Pinyin: For Chinese Domain investors

[Rubber Duck]

Chinese love to gamble, but not on 3 legged horses!

[touchring]

I acknowledge what you are saying about tonality in other languages, but between English and Chinese, I think there is a huge difference. In English tonality can be used to produce an interrogative, or shown sarcasm or to negate the meaning. My understanding though is that in Chinese it used to differentiate between many words that would otherwise be the same. We have puns in English and this is the basis for much humour. However, we can easily function without this tonality. My understanding is that with tonality Chinese would be chaos. In other words it is an integral dimension of the language. Without tonality, it would be very hard for the Chinese to communicate effectively.

Languages are mostly pictorial, even English, if a reader tries to pronounce a word like "same" like he never seen it before - he will end up with "samy". People just recognize the word "same".

The same with Chinese, pinyin is just a form of phonemic notation (as they call it in wikipedia). Other than common pinyin like shanghai or beijing and names of places, or your own name, e.g. Mao Xiaofei, few people can instantly recall a pinyin from memory.

Because of this reason, pinyin will lose out to chinese characters with respect to ease of recall.

For Japanese, i think the characters are even more important, as i understand, Romaji is not even used as a form of phonemic notation - romaji is purely romanization so taht foriegners can read japanese names.

[DNWizardX9]

If chinese like pinyin why don't I see any websites in pinyin? All the chinese sites I've visited use Chinese Simplified. ;-)

[DomainDep.com]

If chinese like pinyin why don't I see any websites in pinyin? All the chinese sites I've visited use Chinese Simplified. ;-)

Most of the chinese webaddress are in pinying.

I'll try to get some Chinese IDNs .... Hope i get lucky enough to grap the good one

[DNWizardX9]

Most of the chinese webaddress are in pinying.

I'll try to get some Chinese IDNs .... Hope i get lucky enough to grap the good one

Right... why would the urls just be in pinyin and not the website content/

[ChinaStar]

Good luck with finding any more Chinese names worth anything.

I collected about 200... and then just had to give up because the primary market is just over saturated... your best bet is to buy something on the secondary market.

I've moved on to the .jp market for Japanese domains.

Most of the chinese webaddress are in pinying.

I'll try to get some Chinese IDNs .... Hope i get lucky enough to grap the good one

[netfounder]

If chinese like pinyin why don't I see any websites in pinyin? All the chinese sites I've visited use Chinese Simplified. ;-)

serious。
pinyin is asc char like baidu.com chacha.com etc。。。
IDN is 百度 查查

[Rubber Duck]

It all depends who you talk to what information you get.

Sohu are claiming to have indexed 10 Billion Chinese character pages I believe.

Ask an expert from TRAFFICS and they will tell you it is all in English.

When I first started out much of the Chinese content was in bit map characters that could not be indexed. At that time, there was also a lot of Pinyin. I must admit I haven't come across either lately. I imagine there is still some Pinyin content if you know where to look for it.

Interestingly, sedo was writing an up date on Spanish the other day and quoting percentages of Web Content by Language. The stats they were using were over 2 years out of date. OK, you might just put that down to sedo BS, but it would seem nobody really has any good info on this. Personally, I would not be at all surprised if Japanese and Chinese together do not exceed English. Indeed, it won't be long before Chinese exceeds English on its own. What I do know is that it won't all be Pinyin!

[DNWizardX9]

It all depends who you talk to what information you get.

Sohu are claiming to have indexed 10 Billion Chinese character pages I believe.

Ask an expert from TRAFFICS and they will tell you it is all in English.

When I first started out much of the Chinese content was in bit map characters that could not be indexed. At that time, there was also a lot of Pinyin. I must admit I haven't come across either lately. I imagine there is still some Pinyin content if you know where to look for it.

Interestingly, sedo was writing an up date on Spanish the other day and quoting percentages of Web Content by Language. The stats they were using were over 2 years out of date. OK, you might just put that down to sedo BS, but it would seem nobody really has any good info on this. Personally, I would not be at all surprised if Japanese and Chinese together do not exceed English. Indeed, it won't be long before Chinese exceeds English on its own. What I do know is that it won't all be Pinyin!

