Zhou Youguang, the father of Pinyin, passed away on January 14, 2017, the day after his 111th birthday.
His creation, Pinyin, has become the most common romanization system for Chinese characters around the world.
Chinese characters are non-phonetic. Therefore, a Chinese reader can only take a guess at the pronunciation of a character he or she has never seen before. Thus, Pinyin acts as a pronunciation guide for Chinese.