General Chinese

General Chinese (Chinese: 通字; pinyin: tōng zì; Wade–Giles: t'ung¹-tzu⁴) is a diaphonemic orthography invented by Yuen Ren Chao to represent the pronunciations of all major varieties of Chinese simultaneously.^[1] It is "the most complete genuine Chinese diasystem yet published".^[2] It can also be used for the Korean, Japanese, and Vietnamese pronunciations of Chinese characters^{[citation needed]}, and challenges the claim that Chinese characters are required for interdialectal communication in written Chinese.

General Chinese is not specifically a romanization system, but two alternative systems: one (Tung-dzih Xonn-dzih) uses Chinese characters phonetically, as a syllabary of 2082 glyphs, and the other (Tung-dzih Lo-maa-dzih) is an alphabetic romanization system with similar sound values and tone spellings to Gwoyeu Romatzyh.

^ Chao (1983).
^ Branner 2006:231. More recent diaphonemic systems, such as Ao (1991) and Norman (2006), cover a smaller number of morphemes. Norman also excludes Min, though he covers a larger number of non-Min dialects than Chao.

[1] Chao (1983).

[2] Branner 2006:231. More recent diaphonemic systems, such as Ao (1991) and Norman (2006), cover a smaller number of morphemes. Norman also excludes Min, though he covers a larger number of non-Min dialects than Chao.

[1]

[2]