You really hate Rick dontcha.

[DomainDep.com]

I still believe that Pinyin has more advantages in terms of, internationalize (globalize) , write, index and brandable than the Characters. ALL of the chinese Giants (sohu, sina, tudou, baidu..etc), and most of the websites are in Pinyin(webaddress) that make it(pinyin) become more popular and more wanted than the Characters.

It's all about my opinion.

[Rubber Duck]

You really hate Rick dontcha.

No to hate somebody, you need to respect them first.

I still believe that Pinyin has more advantages in terms of, internationalize (globalize) , write, index and brandable than the Characters. ALL of the chinese Giants (sohu, sina, tudou, baidu..etc), and most of the websites are in Pinyin(webaddress) that make it(pinyin) become more popular and more wanted than the Characters.

It's all about my opinion.

So that is your analysis? You will go far

[DNWizardX9]

I still believe that Pinyin has more advantages in terms of, internationalize (globalize) , write, index and brandable than the Characters. ALL of the chinese Giants (sohu, sina, tudou, baidu..etc), and most of the websites are in Pinyin(webaddress) that make it(pinyin) become more popular and more wanted than the Characters.

It's all about my opinion.

Until IE 7 was released you could do very little with chinese characters in the URL. Now its possible. Trust me they won't be using these characters for long.

[Sarcle]

I still believe that Pinyin has more advantages in terms of, internationalize (globalize) , write, index and brandable than the Characters. ALL of the chinese Giants (sohu, sina, tudou, baidu..etc), and most of the websites are in Pinyin(webaddress) that make it(pinyin) become more popular and more wanted than the Characters.

It's all about my opinion.

Seriously guy is this not sinking in? There was no browser that allowed them to use Chinese Characters they had no choice. But when you check those sites are they wrote in pinyin or in Simplified Chinese?

[bwhhisc]

I still believe that Pinyin has more advantages in terms of, internationalize (globalize) , write, index and brandable than the Characters. ALL of the chinese Giants (sohu, sina, tudou, baidu..etc), and most of the websites are in Pinyin(webaddress) that make it(pinyin) become more popular and more wanted than the Characters.
It's all about my opinion.

If you are going to hold to your position in light of the posts here, you might want to at
least "diversify" yourself a bit into IDNs "just in case".

[DomainDep.com]

If you are going to hold to your position in light of the posts here, you might want to at
least "diversify" yourself a bit into IDNs "just in case".

I sure do !

[CPTL]

Pinyin is not a proper alternative as written Chinese characters, like Bramiozo and Rubber Duck pointed out, it is ambiguous and has the one to many conversion difficulties. (Both of whom I admired with so much knowledge being non-Chinese natives).

To demonstrate their points, take the example of the name Mao Xiaofei, who wrote earlier.

MAO can be any of the following in writing (just to name a few):
毛-hair, 帽-hat, 猫-cat, 茂-flourish, 贸-trade, 茅-spear, 描-copy
XIAO can be the following:
小-little, 笑-laugh, 消-cancel, 宵-night, 晓-morning, 箫-flute, �*�-college
FEI can be the following:
非-not, 飞-fly, 肥-fat, 匪-bandit, 肺-lung, 废-discard, 妃-Concubine

Like 宵 and 晓, are completely opposite, but both pronounced xiao, straightly speaking, xiao1 and xiao2.

To guess what his name is, the surname is 毛, because it is the most common one, but I may be wrong, as 茂 and 描 are both rare but existing surnames in minority tribes.
His name should be 小飞, means little flyer, a popular name to imply who will go far. If you say he is 笑匪, a laughing bandit, both his parents must be mad. (just joking)
But mind you this could be meaningful if not used in a name, like 消肥, reduce fat, slimming, also pronounced xiao fei.

One can only make intelligent guess according to the context and in no way I know 毛小飞 is correct, because 描晓飞 could be very possible, for morning or early take off.

There are so many combinations in the 7x7x7 example above, but picking one on each word, the pinyin is only one: Mao Xiao Fei. You see the problem? Almost irreversible.

No Chinese reads writings in pinyin, they read IDN characters. To give a page typed in pinyin to the translator, he won't do it unless you pay him 7 times more.


