Chinese pinyin

Pinyin is the official system to transcribe Chinese characters into the Roman alphabet to teach Mandarin Chinese in China, Hong Kong, Malaysia, Singapore and Taiwan. It is also often used to spell Chinese names in foreign publications and used as an input method to enter Chinese characters into computers.
The system was developed from earlier versions by Zhou Youguang (b. 1906), who led a government committee in developing the system in China (PRC) in the 1950s. The system was published by the Chinese government in 1958 and revised several times. The International Organization for Standardization adopted pinyin as the international standard in 1982. The system was adopted as the official standard in Taiwan in 2009, where it is generally referred to as the New Phonetic System.

Learn more about Chinese pinyin:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pinyin