Yale romanization of Cantonese

Last updated
Yale
Traditional Chinese 耶魯
Simplified Chinese 耶鲁
Cantonese Yale yèh lóuh

The Yale romanization of Cantonese was developed by Gerard P. Kok for his and Parker Po-fei Huang's textbook Speak Cantonese initially circulated in looseleaf form in 1952 [1] but later published in 1958. [2] Unlike the Yale romanization of Mandarin, it is still widely used in books and dictionaries, especially for foreign learners of Cantonese. It shares some similarities with Hanyu Pinyin in that unvoiced, unaspirated consonants are represented by letters traditionally used in English and most other European languages to represent voiced sounds. For example, [p] is represented as b in Yale, whereas its aspirated counterpart, [pʰ] is represented as p. [3] Students attending The Chinese University of Hong Kong's New-Asia Yale-in-China Chinese Language Center are taught using Yale romanization. [4]

Contents

Some enthusiasts employ Yale romanisation to explore writing Cantonese as an alphabetic language.[ citation needed ]

Initials

b
[ p ]
p
[ ]
m
[ m ]
f
[ f ]
d
[ t ]
t
[ ]
n
[ n ]
l
[ l ]
g
[ k ]
k
[ ]
ng
[ ŋ ]
h
[ h ]
gw
[kʷ]
kw
[kʷʰ]
w
[ w ]
j
[ ts ]
ch
[ tsʰ ]
s
[ s ]
y
[ j ]

Finals

a
[ ]
aai
[aːi̯]
aau
[aːu̯]
aam
[aːm]
aan
[aːn]
aang
[aːŋ]
aap
[aːp̚]
aat
[aːt̚]
aak
[aːk̚]
 ai
[ɐi̯]
西
au
[ɐu̯]
am
[ɐm]
an
[ɐn]
ang
[ɐŋ]
ap
[ɐp̚]
at
[ɐt̚]
ak
[ɐk̚]
e
[ ɛː ]
ei
[ei̯]
   eng
[ɛːŋ]
  ek
[ɛːk̚]
i
[ ]
 iu
[iːu̯]
im
[iːm]
in
[iːn]
ing
[ɪŋ]
ip
[iːp̚]
it
[iːt̚]
ik
[ɪk̚]
o
[ ɔː ]
oi
[ɔːy̯]
ou
[ou̯]
 on
[ɔːn]
ong
[ɔːŋ]
 ot
[ɔːt̚]
ok
[ɔːk̚]
u
[ ]
ui
[uːy̯]
  un
[uːn]
ung
[ʊŋ]
 ut
[uːt̚]
uk
[ʊk̚]
eu
[ œː ]
eui
[ɵy̯]
  eun
[ɵn]
eung
[œːŋ]
 eut
[ɵt̚]
euk
[œːk̚]
yu
[ ]
   yun
[yːn]
  yut
[yːt̚]
 
   m
[ ]
 ng
[ ŋ̩ ]
   

Tones

Graphical representation of the tones of six-tone Cantonese. Cantonese Tones.png
Graphical representation of the tones of six-tone Cantonese.

Modern Cantonese has up to seven phonemic tones. Cantonese Yale represents these tones using a combination of diacritics and the letter h. [5] [6] Traditional Chinese linguistics treats the tones in syllables ending with a stop consonant as separate "entering tones". Cantonese Yale follows modern linguistic conventions in treating these the same as the high-flat, mid-flat and low-flat tones, respectively.

No.DescriptionIPA & Chao
tone numbers
Yale representation
1high-flat˥ 55sīnsīk
high-falling˥˨ 52sìn
2mid-rising˨˥ 25sín
3mid-flat˧ 33sisinsik
4low-falling˨˩ 21sìhsìhn
5low-rising˨˧ 23síhsíhn
6low-flat˨ 22sihsihnsihk

Examples

Traditional Simplified Romanization
廣州話广州话gwóng jàu wá
粵語粤语yuht yúh
你好néih hóu

Sample transcription of one of the 300 Tang Poems by Meng Haoran:

春曉
孟浩然
chēun híu
maahng houh yìhn
春眠不覺曉,chēun mìhn bāt gok híu,
處處聞啼鳥。chyu chyu màhn tàih níuh.
夜來風雨聲,yeh lòih fūng yúh sīng,
花落知多少?fā lohk jī dō síu?