Since so many are interested in Chinese IDNs, the following are 2 more useful translation site links.
http://www.lexiconer.com/ecresult.php
http://www.lexiconer.com/ceresult.php

Please note in the above thread, 檡-college is wrong, it is �*�-college.
While 消肥 can mean reduce fat, don't try to register this as IDN, the proper phrase is 消脂-burn out the grease, or 减肥-slimming, both of them registered already.

(�*�-college)

Still wrong! A bug in DNForum character set!

[Rubber Duck]

Thank-you very much for that explanation.

This clearly emphasises why it is absolutely essential that IDN be adopted as quickly as possible to greatly reduce the threat of Phishing in Asia.

Those who have been blaming IDN for phishing without presenting the much more important counter-arguments are clearly xenophobic imbeciles.

[DomainDep.com]

Pinyin is not a proper alternative as written Chinese characters, like Bramiozo and Rubber Duck pointed out, it is ambiguous and has the one to many conversion difficulties. (Both of whom I admired with so much knowledge being non-Chinese natives).

To demonstrate their points, take the example of the name Mao Xiaofei, who wrote earlier.

MAO can be any of the following in writing (just to name a few):
毛-hair, 帽-hat, 猫-cat, 茂-flourish, 贸-trade, 茅-spear, 描-copy
XIAO can be the following:
小-little, 笑-laugh, 消-cancel, 宵-night, 晓-morning, 箫-flute, �*�-college
FEI can be the following:
非-not, 飞-fly, 肥-fat, 匪-bandit, 肺-lung, 废-discard, 妃-Concubine

Like 宵 and 晓, are completely opposite, but both pronounced xiao, straightly speaking, xiao1 and xiao2.

To guess what his name is, the surname is 毛, because it is the most common one, but I may be wrong, as 茂 and 描 are both rare but existing surnames in minority tribes.
His name should be 小飞, means little flyer, a popular name to imply who will go far. If you say he is 笑匪, a laughing bandit, both his parents must be mad. (just joking)
But mind you this could be meaningful if not used in a name, like 消肥, reduce fat, slimming, also pronounced xiao fei.

One can only make intelligent guess according to the context and in no way I know 毛小飞 is correct, because 描晓飞 could be very possible, for morning or early take off.

There are so many combinations in the 7x7x7 example above, but picking one on each word, the pinyin is only one: Mao Xiao Fei. You see the problem? Almost irreversible.

No Chinese reads writings in pinyin, they read IDN characters. To give a page typed in pinyin to the translator, he won't do it unless you pay him 7 times more.


Since so many are interested in Chinese IDNs, the following are 2 more useful translation site links.
http://www.lexiconer.com/ecresult.php
http://www.lexiconer.com/ceresult.php

Please note in the above thread, 檡-college is wrong, it is �*�-college.
While 消肥 can mean reduce fat, don't try to register this as IDN, the proper phrase is 消脂-burn out the grease, or 减肥-slimming, both of them registered already.

(�*�-college)

Still wrong! A bug in DNForum character set!

1st - 3rd Graders might have alittle hard time reading word/phrase (in Pinying) w/ out accents.


Maofei's demonstration is very much like Vietnamese

ma, má, m�*, mã, mả mạ

ma = ghost | mã = horse | mả = grave | má = mom | m�* = (can't find english word for it) | mạ = grass(not the exact meaning)

We never get confuse when it's typed w/out the "accents". A person who knows nothing/or little about the language think it's hard to distinguish words w/out accents. Same as Chinese.

[CPTL]

There are pinyin written in books, but always written next to its Chinese character, mainly for learning its phonetic sound.

No Chinese reads writings in pinyin, they read IDN characters.
OK, besides kids...

[Black Murdoch]

Can someone kindly help me in extracting the email address from www.tom.com . The website is in Chinese IDN which I can't read. The reason I need the email address is because I would like to offer them TomPodcast.com to see if the may be interested. I have just been approached by a UK company interested in TomPodcast.com but obviously want to sell to the top bidder, I understand that Tom.com was sold for about 1 million dollars. Any help in extracting the contact email from tom.com or advise on how I should aproach thi would be very welcome....Thanks!