Gwoyeu

Gwoyeu is a term used to designate the concept of a national language in Chinese, commonly written guóyǔ in Chinese characters (國語 in traditional form, 国语 in simplified). It refers to the standard language based on Mandarin as spoken in China and Taiwan and has been used in various historical and political contexts to denote a common spoken language for a nation or state.

Historically, the idea of a guóyǔ emerged in the early 20th century as part of language reform and national consolidation. In the Republic of China, guóyǔ was promoted as the national language to unify speakers of many regional dialects. In Taiwan, guóyǔ remains a widely used term for the Mandarin variety spoken there. In the People's Republic of China, the standard language is typically referred to as Putonghua (普通话), though guóyǔ has historical resonance in discussions of national language policy.

Gwoyeu Romatzyh is a related but distinct concept. It is a romanization system for Mandarin developed in the 1920s and 1930s by Chinese linguists, most prominently Yuen Ren Chao and colleagues. The system encodes tones through spelling changes rather than diacritics. Gwoyeu Romatzyh was promoted in early 20th-century education and publications but was largely supplanted by Hanyu Pinyin in the mid-20th century. It remains of interest in studies of Chinese orthography and the history of language standardization.

Overall, gwóyǔ/guóyǔ denotes the aspiration for a common national language, primarily associated with Mandarin, while Gwoyeu Romatzyh reflects historical experimentation in romanizing that language.