My nickname is an elegant phrase 文通四海 Wentong-Syhhae (four-character expressions are very popular in sophisticated Chinese) that means “Reach the Four Seas [by means of] writing”, an allusion to the fact that I have been a language teacher for almost all of my adult life.

Born in Paris, I spent my early years in Europe (details: https://steemit.com/introduceyourself/@wentong-syhhae/enthusiastic-intp-polyglot), and by the age of 20, I was fluent in five languages, so this nickname feels very appropriate. I spell my nickname according to GR rules, a tonal spelling system for romanizing Chinese.

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In Western media and Chinese textbooks and dictionaries for foreigners, Chinese is usually romanized using Hanyu Pinyin, a revised version of Latinxua Sin Wenz 拉丁化新文字 Lādīnghuà Xīnwénzì / Ladinghuah Shinwentzyh, a completely toneless spelling system. In many contexts, Pinyin is also cited without tones (too much trouble to mark, easily guessed, foreigners don't understand/don't care).

Sin Wenz was devised by Russian and Chinese linguists for use by illiterate Mandarin speakers living in the Soviet Union: it was later used in parts of northern China not controlled by the Kuomintang. Not surprisingly, Wikipedia ignores Gwoyeu Romatzyh and claims precedence for Sin Wenz: "Latinxua is historically notable as being the first romanization system used in place of Chinese characters by native Chinese speakers": https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Latinxua_Sin_Wenz

In the “improved” Hanyu Pinyin version of Sin Wenz, promulgated in 1958, Chinese sounds are spelled using a system of abbreviated spellings and optional tone marks. This makes sense and is convenient for ordinary Chinese people, but it is very challenging for foreign learners (It is probably one of the factors that leads some foreigners to give up on learning Mandarin Chinese).

For teaching purposes, I much prefer to introduce Mandarin using Gwoyeu Romatzyh (GR), an ingenious mnemonic system (invented in 1926 and promulgated by China’s Ministry of Education in 1928) devised by a linguistic genius, Chao Yuenren (“Chinese linguist, phonologist, composer and author, Yuen Ren Chao”: http://content.cdlib.org/view?docId=hb8779p27v&brand=calisphere&doc.view=entire_text), China’s greatest modern linguist.

GR is a “green” spelling system for Mandarin Chinese that uses mnemonic spelling changes to show the four tones of Mandarin in a way that is memorable for foreigners. Many tone letters include tone contours (shown below as hollow red strokes) and are easily written (no odd, hard-to-type marks: āáǎà, ēéěè, īíǐì, ōóǒò, ūúǔù, ǖǘǚǜ ).

GR’s basic principle of Economy includes three simple rules:

Keep, Change, Add

KEEP: as far as possible, use the basic, unmodified spelling for the 1st tone
CHANGE: use modifications of the basic form (medial and final -i- and -u-) to show both tones and semivowels
ADD: if no semivowels can be modified, add another mnemonic letter to show tone

The hollow, rightmost portion of the w- in wen is a reminder that the syllable wen is a rising tone (uen "lukewarm" is 1st tone: high and level)

The hollow, rightmost portion of the -h in syh is a reminder that the syllable syh is a falling tone (sy 撕 "rip" is 1st tone: high and level)

The hollow bottom portion of the -e in hae is a reminder that the syllable syh is a low, dipping tone (hai 咳 "sigh is 1st tone: high and level)

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https://steemit.com/cn/@wentong-syhhae/the-four-seas-a-common-classical-chinese-allusion