Jyutping

Jyutping
Jyutping Romanization.
Traditional Chinese	粵拼
Simplified Chinese	粤拼
Transcriptions Standard Mandarin Hanyu Pinyin Yuèpīn Wade–Giles Yüeh⁴-p'in¹ IPA [y̯êpʰín] Yue: Cantonese Jyutping jyut^6 ping^3 IPA jyːt̚˨ pʰɪŋ˧ Yale Romanization yuht ping Canton Romanization yüd^6 ping^3

Jyutping (Chinese: 粵拼; Jyutping: jyut6 ping3; Cantonese pronunciation: [jyːt̚˨ pʰɪŋ˧]) is a romanisation system for Cantonese 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 Romanisation Scheme. The LSHK promotes the use of this romanisation system.

The name Jyutping (itself the Jyutping romanisation of its Chinese name, 粵拼) is a contraction consisting of the first Chinese characters of the terms jyut6 jyu5 (粵語, meaning "Cantonese speech") and ping3 jam1 (拼音 "phonetic alphabet").

History

The Jyutping system^[1] 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 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.^[2]

Initials

b /p/ 巴	p /pʰ/ 怕	m /m/ 媽	f /f/ 花
d /t/ 打	t /tʰ/ 他	n /n/ 那		l /l/ 啦
g /k/ 家	k /kʰ/ 卡	ng /ŋ/ 牙	h /h/ 蝦
gw /kʷ/ 瓜	kw /kʰʷ/ 誇			w /w/ 蛙
z /ts/, /tɕ/ 渣	c /tsʰ/, /tɕʰ/ 叉		s /s/, /ɕ/ 沙	j /j/ 也

Finals

aa /aː/ 沙	aai /aːi/ 徙	aau /aːu/ 梢	aam /aːm/ 三	aan /aːn/ 山	aang /aːŋ/ 坑	aap /aːp̚/ 圾	aat /aːt̚/ 剎	aak /aːk̚/ 客
	ai /ɐi/ 西	au /ɐu/ 收	am /ɐm/ 心	an /ɐn/ 新	ang /ɐŋ/ 笙	ap /ɐp̚/ 濕	at /ɐt̚/ 失	ak /ɐk̚/ 塞
e /ɛː/ 些	ei /ei/ 四	eu /ɛːu/ 掉	em /ɛːm/ 舐		eng /ɛːŋ/ 鄭	ep /ɛːp̚/ 夾		ek /ɛːk̚/ 石
i /iː/ 詩		iu /iːu/ 消	im /iːm/ 閃	in /iːn/ 先	ing /ɪŋ/ 星	ip /iːp̚/ 攝	it /iːt̚/ 洩	ik /ɪk̚/ 識
o /ɔː/ 疏	oi /ɔːy/ 開	ou /ou/ 蘇		on /ɔːn/ 看	ong /ɔːŋ/ 康		ot /ɔːt̚/ 喝	ok /ɔːk̚/ 索
u /uː/ 夫	ui /uːy/ 灰			un /uːn/ 寬	ung /ʊŋ/ 鬆		ut /uːt̚/ 闊	uk /ʊk̚/ 叔
oe /œː/ 鋸	eoi /ɵy/ 需			eon /ɵn/ 詢	oeng /œːŋ/ 商		eot /ɵt̚/ 摔	oek /œːk̚/ 削
yu /yː/ 書				yun /yːn/ 孫			yut /yːt̚/ 雪
			m /m̩/ 唔		ng /ŋ̩/ 吳

• Only the finals m and ng can be used as standalone nasal syllables.
• ^ ^ ^ Referring to the colloquial pronunciation of these words.

Tones

There are nine tones in six distinct tone contours in Cantonese. However, as three of the nine are entering tones (入聲, Jyutping: jap6 sing1), 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; these are shown in parentheses in the table below).

