ILE romanization of Cantonese

Cantonese Pinyin (Chinese: 常用字廣州話讀音表:拼音方案, also known as 教院式拼音方案) is a romanization system for Cantonese developed by Yu Bingzhao (余秉昭) in 1971, and subsequently modified by the Education Department (merged into the Education and Manpower Bureau since 2003) 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.

The formal and short forms of the system’s Chinese names mean respectively “the Cantonese Pronunciation list of Chinese Characters in Common Use romanization system” and “the romanization system of the Hong Kong Education and Manpower Bureau”.

Pinyin

The Cantonese Pinyin system directly corresponds to the S. L. Wong system, an IPA-based phonemic transcription system used in A Chinese Syllabary Pronounced According to the Dialect of Canton by Wong Shik Ling. Generally, if an IPA symbol is also an English letter, the same symbol is used directly in the Romanization (with the exception of the IPA symbol “a”); and if the IPA symbol is not an English letter, it is Romanized using English letters. Thus, /a/→aa, /ɐ/→a, /ɛ/→e, /ɔ/→o, /œ/→oe, /ŋ/→ng. This results in a system which is both easy to learn and type but is still useful for academics.

In the following table, the first row inside a cell shows the Cantonese Pinyin, the second row shows a representative “narrow transcription” in IPA, while the third row shows the corresponding IPA “broad transcription” using the S. L. Wong system.

Initials

b [p] 〔b〕	p [pʰ] 〔p〕	m [m] 〔m〕	f [f] 〔f〕
d [t] 〔d〕	t [tʰ] 〔t〕	n [n] 〔n〕		l [l] 〔l〕
g [k] 〔ɡ〕	k [kʰ] 〔k〕	ng [ŋ] 〔ŋ〕	h [h] 〔h〕
gw [kʷ] 〔ɡw〕	kw [kʷʰ] 〔kw〕			w [w] 〔w〕
dz [ts] 〔dz〕	ts [tsʰ] 〔ts〕		s [s] 〔s〕	j [j] 〔j〕

Finals

aa [aː] 〔a〕	aai [aːi] 〔ai〕	aau [aːu] 〔au〕	aam [aːm] 〔am〕	aan [aːn] 〔an〕	aang [aːŋ] 〔aŋ〕	aap [aːp] 〔ap〕	aat [aːt] 〔at〕	aak [aːk] 〔ak〕
	ai [ɐi] 〔ɐi〕	au [ɐu] 〔ɐu〕	am [ɐm] 〔ɐm〕	an [ɐn] 〔ɐn〕	ang [ɐŋ] 〔ɐŋ〕	ap [ɐp] 〔ɐp〕	at [ɐt] 〔ɐt〕	ak [ɐk] 〔ɐk〕
e [ɛː] 〔ɛ〕	ei [ei] 〔ei〕	eu [ɛːu] 〔ɛu〕	em [ɛːm] 〔ɛm〕		eng [ɛːŋ] 〔ɛŋ〕	ep [ɛːp] 〔ɛp〕		ek [ɛːk] 〔ɛk〕
i [iː] 〔i〕		iu [iːu] 〔iu〕	im [iːm] 〔im〕	in [iːn] 〔in〕	ing [ɪŋ] 〔iŋ〕	ip [iːp] 〔ip〕	it [iːt] 〔it〕	ik [ɪk] 〔ik〕
o [ɔː] 〔ɔ〕	oi [ɔːi] 〔ɔi〕	ou [ou] 〔ou〕		on [ɔːn] 〔ɔn〕	ong [ɔːŋ] 〔ɔŋ〕		ot [ɔːt] 〔ɔt〕	ok [ɔːk] 〔ɔk〕
u [uː] 〔u〕	ui [uːi] 〔ui〕			un [uːn] 〔un〕	ung [ʊŋ] 〔uŋ〕		ut [uːt] 〔ut〕	uk [ʊk] 〔uk〕
oe [œː] 〔œ〕	oey [ɵy] 〔œy〕			oen [ɵn] 〔œn〕	oeng [œːŋ] 〔œŋ〕		oet [ɵt] 〔œt〕	oek [œːk] 〔œk〕
y [yː] 〔y〕				yn [yːn] 〔yn〕			yt [yːt] 〔yt〕
			m [m̩] 〔m̩〕		ng [ŋ̩] 〔ŋ̩〕

• The finals m and ng can only be used as standalone nasal syllables.

Tones

Cantonese has nine tones in six distinct tone contours.

