pinyin

[ pin-yin ]

noun

, (sometimes initial capital letter)

1. a system for transliterating Chinese into the Latin alphabet: introduced in 1958 and adopted as the official system of romanization by the People's Republic of China in 1979.

Pinyin

/ ˈpɪnˈjɪn /

noun

1. a system of romanized spelling developed in China in 1958: used to transliterate Chinese characters into the Roman alphabet

Word History and Origins

Origin of pinyin¹

First recorded in 1960–65; Chinese (Mandarin) pīnyīn literally “phonetic spelling,” equivalent to pīn “arrange, classify” + yīn “sound, pronunciation”