Tone name	jam^1 ping^4 (陰平)	jam^1 soeng^5 (陰上)	jam^1 heoi^3 (陰去)	joeng^4 ping^4 (陽平)	joeng^4 soeng^5 (陽上)	joeng^4 heoi^3 (陽去)	gou^1 jam^1 jap^6 (高陰入)	dai^1 jam^1 jap^6 (低陰入)	joeng^4 jap^6 (陽入)
Tone Number	1	2	3	4	5	6	1 (7)	3 (8)	6 (9)
The 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[3]	˥ 55 / ˥˧ 53	˧˥ 35	˧ 33	˨˩ 21 / ˩ 11	˩˧ 13	˨ 22	˥ 5	˧ 3	˨ 2
Character Example	分／詩	粉／史	訓／試	焚／時	奮／市	份／是	忽／識	發／錫	佛／食
Example	fan^1／si^1	fan^2／si^2	fan^3／si^3	fan^4／si^4	fan^5／si^5	fan^6／si^6	fat^1／sik^1	faat^3／sek^3	fat^6／sik^6

Comparison with Yale romanisation

Jyutping and the Yale Romanisation of Cantonese 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 used alone), a, e, i, o, u, yu.
• The nasal stop: m, ng.
• The coda: i, u, m, n, ng, p, t, k.

But they differ in the following:

• The vowels eo and oe represent /ɵ/ and /œː/ respectively in Jyutping, whereas the eu represents both vowels in Yale.
• The initial j represents /j/ in Jyutping whereas y is used instead in Yale.
• The initial z represents /ts/ in Jyutping whereas j is used instead in Yale.
• The initial c represents /tsʰ/ in Jyutping whereas ch is used instead in Yale.
• In Jyutping, if no consonant 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 finals not in Yale: eu /ɛːu/, em /ɛːm/, and ep /ɛːp/. These three finals are used in colloquial Cantonese words, such as deu6 (掉), lem2 (舐), and gep6 (夾).
• 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 Cantonese Pinyin 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 stop: m, ng.
• The coda: i (except for its use in the coda /y/ in Jyutping; see below), u, m, n, ng, p, t, k.

But they have some differences:

• The vowel oe represents both /ɵ/ and /œː/ in Cantonese Pinyin whereas eo and oe represent /ɵ/ and /œː/ respectively in Jyutping.
• The vowel y represents /y/ in Cantonese Pinyin whereas both yu (used in the nucleus) and i (used in the coda of the final -eoi) are used in Jyutping.
• The initial dz represents /ts/ in Cantonese Pinyin whereas z is used instead in Jyutping.
• The initial ts represents /tsʰ/ 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

Traditional	Simplified	Romanization
廣州話	广州话	gwong² zau¹ waa²
粵語	粤语	jyut^6 jyu^5
你好	你好	nei^5 hou^2

Sample transcription of one of the 300 Tang Poems:

春曉 孟浩然	Ceon^1 Hiu^2 Maang^6 Hou^6 Jin^4
春眠不覺曉，	Ceon¹ min⁴ bat¹ gok³ hiu²,
處處聞啼鳥。	cyu^3 cyu^3 man^4 tai^4 niu^5.
夜來風雨聲，	Je^6 loi^4 fung^1 jyu^5 sing^1,
花落知多少？	faa^1 lok^6 zi^1 do^1 siu^2?

Jyutping input method

The Jyutping method (Chinese: 粵拼輸入法) 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 (網上粵拼輸入法)
• MDBG
• Red Dragonfly
• LSHK Jyutping for Macintosh Mac OS X and OS 9 (The page also includes Yale input version 0.2)

See also

• Cantonese phonology

Footnotes

1. "The Jyutping Scheme". The Linguistic Society of Hong Kong. Retrieved 3 January 2016.
2. Kataoka, Shin; Lee, Cream (2008). "A System without a System: Cantonese Romanization Used in Hong Kong Place and Personal Names". Hong Kong Journal of Applied Linguistics: 94–98.
3. MATTHEWS, S.; YIP, V. Cantonese: A Comprehensive Grammar; London: Routledge, 1994

External links

• Jyutping Pronunciation Guide
• 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)