[Podcast] The birth of pinyin

Illustration for The China Project by Peter Behr

On February 11, 1958, the People’s Republic of China introduced a new system for rendering the Chinese language, using not characters but the Latin alphabet. The move was revolutionary.

Click here to read the article by James Carter.

Narrated by Kaiser Kuo.

China Stories is published twice weekly, on Tuesday and Friday. Subscribe to the podcast on Spotify and Apple Podcasts.

James Carter is Professor of History and part of the Nealis Program in Asian Studies at Saint Joseph’s University in Philadelphia. He is the author of three books on China’s modern history, most recently Champions Day: The End of Old Shanghai. Read more

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