pinyin

American  

[pin-yin] / ˈpɪnˈyɪn /

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.

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Pinyin British  

/ ˈpɪnˈjɪn /

noun

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

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Etymology

Origin of pinyin

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