic systems. Are there others just as noticeable?

Edit: I see from a recent question that “ㄩㄥ” may in fact be the more appropriate sound for “ong”, but that too sounds very different, so my question remains.

Answer 1

I think ㄥis on its way to history. I have found so many people, myself included, who can't or don't pronounce ㄥ correctly. Even though 國語/普通話 is based on 北京話，I have found that even some Beijingers can't pronounce ㄥcorrectly. In fact, so many Beijingers, even news anchors, pronounce 北京 as 北今. I wonder how many Beijingers can differentiate 北京 from 北今.

I know how ㄨ is pronounced, I know how ㄥ is pronounced, so I know how ㄨㄥ should be pronounced. However, everybody I know pronounce ㄨㄥas ong.

I know how ㄧ is pronounced, I know how ㄥis pronounced, so, I know how ㄧㄥ should be pronounced. However, I had never heard anybody pronounce 影 in 電影as what it should be. Everybody pronounces it as 電引.

The same is true for 鄭, which becomes 鎮, 慶 becomes 泌, 蒙 becomes 門, 冰 becomes 賓, 朋友 becomes 盆友, etc. ㄥ(eng) is in the transition to ㄣ(en).

For a long long time, I had questioned maybe some mistakes were made when designing 注音符號.

It was only until recently that I had finally found that 影 is really pronounced as ㄧㄥ, not ㄧㄣ. If you go to youtube, search 王弟講電影, and watch any of his videos. Within the first 10 seconds, he would say 這是王弟講電影. The way he pronounces 影 is exactly the way I expect it to be. It is really ㄧ + ㄥ, not ㄧ + ㄣ. After all, there is no mistakes in designing 注音符號.

Yet, I still believe ㄥ is on its way to history. One person won't make a difference.

Oh! 風 probably will never become 芬 and 勇 won't become 雲. So, maybe ㄥ will survive there. And I'm still looking for one who can pronounce ㄨㄥ, as in 老翁, the way it should be (or the way I expect it to be) and not ong.

Answer 2

There is a dedicated letter for -ong (ㆲ), however in Mandarin -ong is not phonemic, just an allophone of phonemic -ung (ㄨㄥ), and is spelled as such. Taiwanese, which does have the phonemic final -ong, uses the dedicated letter and uses ㄨㄥ for -ung.

Answer 3

I think the difference between the "ong" of Pinyin and the ㄨㄥ of Bopomofo comes from how you analyze the vowel system of Mandarin and what you consider an initial. Pinyin uses a five-vowel analysis, whereas Bopomofo uses a two-vowel analysis.

(Below, I try to follow linguistic convention by referring to the Pinyin spellings between quotation marks (e.g., "ong"), underlying phonemes between slashes (e.g., /ung/), and the phonetic pronunciation between brackets (e.g., [ʊŋ]).)

According to Wikipedia here, Pinyin analyzes Mandarin as having the following five underlying nuclear vowels: /i/ /u/ /y/ /ə/ /a/. The syllable "ong" is listed as having /u/ as the underlying vowel. The spelling "ong" is just a representation of /ung/ meant to cover the slight change in pronunciation and probably coming from previous romanization schemes. The syllable "weng," on the other hand, is listed in Pinyin as having /ə/ as the underlying vowel, and so has a different final from "ong" in this analysis. In other words, Pinyin sees these two syllables as ending in two different strings of phonemes /ung/ and /əŋ/. They can't be used with the same initials, as Pinyin defines them; however, this is irrelevant for the Pinyin analysis.

In Bopomofo, according to Wikipedia here, there is an analysis that gives only the following two underlying nuclear vowels to Mandarin: /ə/ and /a/, In this analysis, some syllables can have no nuclear vowels or no final at all and can consist only of an initial or an initial with a medial/glide vowel. The spelling ㄨㄥ is listed under the /ə/ vowel. It does double duty phonetically to represent both [wəŋ] and [ʊŋ], because under this analysis it represents a single string of phonemes, namely /wəŋ/. The pronunciation [wəŋ] is used when there is no initial, but [ʊŋ] is used when there is one. In other words, Bopomofo treats the two pronunciations as allophones of the same underlying string of phonemes /wəŋ/ that can have two different surface realizations, depending on the presence or absence of an initial as defined by Bopomofo.

