In Malaysia, education and training programs are expected to play a vital role in promoting national unity, i.e., through such things as language standardization and goodwill courses for non-Malays. (Author/SP)

To master the subtleties of Chinese takes years, but most Americans can learn some basic spoken and written Chinese in a matter of weeks or months. A new phonic system, Pin Yin Romanizing System, tones, structure, and characters, and a comparison of Japanese and Chinese are discussed. (MLW)

Review of the 1991 literature on descriptive cataloging discusses objectives and foundations of cataloging; cataloging simplification; three levels of standards for record content; cataloging techniques, including authority work, provision of main entry, transliteration, formation of name headings, and automation; procedures related to record…

Reviews the history and development of the Pinyin grapheme system for the transcription of Chinese, and contrasts Pinyin graphemes with those of several other systems for Chinese. It is argued that Pinyin should be accepted as the standard system for Chinese transcription. (JL)

After a century of effort, directed at modernising Chinese script, it is still the case that Chinese characters (henceforth "hanzi") remain a deficient communication system both for human use and for mechanical application. In some respects, the reform of Chinese "hanzi" has been a very political process, driven ultimately by…

THIS INTRODUCTORY MANUAL OF SPOKEN TIBETAN IS INTENDED FOR THE ADULT STUDENT WITH SOME KNOWLEDGE OF LINGUISTICS. THE FIRST OF THE ELEVEN UNITS IN THIS TEXT DEALS WITH ASPIRATION, POINTS OF ARTICULATION, VOWELS, TONES, CONSONANT FINALS OF MONOSYLLABIC WORDS, AND STRESS. FOLLOWING UNITS INTRODUCE FURTHER SYNTACTIC FEATURES OF THE LANGUAGE, PRESENTED…

The purpose of this series is to supply the advanced student of spoken Chinese with reading material he can actually use in his speech. The author has tried to include as great as possible a variety of subject matter and style of language. Volume I consists of "Short Stories, Conversations, and Learned Articles,""Fragments of an Autobiography"…

This paper is intended to provide "an informative general survey" for those persons interested in Chinese, a language used by 25 percent of the world's population. One of the earliest languages in recorded form, written Chinese has both classical and modern forms. Language reforms in Peking, designed to standardize and simplify spoken…

This paper challenges from a practical point of view the idea that the phonemic principle is the most adequate or the optimal theoretical basis for devising a romanized alphabet for a language. In the past, romanization of languages, written or unwritten, have largely been based on the phonemic principle and have unnecessarily burdened the learner…

This paper explores the background history and sources of the Afghanistan collection at the University Library, University of Nebraska at Omaha (UNO). Credit for the impetus behind the development of the collection is given to Chris Jung, a former UNO geography/geology faculty member; Ronald Roskens, then UNO chancellor; and the Afghanistan…

ALTHOUGH THE PURPOSE OF THIS DICTIONARY IS TO "GIVE A FULL AND ACCURATE PORTRAYAL OF THE BASIC NATIVE KOREAN VOCABULARY," SOME OF THE COMMON AND USEFUL CHINESE AND EUROPEAN LOANWORDS HAVE BEEN INCLUDED AS WELL. THE AUTHORS (SAMUEL E. MARTIN, YANG HA LEE, AND SUNG-UN CHANG) HAVE FOLLOWED THE HANKUL SPELLING CONVENTIONS OF THE…

THIS IS THE THIRD AND FINAL VOLUME OF A NINE-UNIT COURSE IN BASIC AMHARIC. VOLUMES ONE AND TWO DEAL WITH THE PROBLEMS OF PRONUNCIATION AND THE ORAL-AURAL MASTERY OF BASIC GRAMMATICAL CONSTRUCTIONS. AT THE END OF EACH VOLUME ARE APPENDED ENGLISH-AMHARIC AND AMHARIC-ENGLISH GLOSSARIES. VOLUME THREE (UNITS VIII-IX) IS DIVIDED INTO TWO PARTS. PART I…

These two volumes contain Lesson Units 16-41 in the Defense Language Institute's 12-week course in Japanese. (See AL 002 223 for Volume I, Lessons Units 1-15 and AL 002 225 for Volume IV, Lesson Units 42-55 and Volume V, Glossary.) (AMM)

First-year students of Chinese at the United States Air Force Academy (n=60) were tested for reading speed and comprehension of Chinese passages presented either in characters or romanization. Students read faster and understood more in romanization than in characters. (LMO)

The Romanization of Yiddish in Hebraica cataloging is problematic; inconsistencies are found in machine-readable catalog (MARC) records of various bibliographic utilities. The article describes insufficiencies in the Library of Congress's Romanization table and disparate systems used in transliterating Yiddish dictionaries. Solutions may include…