Standard Cantonese Pinyin

Standard Cantonese Pinyin (zh-t|t=formal name 《常用字廣州話讀音表》拼音方案; short form 「教院式」拼音方案) is a romanization system for Standard 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) and Zhan Bohui (詹伯慧). It was used by "Tongyin zihui" (同音字彙), "Cantonese Pronunciation list of Chinese Characters in Common Use" (常用字廣州話讀音表), "Dictionary of Standard Cantonese Pronunciation" (廣州話正音字典), and "List of Chinese Characters in Common Use for Primary education" (小學中文科常用字表). It is the only romanization system accepted by Education and Manpower Bureau of Hong Kong and Hong Kong Examinations and Assessment Authority.

Note that 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 System

The Standard 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, IPA|/a/→aa, IPA|/ɐ/→a, IPA|/ɛ/→e, IPA|/ɔ/→o, /œ/→oe, IPA|/ŋ/→ng. This results in a system which is both easy to learn and type, but at the same time still useful for academics.

In the following table, the first row inside a square shows the Standard 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

Comparison with Yale Romanization

Standard Cantonese Pinyin and the Yale romanization system represent Cantonese pronunciations with the same letters in:
* The initials: "b", "p", "m", "f", "d", "t", "n", "l", "g", "k", "ng", "h", "s", "gw", "kw", "w".
* The vowel: "aa" (except when using alone), "a", "e", "i", "o", "u".
* The nasal consonant: "m", "ng".
* The coda: "i" (except of being the coda [y] in Yale), "u", "m", "n", "ng", "p", "t", "k".But they have difference with the following exceptions:
* The vowels "oe" represent IPA| [ɵ] and IPA| [œː] in Standard Cantonese Pinyin while the "eu" represents both vowels in Yale.
* The vowel "y" represent IPA| [y] in Standard Cantonese Pinyin while both "yu" (use in nucleus) and "i" (use in coda) is used in Yale.
* The initial "j" represents IPA| [j] in Standard Cantonese Pinyin while "y" is used instead in Yale.
* The initial "dz" represents IPA| [ts] in Standard Cantonese Pinyin while "j" is used instead in Yale.
* The initial "ts" represents IPA| [tsʰ] in Standard Cantonese Pinyin while "ch" is used instead in Yale.
* In Standard Cantonese Pinyin, if no consonant precedes the vowel "y", then the initial "j" is appended before the vowel. In Yale, the corresponding initial "yu" is never appended before "yu" under any circumstances.
* Some new finals can be written in Standard Cantonese Pinyin is not contained in Yale romanization schemes, such as: "eu" IPA| [ɛːu] , "em" IPA| [ɛːm] , and "ep" IPA| [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 Standard Cantonese Pinyin while Yale originally uses tone marks together with the letter "h" (though tone numbers can be used in Yale as well).

Comparison with Jyutping

Standard Cantonese Pinyin and Jyutping represent Cantonese pronunciations with the same letters in:
* The initials: "b", "p", "m", "f", "d", "t", "n", "l", "g", "k", "ng", "h", "s", "gw", "kw", "j", "w".
* The vowel: "aa", "a", "e", "i", "o", "u".
* The nasal consonant: "m", "ng".
* The coda: "i" (except of being the coda [y] in Jyutping), "u", "m", "n", "ng", "p", "t", "k".But they have difference with the following exceptions:
* The vowels "oe" represent IPA| [ɵ] and IPA| [œː] in Standard Cantonese Pinyin while the "eo" and "oe" represent IPA| [ɵ] and IPA| [œː] respectively in Jyutping.
* The vowel "y" represent IPA| [y] in Standard Cantonese Pinyin while both "yu" (use in nucleus) and "i" (use in coda) is used in Jyutping.
* The initial "dz" represents IPA| [ts] in Standard Cantonese Pinyin while "z" is used instead in Jyutping.
* The initial "ts" represents IPA| [tsʰ] in Standard Cantonese Pinyin while "c" is used instead in Jyutping.
* To represent tones, number 1 to 9 are usually used in Standard Cantonese Pinyin, although use 1, 3, 6 to replace 7, 8, 9 is acceptable. However, only number 1 to 6 are used in Jyutping.

Examples

Try to write an old Chinese poem:

External links

* [http://input.foruto.com/ccc/gongbiu/ Website of Standard Chinese in Hong Kong]
* [http://alphads10-2.hkbu.edu.hk/~lcprichi/ List of Chinese Characters in Common Use for Primary education]
* [http://www.cle.ied.edu.hk/chinese/le/chinese/speaking/index.htm Self-Learning materials of Hong Kong Institute of Education]
* [http://input.foruto.com/cccls/hkctv62.html an IME software using Standard Cantonese Pinyin]
* [http://cpime.hk/ Cantonese Phonetic IME (freeware)]