Gwoyeu Romatzyh
Gwoyeu Romatzyh (pinyin: Guóyǔ luómǎzì, literally "National Language Romanization"), abbreviated GR, is a romanization of Mandarin Chinese, or a way to write Mandarin using the Roman alphabet, made by Yuen Ren Chao and some other linguists in the late 1920s. It was made as a way to write Mandarin using tonal spelling, or spelling rules that would change the syllable's spelling depending on its tone. For example, the syllable chai would be written as chai if it has the first Mandarin tone (or chāi in Pinyin), chair if it has the second tone (chái), chae if it has the third tone (chǎi), and chay if it had the fourth tone (chài). Y.R. Chao created GR in order to increase literacy in China because China's illiteracy was very high in the early 20th century. He made it that tones could be written without extra tone markers, which can be long and difficult to add when printing.