See also

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">International Phonetic Alphabet</span> System of phonetic notation

The International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA) is an alphabetic system of phonetic notation based primarily on the Latin script. It was devised by the International Phonetic Association in the late 19th century as a standardized representation of speech sounds in written form. The IPA is used by lexicographers, foreign language students and teachers, linguists, speech–language pathologists, singers, actors, constructed language creators, and translators.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Pinyin</span> Romanization scheme for Standard Mandarin

Hanyu Pinyin, or simply pinyin, is the most common romanization system for Standard Chinese. In official documents, it is referred to as the Chinese Phonetic Alphabet. It is the official system used in China and Singapore, and by the United Nations. Its use has become common when transliterating Standard Chinese mostly regardless of region, though it is less ubiquitous in Taiwan. It is used to teach Standard Chinese, normally written with Chinese characters, to students already familiar with the Latin alphabet. The system makes use of diacritics to indicate the four tones found in Standard Chinese, though these are often omitted in various contexts, such as when spelling Chinese names in non-Chinese texts, or when writing non-Chinese words in Chinese-language texts. Pinyin is also used by various input methods on computers and to categorize entries in some Chinese dictionaries. The word Hànyǔ literally means 'Han language'—meaning, the Chinese language—while pīnyīn (拼音) literally means 'spelled sounds'.

Wade–Giles is a romanization system for Mandarin Chinese. It developed from a system produced by Thomas Francis Wade, during the mid-19th century, and was given completed form with Herbert A. Giles's Chinese–English Dictionary of 1892.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Gwoyeu Romatzyh</span> Mandarin Chinese romanization system

Gwoyeu Romatzyh, abbreviated GR, is a system for writing Mandarin Chinese in the Latin alphabet. The system was conceived by Yuen Ren Chao and developed by a group of linguists including Chao and Lin Yutang from 1925 to 1926. Chao himself later published influential works in linguistics using GR. In addition a small number of other textbooks and dictionaries in GR were published in Hong Kong and overseas from 1942 to 2000.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Jyutping</span> Romanization scheme for Cantonese

Jyutping is a romanisation system for Cantonese developed by the Linguistic Society of Hong Kong (LSHK), an academic group, in 1993. Its formal name is the Linguistic Society of Hong Kong Cantonese Romanization Scheme. The LSHK advocates for and promotes the use of this romanisation system.

Guangdong Romanization refers to the four romanization schemes published by the Guangdong Provincial Education Department in 1960 for transliterating Cantonese, Teochew, Hakka and Hainanese. The schemes utilized similar elements with some differences in order to adapt to their respective spoken varieties.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Yi script</span> Script used to write Yi peoples language

The Yi scripts are two scripts used to write the Yi languages; Classical Yi, and the later Yi syllabary. The script is historically known in Chinese as Cuan Wen or Wei Shu and various other names (夷字、倮語、倮倮文、畢摩文), among them "tadpole writing" (蝌蚪文).

General Chinese is a diaphonemic orthography invented by Yuen Ren Chao to represent the pronunciations of all major varieties of Chinese simultaneously. It is "the most complete genuine Chinese diasystem yet published". It can also be used for the Korean, Japanese, and Vietnamese pronunciations of Chinese characters, and challenges the claim that Chinese characters are required for interdialectal communication in written Chinese.

Cantonese Pinyin is a romanization system for Cantonese developed by the Rev. Yu Ping Chiu (余秉昭) in 1971, and subsequently modified by the Education Department of Hong Kong and Prof. Zhan Bohui (詹伯慧) of the Chinese Dialects Research Centre of the Jinan University, Guangdong, PRC, and honorary professor of the School of Chinese, University of Hong Kong. It is the only romanization system accepted by Education and Manpower Bureau of Hong Kong and Hong Kong Examinations and Assessment Authority.

