Standard Romanization is a system of romanisation for

Cantonese Cantonese is the traditional prestige variety of Yue Chinese, a Sinitic language belonging to the Sino-Tibetan language family. It originated in the city of Guangzhou (formerly known as Canton) and its surrounding Pearl River Delta. While th ...

developed by Christian missionaries in southern China in 1888, particularly relying upon the work of John Morrison Chalmers. By 1914, it had become well established in Canton (

Guangzhou Guangzhou, Chinese postal romanization, previously romanized as Canton or Kwangchow, is the Capital city, capital and largest city of Guangdong Provinces of China, province in South China, southern China. Located on the Pearl River about nor ...

) and Hong Kong (there being no other system of significance in published literature, and publications using it having been issued by the British and Foreign Bible Society, the China Baptist Publication Society,for example, and the Pakhoi Mission Press from as early as 1906). It is the foundation of the current system of romanisation used by the Hong Kong Government.

Initials

Note that the following initials are left unspelt: preceding '('/'/'/'/') or '('/'), preceding '('/'/'), and zero-initial (which only occurs preceding finals other than these just-mentioned ones where the accompanying or is not written).

Finals

*The finals ''m'' and ''ng'' can only be used as stand-alone nasal syllables. *The finals ''om'' and ''op'' occur only with the initials ''k'' and ''h''. (And these finals are now pronounced differently from ''am'' and ''ap'' by just a conservative minority of speakers, who consequently have for example 柑 ''kom'' ‘mandarin orange’ distinct from 金 ''kam'' ‘gold’.) *Only when ''ts'', ''ts‘'', or ''s'' is the initial can ''z'' occur as the final, and these initials are among the ones with which ''i'' as final does not occur (these two circumstances together meaning that a complementary distribution exists between the two finals). *When is the initial, and ''i'', ''im'', ''in'', ''ip'', ''it'', or ''iu'' is used with it as the final, the spelling does not bother to write an initial ''y'' (because zero-initial preceding these finals does not occur), which results in the spellings being merely ''i'', ''im'', ''in'', ''ip'', ''it'', and ''iu''; however, in ''yik'' and ''ying'', the ''y'' is nonetheless redundantly written. *When is the initial, and ''ue'', ''uen'', or ''uet'' is the final, the ''y'' is for the same reason omitted. *When is the initial, and ''oo'', ''ooi'', ''oon'', or ''oot'' is the final, the ''w'' is in parallel omitted. *Unlike most modern systems of Cantonese romanization, a distinction is made between two series of sibilants, which means there is still a difference between for example 卅 and 沙, the former being represented by ''sa'' while the latter is written as ''sha''.

Tones

Tones are indicated using diacritic marks. Note: In the following table, “x” stands for whatever letter bears any tonal diacritic, that letter being the syllable’s final vowel or (if no vowel is present, then) its final letter (in the major dictionary of 1965 by Cowles).

References

{{reflist Cantonese romanisation Writing systems introduced in 1888 1888 establishments in Hong Kong