There is a similar mismatch between the two systems in the syllable [jʊŋ] (用). Both systems reflect the same surface pronunciation, but Pinyin analyzes it as a variation of underlying /juŋ/, while Bopomofo analyzes it as a variation of underlying /ɥəŋ/. I thing Bopomofo requires the /ɥ/ to justify the change in pronunciation of [ə] to the more rounded [ʊ]; whereas Pinyin has more "vowel" symbols and can just reflect the pronunciation more directly; moreover, Pinyin does not have separate symbols for initial /i/ and /ɥ/ and just uses "y" for both.

Answer 4

I hope these examples can clarify your understanding of zhuyin's usage.

Notice the relationship between initials and medials.

ㄩㄥˋ　　用　　yong4  [jʊŋ]
ㄒㄩㄥ　 兄　　xiong1 [ɕi̯ʊŋ]

-ㄨㄥ  -ong　
ㄙㄨㄥ　 松   song1  [sʊŋ]
ㄊㄨㄥ　 通　　tong1  [tʊŋ]

ㄨㄥ　   翁   weng1 [u̯əŋ]
ㄨˇ　　　五　　wu3   

ㄌㄨˋ　　路　　lu4
ㄌㄩˋ　　綠   lv4

I guess I never really thought about it, but I can see where it might seem a bit strange to use ㄨ to represent an o sound when it is normally w/u.

But basically, ㄩ is pronounced like pinyin's yo/io before -ng and ㄨ is pronounced like pinyin's o when in between an initial and -ng.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Standard_Chinese_phonology

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bopomofo

Answer 5

ㄩㄥ is yong, ㄨㄥ is ong.

What they should have done is create a distinct symbol for ong instead of using ㄥ for both eng and ong. If they had another unique symbol then this question wouldn’t exist.

翁 is unique. The closest is ㄨㄨㄥ（wuong). Weng sounds like eng in Leng so it doesn’t sound close to the actual sound.

ㄌㄩˋ 綠 may write as lyu, which is better than lv (which can’t be pronounced without special instructions).

Answer 6

Zhuyin doesn't have a dedicated symbol that corresponds to pinyin -ong, so we just use ㄨㄥ for [ʊŋ] after an intial such as ㄉㄊㄌ. Technically 東 and 翁 shouldn't rhyme, but the ㄨ in 翁 is commonly dropped. The most correct pronunciation would still differ though. To answer your question: no, it isn't absent, it's just written differently.

Answer 7

Both the BoPoMoFo and PinYin systems represent the complete pronunciation of the standard Chinese language. BoPoMoFo is more coherent than PinYin.

For example, we have the rimes (an ang en eng) and the consonants (semi-consonants, glides) (i u v), then we would have the combinations of (ian iang ien ieng) (uan uang uen ueng) (van vang* ven veng). The (*）sound is not practically used in the standard Chinese language.

The BoPoMoFo system represents the combination directly without alternation. But PinYin introduces extra symbols that break the rules of combination.

Answer 8

In my opinion, 注音符號 (Zhù Yīn Fú Hào) is the most precise representation of the Mandarin Chinese phonetic space.

The consonants in Pinyin are mostly okay, especially the way palatal versus retroflex tongue are handled (e.g.: c/ch, s/sh, z/zh). The vowels are another story. What a pile of mishmash! What were they thinking of when they designed the vowels?

我 wŏ 中 zhōng 用 yòng

These three o's are completely unrelated.

Why is 用 (yòng) written with an "o", while 雲 (yún) is written with a "u", representing the selfsame vowel sound?

Another problem is the elimination of glides. The glides are preserved in Zhù Yīn. For example, consider "准". This is represented in Zhù Yīn as [ㄓㄨㄣˇ]. It is important to note that [ㄣ] is not [n]; it is [en].

A better romanization of "准" would have been something like "zhŭen", rather than "zhŭn". There is a glide connecting the [ㄨ] and the [ㄣ]. You will hear it clearly enunciated Chinese.

What the developers of Pinyin should have done was to create a sensible mapping of Zhù Yīn onto the Roman alphabet.

Frankly, I don't see why it was even necessary to invent Pinyin in favor of Zhù Yīn. Did the Japanese find it necessary to abandon katakana or hiragana? Did the Koreans find it necessary to abandon Hangul?

It was only after having learned Zhù Yīn that I developed a fuller understanding of the Chinese phonetic space. It really was illuminating.

I recommend that English language speakers who really want to get Mandarin pronunciation learn Zhù Yīn, lest they be misled by Pinyin.