Sidney Lau romanisation is a system of romanisation for Cantonese that was developed in the 1970s by Sidney Lau for teaching Cantonese to Hong Kong Government expatriates. It is based on the Hong Kong Government's Standard Romanisation which was the result of the work of James D. Ball and Ernst J. Eitel about a century earlier.

Wong Shik Ling published a scheme of phonetic symbols for Cantonese based on the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA) in the book A Chinese Syllabary Pronounced According to the Dialect of Canton. The scheme has been widely used in Chinese dictionaries published in Hong Kong. The scheme, known as S. L. Wong system (黃錫凌式), is a broad phonemic transcription system based on IPA and its analysis of Cantonese phonemes is grounded in the theories of Y. R. Chao.

Tone numbers are numerical digits used like letters to mark the tones of a language. The number is usually placed after a romanized syllable. Tone numbers are defined for a particular language, so they have little meaning between languages.

The SASM/GNC/SRC romanization of Standard Tibetan, commonly known as Tibetan pinyin or ZWPY, is the official transcription system for the Tibetan language in China. It is based on the pronunciation used by China National Radio's Tibetan Radio, which is based on the Lhasa dialect. It has been used within China as an alternative to the Wylie transliteration for writing Tibetan in the Latin script since 1982.

The International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA) possesses a variety of obsolete and nonstandard symbols. Throughout the history of the IPA, characters representing phonetic values have been modified or completely replaced. An example is ɷ for standard. Several symbols indicating secondary articulation have been dropped altogether, with the idea that they should be indicated with diacritics: for is one. In addition, the rare voiceless implosive series has been dropped.

Bopomofo, or Mandarin Phonetic Symbols, also named Zhuyin, is a Chinese transliteration and writing system for Mandarin Chinese and other related languages and dialects. More commonly used in Taiwanese Mandarin, it may also be used to transcribe other varieties of Chinese, particularly other varieties of Mandarin Chinese dialects, as well as Taiwanese Hokkien. Consisting of 37 characters and five tone marks, it transcribes all possible sounds in Mandarin.

Tone letters are letters that represent the tones of a language, most commonly in languages with contour tones.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Transliteration of Chinese</span> Phonetic systems for writing Chinese

The different varieties of Chinese have been transcribed into many other writing systems.

Standard Cantonese pronunciation is that of Guangzhou, also known as Canton, capital of Guangdong Province. Hong Kong Cantonese is related to Guangzhou dialect, and they diverge only slightly. Yue dialects in other parts of Guangdong and Guangxi provinces like Taishanese, may be considered divergent to a greater degree.

The Yale romanization of Mandarin is a system for transcribing the sounds of Standard Chinese, based on the Beijing dialect of Mandarin. It was devised in 1943 by the Yale sinologist George Kennedy for a course teaching Chinese to American soldiers, and was popularized by continued development of that course at Yale. The system approximated Chinese sounds using English spelling conventions, in order to accelerate acquisition of correct pronunciation by English speakers.

References

  1. Huang, Parker Po-fei (1965). Cantonese Sounds and Tones. New Haven, CT: Far Eastern Publications, Yale University. p. Foreword.
  2. The Routledge Encyclopedia of the Chinese Language , p. 40.
  3. "Cantonese". Omniglot. Retrieved 2016-10-27.
  4. "CUHK Teaching Materials" . Retrieved 2016-10-27.
  5. Ng Lam & Chik 2000: 515. "Appendix 3: Tones. The student of Cantonese will be well aware of the importance of tones in conveying meaning. Basically, there are seven tones which, in the Yale system, are represented by the use of diacritics and by the insertion of h for ..."
  6. Gwaan 2000: 7. "Basically, there are seven tones which, in the Yale system, are represented by the use of diacritics and by the insertion of h for the three low tones. The following chart will illustrate the seven tones: 3 Mid Level, 1 High Level, 5 Low Falling, 6 Low Level..."

Further reading