Jyutping is a romanisation system for

Cantonese Cantonese ( zh, t=廣東話, s=广东话, first=t, cy=Gwóngdūng wá) is a language within the Chinese (Sinitic) branch of the Sino-Tibetan languages originating from the city of Guangzhou (historically known as Canton) and its surrounding a ...

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. The name ''Jyutping'' (itself the Jyutping romanisation of its Chinese name, ) is a

contraction Contraction may refer to: Linguistics * Contraction (grammar), a shortened word * Poetic contraction, omission of letters for poetic reasons * Elision, omission of sounds ** Syncope (phonology), omission of sounds in a word * Synalepha, merged ...

consisting of the first

Chinese character Chinese characters () are logograms developed for the writing of Chinese. In addition, they have been adapted to write other East Asian languages, and remain a key component of the Japanese writing system where they are known as ''kanji' ...

s of the terms ''Jyut6jyu5'' (, meaning " Yue language") and ''ping3jam1'' ( "phonetic alphabet", also pronounced as "

pinyin Hanyu Pinyin (), often shortened to just pinyin, is the official romanization system for Standard Mandarin Chinese in China, and to some extent, in Singapore and Malaysia. It is often used to teach Mandarin, normally written in Chinese fo ...

" in Mandarin). Despite being intended as a romanisation system to indicate pronunciation, it has also been employed writing Cantonese as an alphabetic language, elevating it from its assistive status to a written language in effect.

History

The Jyutping system marks a departure from all previous Cantonese romanisation systems (approximately 12, including Robert Morrison's pioneering work of 1828, and the widely used Standard Romanization,

Yale Yale University is a private research university in New Haven, Connecticut. Established in 1701 as the Collegiate School, it is the third-oldest institution of higher education in the United States and among the most prestigious in the wor ...

and Sidney Lau systems) by introducing z and c initials and the use of eo and oe in finals, as well as replacing the initial y, used in all previous systems, with j. In 2018, the Jyutping system was updated to include the -a and -oet finals, to reflect syllables recognized to be part of Cantonese phonology in 1997 by the Jyutping Work Group of the Linguistic Society of Hong Kong.

Initials

Finals

* Only the finals ''m'' and ''ng'' can be used as standalone

nasal Nasal is an adjective referring to the nose, part of human or animal anatomy. It may also be shorthand for the following uses in combination: * With reference to the human nose: ** Nasal administration, a method of pharmaceutical drug delivery * ...

syllables. * Referring to the colloquial pronunciation of these words. * Used for elided words in casual speech such as ''a6'' in 四十四 (''sei3a6sei3''), elided from ''sei3 sap6 sei3''. * Used for onomatopoeias such as ''oet6'' for belching or ''goet4'' for snoring.

Tones

There are nine tones in six distinct

tone contour A tone contour, or contour tone, is a tone in a tonal language which shifts from one pitch to another over the course of the syllable or word. Tone contours are especially common in East, Southeast Asia, West Africa, Nilo-Saharan languages, Kh ...

s in Cantonese. However, as three of the nine are

entering tone A checked tone, commonly known by the Chinese calque entering tone, is one of the four syllable types in the phonology of Middle Chinese. Although usually translated as "tone", a checked tone is not a tone in the phonetic sense but rather a syl ...

s (), which only appear in syllables ending with ''p'', ''t'', and ''k'', they do not have separate tone numbers in Jyutping (though they do in

Cantonese Pinyin Cantonese Pinyin (, also known as ) 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 (merged into the Education and Manpower Bureau since 2003) ...

; these are shown in parentheses in the table below). A mnemonic which some use to remember this is 「風水到時我哋必發達」or “ Feng Shui ictates thatwe will be lucky.”

Comparison with Yale romanisation

Jyutping and the Yale Romanisation of Cantonese represent Cantonese pronunciations with the same letters in: * The

initial In a written or published work, an initial capital, also referred to as a drop capital or simply an initial cap, initial, initcapital, initcap or init or a drop cap or drop, is a letter at the beginning of a word, a chapter, or a paragraph tha ...

s: ''b'', ''p'', ''m'', ''f'', ''d'', ''t'', ''n'', ''l'', ''g'', ''k'', ''ng'', ''h'', ''s'', ''gw'', ''kw'', ''w''. * The

vowel A vowel is a syllabic speech sound pronounced without any stricture in the vocal tract. Vowels are one of the two principal classes of speech sounds, the other being the consonant. Vowels vary in quality, in loudness and also in quantity (len ...

: ''aa'' (except when used alone), ''a'', ''e'', ''i'', ''o'', ''u'', ''yu''. * The

nasal stop In phonetics, a nasal, also called a nasal occlusive or nasal stop in contrast with an oral stop or nasalized consonant, is an occlusive consonant produced with a lowered velum, allowing air to escape freely through the nose. The vast majori ...

: ''m'', ''ng''. * The

coda Coda or CODA may refer to: Arts, entertainment, and media Films * Movie coda, a post-credits scene * ''Coda'' (1987 film), an Australian horror film about a serial killer, made for television *''Coda'', a 2017 American experimental film from Na ...