Tone name	Yīn Píng (陰平)	Yīn Shàng (陰上)	Yīn Qù (陰去)	Yáng Píng (陽平)	Yáng Shàng (陽上)	Yáng Qù (陽去)	Yīn Rù (陰入)	Zhōng Rù (中入)	Yáng Rù (陽入)
Tone Number	1	2	3	4	5	6	7 (1)	8 (3)	9 (6)
Tone name in English	high level or high falling	mid rising	mid level	low falling	low rising	low level	entering high level	entering mid level	entering low level
Contour	55 / 53	35	33	21 / 11	13	22	5	3	2
Character Example	分	粉	訓	焚	奮	份	忽	發	佛
Example	fan1	fan2	fan3	fan4	fan5	fan6	fat7 (fat1)	faat8 (faat3)	fat9 (fat6)

Comparison with Yale Romanization

Cantonese Pinyin and the Yale Romanization system represent Cantonese pronunciations with these same letters:

• The initials: b, p, m, f, d, t, n, l, g, k, ng, h, s, gw, kw, w.
• The vowels: aa (except when used alone), a, e, i, o, u.
• The nasal stops: m, ng.
• The codas: i (except for being the coda [y] in Yale), u, m, n, ng, p, t, k.

But they have these differences:

• The vowels oe represent [ɵ] and [œː] in Cantonese Pinyin while the eu represents both vowels in Yale.
• The vowel y represents [y] in Cantonese Pinyin while both yu (used in nucleus) and i (used in coda) are used in Yale.
• The initial j represents [j] in Cantonese Pinyin while y is used instead in Yale.
• The initial dz represents [ts] in Cantonese Pinyin while j is used instead in Yale.
• The initial ts represents [tsʰ] in Cantonese Pinyin while ch is used instead in Yale.
• In Cantonese Pinyin, if no consonant precedes the vowel y, then the initial j is appended before the vowel. In Yale, the corresponding initial y is never appended before yu under any circumstances.
• Some new finals can be written in Cantonese Pinyin that are not contained in Yale Romanization schemes, such as: eu [ɛːu], em [ɛːm], and ep [ɛːp]. These three finals are used in colloquial Cantonese words, such as deu6 (掉), lem2 (舐), and gep9 (夾).
• To represent tones, only tone numbers are used in Cantonese Pinyin while Yale originally used tone marks together with the letter h (though tone numbers can be used in Yale as well).

Comparison with Jyutping

Cantonese Pinyin and Jyutping represent Cantonese pronunciations with these same letters:

• The initials: b, p, m, f, d, t, n, l, g, k, ng, h, s, gw, kw, j, w.
• The vowels: aa, a, e, i, o, u.
• The nasal stops: m, ng.
• The codas: i (except for being the coda [y] in Jyutping), u, m, n, ng, p, t, k.

But they have these differences:

• The vowels oe represent [ɵ] and [œː] in Cantonese Pinyin while eo and oe represent [ɵ] and [œː] respectively in Jyutping.
• The vowel y represents [y] in Cantonese Pinyin while both yu (used in nucleus) and i (used in coda) are used in Jyutping.
• The initial dz represents [ts] in Cantonese Pinyin while z is used instead in Jyutping.
• The initial ts represents [tsʰ] in Cantonese Pinyin while c is used instead in Jyutping.
• To represent tones, numbers 1 to 9 are usually used in Cantonese Pinyin, although to use 1, 3, 6 to replace 7, 8, 9 is acceptable. However, only numbers 1 to 6 are used in Jyutping.

Examples

Traditional	Simplified	Romanization
廣東話	广东话	gwong2 dung1 waa2
粵語	粤语	jyt9 jy5
你好	你好	nei5 hou2

An old Chinese poem:

春曉 (Chunxiao)　　孟浩然 (Meng Haoran)	Tsoen1 Hiu2　　Maang6 Hou6jin4
春眠不覺曉， (I forgot to wake up on a morning in spring,)	Tsoen1 min4 bat7 gok8 hiu2,
處處聞啼鳥。 (The bird sang everywhere.)	Tsy3 tsy3 man4 tai4 niu5.
夜來風雨聲， (There were strong wind and rain at the night,)	Je6 loi4 fung1 jy5 sing1,
花落知多少？ (How many flowers were wither and fall?)	faa1 lok9 dzi1 do1 siu2?

References

• Yu, Bingzhao (1982). 同音字彙 (Lexicon of Homophones). Hong Kong: New Asia Publishing Company.
• Zhan, Bohui (2004). 廣州話正音字典 (Dictionary of Standard Cantonese Pronunciation). Guangdong People's Publishing House.

External links

• Website of Standard Chinese in Hong Kong
• an IME software using Cantonese Pinyin