Wong Shik-Ling (also known as S. L. Wong) published a
romanisation
In linguistics, romanization is the conversion of text from a different writing system to the Roman (Latin) script, or a system for doing so. Methods of romanization include transliteration, for representing written text, and transcription, ...
scheme accompanying a
set of phonetic symbols 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 ...
based on
International Phonetic Alphabet
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 standard written representation ...
(IPA) in the book ''
''.
Phonology
Cantonese, like a number of other
varieties of Chinese
There are hundreds of local Chinese language varieties forming a branch of the Sino-Tibetan languages, Sino-Tibetan language family, many of which are not Mutual intelligibility, mutually intelligible. Variation is particularly strong in the m ...
is monosyllabic. Each syllable is divided into initial (consonant), final (vowel and following consonant) and tone.
Finals
Chinese phonology traditionally stresses on finals because it is related to rhymes in the composition of poems, proses and articles. There are 53 finals in Cantonese.
Vowels
The ten basic
vowel
A vowel is a speech sound pronounced without any stricture in the vocal tract, forming the nucleus of a syllable. Vowels are one of the two principal classes of speech sounds, the other being the consonant. Vowels vary in quality, in loudness a ...
phoneme
A phoneme () is any set of similar Phone (phonetics), speech sounds that are perceptually regarded by the speakers of a language as a single basic sound—a smallest possible Phonetics, phonetic unit—that helps distinguish one word fr ...
symbols
i u and
in the scheme mean following:
''For detail explanation of the phonetic system, see
S. L. Wong (phonetic symbols)#Vowels.''
Falling diphthong finals
All vowel phonemes except ''a'' formed vowel 9 finals themselves.
Some vowel phonemes can followed by vowel phonemes -i, -u or -ue to form 8 falling diphthong finals:
#The combination of ''eu'' and ''ue'' is ''euue''. The double u is reduced to a single u and the combination becomes eue.
''For detail explanation of the phonetic system, see
S. L. Wong (phonetic symbols)#Falling diphthong finals.''
Nasal phoneme finals
The nasal consonants
and
in finals can be written as:
Some vowel phonemes can followed by nasal consonants -m, -n or -ng to form 17 nasal phoneme finals:
''For detail explanation of the phonetic system, see
S. L. Wong (phonetic symbols)#Nasal phoneme finals.''
Plosive phoneme finals
The plosive final can be written
and
as:
Some vowel phonemes can followed by unaspirated plosive consonants -p, -t or -k to form 17 plosive phoneme finals:
''For detail explanation of the phonetic system, see
S. L. Wong (phonetic symbols)#Plosive phoneme finals.''
Nasal consonantoids fully voiced finals
For the nasal consonantoids fully voiced finals
and
in voiced form
ĚŠand
ĚŠare also two finals in Cantonese.
''For detail explanation of the phonetic system, see
S. L. Wong (phonetic symbols)#Nasal consonantoids fully voiced finals.''
Initials
Initials are made up of consonants. Most of characters are preceding finals with initials while some characters are pronounced without initials. There are 19 initials in total.
''For detail explanation of the phonetic system, see
S. L. Wong (phonetic symbols)#Initials.''
Tones
Cantonese has six
tone contours. Historically, finals that end in a
stop consonant
In phonetics, a plosive, also known as an occlusive or simply a stop, is a pulmonic consonant in which the vocal tract is blocked so that all airflow ceases.
The occlusion may be made with the tongue tip or blade (, ), tongue body (, ), lip ...
were considered as "
checked tones" (entering tone) and treated separately by
diachronic
Synchrony and diachrony are two complementary viewpoints in linguistic analysis. A ''synchronic'' approach - from ,("together") + ,("time") - considers a language at a moment in time without taking its history into account. In contrast, a ''diac ...
convention, identifying Cantonese with nine tones (). However, these are seldom counted as
phonemic
A phoneme () is any set of similar speech sounds that are perceptually regarded by the speakers of a language as a single basic sound—a smallest possible phonetic unit—that helps distinguish one word from another. All languages con ...
tones in modern linguistics, which prefer to analyse them as
conditioned by the following consonant.
S.L. Wong romanisation uses two ways to mark tones: by marks and by number. The entering tones are considered
allotones by marks, but separate by number. Many typewriters have difficulty typing tones, so marks are often used only for reference.
''For detail explanation of the phonetic system, see
S. L. Wong (phonetic symbols)#Tones.''
See also
*
S. L. Wong (phonetic symbols)
References
#
{{Reflist
External links
Cukda Cantonese IME
Languages of Hong Kong
Cantonese language
Cantonese romanisation
Writing systems introduced in 1941
1941 establishments in Hong Kong