Toward a Cross-Lingual Romanization Ecosystem for Sinitic Languages: A Paired Mandarin-Cantonese Case Study
Updated 6 h ago · first seen 11 Sept 2026
paper_01M294G67ECHMQVECNDCC805YE
- Published
- 11 Sept 2026
- T1 · 6 h ago
- arXiv
- 2608.29170
- T1 · 6 h ago
- Category
- cs.CL
- T1 · 6 h ago
Abstract
This paper proposes the Sinitic Romanization Ecosystem, a cross-lingual Sinitic romanization design framework with supporting digital infrastructure and a community-driven open-source workflow. The design framework addresses the lack of systematic cross-lingual romanization alignment among Sinitic languages through four design principles: phonetic correspondence for representing similar sounds with similar romanized symbols, historical-phonological correspondence for aligning cognate romanization strings, one-phoneme-one-symbol, and basic Latin-letter use, with a balancing consideration recognizing trade-offs among these principles. For the main paired case study, we develop CantRomZJ1 and MandRomZJ1, Cantonese and Mandarin romanization schemes following the design framework, respectively. We also develop schemes for several other Sinitic languages, including Meixian Hakka, Shanghai Wu, and Nanjing Jianghuai Mandarin, following the same design framework. To bring the romanization schemes into practical use, we develop open-source infrastructure for structured romanization storage, conversion, parsing, dictionary construction, and input-method generation. Finally, we evaluate the design framework through speech-to-romanization experiments based on Meta's Massively Multilingual Speech (MMS) fine-tuning. Compared with the Pinyin+Jyutping baseline, our MandRomZJ1+CantRomZJ1 condition reduces Cantonese WER and CER by 7.80% and 10.61%, respectively. These results suggest that cross-lingual romanization alignment can improve transfer in low-resource Sinitic speech technology.
Authors 4
Zijie Zhang, Tan Lee, Yong Cao, Benyou Wang
Specification
- Official page
Source:arXiv (Atom API + RSS)T1observed 6 h agohigh
- Arxiv announce type
- replace
Source:arXiv (Atom API + RSS)T1observed 6 h agohigh
- arXiv id
- 2608.29170
Source:arXiv (Atom API + RSS)T1observed 6 h agohigh
- Categories
- cs.CL
Source:arXiv (Atom API + RSS)T1observed 6 h agohigh
Source:arXiv (Atom API + RSS)T1observed 6 h agohigh
- Primary category
- cs.CL
Source:arXiv (Atom API + RSS)T1observed 6 h agohigh
- Published
- 11 Sept 2026
Source:arXiv (Atom API + RSS)T1observed 6 h agohigh
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Attributed facts
9
Source tiers
T19
Freshest observation
6 h ago
Conflicts
None
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- Authors
- Zijie Zhang, Tan Lee, Yong Cao
As of
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Claim history
Official pageofficial_url1
| Value | Valid from → to | Status | Source | Confidence | Extractor |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| https://arxiv.org/abs/2608.29170 | → current | current | arXiv (Atom API + RSS)T1 | high | deterministic |
Abstractabstract1
| Value | Valid from → to | Status | Source | Confidence | Extractor |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| This paper proposes the Sinitic Romanization Ecosystem, a cross-lingual Sinitic romanization design framework with supporting digital infrastructure and a community-driven open-source workflow. The design framework addresses the lack of systematic cross-lingual romanization alignment among Sinitic languages through four design principles: phonetic correspondence for representing similar sounds with similar romanized symbols, historical-phonological correspondence for aligning cognate romanization strings, one-phoneme-one-symbol, and basic Latin-letter use, with a balancing consideration recognizing trade-offs among these principles. For the main paired case study, we develop CantRomZJ1 and MandRomZJ1, Cantonese and Mandarin romanization schemes following the design framework, respectively. We also develop schemes for several other Sinitic languages, including Meixian Hakka, Shanghai Wu, and Nanjing Jianghuai Mandarin, following the same design framework. To bring the romanization schemes into practical use, we develop open-source infrastructure for structured romanization storage, conversion, parsing, dictionary construction, and input-method generation. Finally, we evaluate the design framework through speech-to-romanization experiments based on Meta's Massively Multilingual Speech (MMS) fine-tuning. Compared with the Pinyin+Jyutping baseline, our MandRomZJ1+CantRomZJ1 condition reduces Cantonese WER and CER by 7.80% and 10.61%, respectively. These results suggest that cross-lingual romanization alignment can improve transfer in low-resource Sinitic speech technology. | → current | current | arXiv (Atom API + RSS)T1 | high | deterministic |
Arxiv announce typearxiv_announce_type1
| Value | Valid from → to | Status | Source | Confidence | Extractor |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| replace | → current | current | arXiv (Atom API + RSS)T1 | high | deterministic |
arXiv idarxiv_id1
| Value | Valid from → to | Status | Source | Confidence | Extractor |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2608.29170 | → current | current | arXiv (Atom API + RSS)T1 | high | deterministic |
Categoriescategories1
| Value | Valid from → to | Status | Source | Confidence | Extractor |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| cs.CL | → current | current | arXiv (Atom API + RSS)T1 | high | deterministic |
PDFpdf_url1
| Value | Valid from → to | Status | Source | Confidence | Extractor |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| https://arxiv.org/pdf/2608.29170 | → current | current | arXiv (Atom API + RSS)T1 | high | deterministic |
Primary categoryprimary_category1
| Value | Valid from → to | Status | Source | Confidence | Extractor |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| cs.CL | → current | current | arXiv (Atom API + RSS)T1 | high | deterministic |
Publishedpublished_at1
| Value | Valid from → to | Status | Source | Confidence | Extractor |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 11 Sept 2026 | → current | current | arXiv (Atom API + RSS)T1 | high | deterministic |
Claims are temporal and append-only: a new observation closes the previous claim (valid_to) instead of overwriting it. Conflicting claims from different sources are kept side by side and flagged — never averaged. Methodology →
- New paperPaperToward a Cross-Lingual Romanization Ecosystem for Sinitic Languages: A Paired Mandarin-Cantonese Case Study
New paper: Toward a Cross-Lingual Romanization Ecosystem for Sinitic Languages: A Paired Mandarin-Cantonese Case Study
arxiv
| Source | Document | Type | Tier | Last observed | Snapshots |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| arXiv (Atom API + RSS) | rss.arxiv.org/rss/cs.CL | feed | T1· Official | 6 h ago | 1 |
Tier 1 = official/primary, 2 = quality secondary, 3 = community, 4 = unverified. Every snapshot is archived; see all sources and the methodology.