: ''i'', ''u'', ''m'', ''n'', ''ng'', ''p'', ''t'', ''k''. But they differ in the following: * The

s ''eo'' and ''oe'' represent and respectively in Jyutping, whereas the ''eu'' represents both vowels in Yale. * The

''j'' represents in Jyutping whereas ''y'' is used instead in Yale. * The initial ''z'' represents in Jyutping whereas ''j'' is used instead in Yale. * The initial ''c'' represents in Jyutping whereas ''ch'' is used instead in Yale. * In Jyutping, if no

consonant In articulatory phonetics, a consonant is a speech sound that is articulated with complete or partial closure of the vocal tract. Examples are and pronounced with the lips; and pronounced with the front of the tongue; and pronounced w ...

precedes the vowel ''yu'', then the initial ''j'' is appended before the vowel. In Yale, the corresponding initial ''y'' is never appended before ''yu'' under any circumstances. * Jyutping defines three

final Final, Finals or The Final may refer to: *Final (competition), the last or championship round of a sporting competition, match, game, or other contest which decides a winner for an event ** Another term for playoffs, describing a sequence of con ...

s not in Yale: ''eu'' , ''em'' , and ''ep'' . These three finals are used in colloquial Cantonese words, such as ''deu6'' (), ''lem2'' (), and ''gep6'' (). * To represent tones, only tone numbers are used in Jyutping whereas Yale traditionally uses tone marks together with the letter ''h'' (though tone numbers can be used in Yale as well).

Comparison with Cantonese pinyin

Jyutping and

represent Cantonese pronunciations with the same letters in: * The

s: ''b'', ''p'', ''m'', ''f'', ''d'', ''t'', ''n'', ''l'', ''g'', ''k'', ''ng'', ''h'', ''s'', ''gw'', ''kw'', ''j'', ''w''. * The

: ''aa'', ''a'', ''e'', ''i'', ''o'', ''u''. * The

: ''m'', ''ng''. * The

: ''i'' (except for its use in the

in Jyutping; see below), ''u'', ''m'', ''n'', ''ng'', ''p'', ''t'', ''k''. But they have some differences: * The

''oe'' represents both and in Cantonese Pinyin whereas ''eo'' and ''oe'' represent and respectively in Jyutping. * The vowel ''y'' represents in Cantonese Pinyin whereas both ''yu'' (used in the

nucleus Nucleus ( : nuclei) is a Latin word for the seed inside a fruit. It most often refers to: * Atomic nucleus, the very dense central region of an atom *Cell nucleus, a central organelle of a eukaryotic cell, containing most of the cell's DNA Nucl ...

) and ''i'' (used in the

of the

-''eoi'') are used in Jyutping. * The initial ''dz'' represents in Cantonese Pinyin whereas ''z'' is used instead in Jyutping. * The initial ''ts'' represents in Cantonese Pinyin whereas ''c'' is used instead in Jyutping. * To represent tones, the numbers 1 to 9 are usually used in Cantonese Pinyin, although the use of 1, 3, 6 to replace 7, 8, 9 for the checked tones is acceptable. However, only the numbers 1 to 6 are used in Jyutping.

Examples

Sample transcription of one of the ''300 Tang Poems'':

Jyutping input method

The Jyutping method () refers to a family of input methods based on the Jyutping romanization system. The Jyutping method allows a user to input Chinese characters by entering the jyutping of a Chinese character (with or without tone, depending on the system) and then presenting the user with a list of possible characters with that pronunciation.

List of Jyutping keyboard input utilities

Online Jyutping Input Method
()
MDBG Type Chinese
()

for

Macintosh The Mac (known as Macintosh until 1999) is a family of personal computers designed and marketed by Apple Inc., Apple Inc. Macs are known for their ease of use and minimalist designs, and are popular among students, creative professionals, and ...

Mac OS X macOS (; previously OS X and originally Mac OS X) is a Unix operating system developed and marketed by Apple Inc. since 2001. It is the primary operating system for Apple's Mac computers. Within the market of desktop and lap ...

and OS 9 (The page also includes Yale input version 0.2)
Hong Kong Cantonese 2010
(vi
Microsoft Office IME 2010

()

() (also called 'Cantonese Phonetic IME (CPIME) Jyutping' in Windows 10
/ref>)
RIME
() *

Gboard Gboard is a virtual keyboard app developed by Google for Android and iOS devices. It was first released on iOS in May 2016, followed by a release on Android in December 2016, debuting as a major update to the already-established Google Keyboa ...

Footnotes

External links

Jyutping Pronunciation Guide

{{lang, yue, 粵語拼盤
Learning the phonetic system of Cantonese
Chinese Character Database (Phonologically Disambiguated According to the Cantonese Dialect)

The CantoDict Project
is a dedicated Cantonese-Mandarin-English online dictionary which uses Jyutping by default
MDBG free online Chinese-English dictionary (supports both Jyutping and Yale romanization)
Languages of Hong Kong Cantonese romanisation Writing systems introduced in 1993 Romanization of Chinese