Background Knowledge
About Cantonese Romanization
As a maturely developed dialect in China, Cantonese
does not only take Chinese characters for its written form,
but also has Romanization systems to mark its
pronunciation. Anyway, unfortunately, there is still no
Romanization system for Cantonese that is unanimously
accepted as the “standard” system of Cantonese. As a
result up till now Cantonese has more than one
Romanization system to mark its pronunciation.
Since the fifties, more than one Romanization systems
were created by the different scholars and writers, or
Cantonese research institutions from mainland China,
Hong Kong and United States.
The following is a brief introduction of the major
Cantonese Romanization Systems that are still used in
Cantonese teaching and learning in China and USA:
1. Yale Romanization
This Romanization system was created first by
Professor Parker Huang and Gerard P. Kok in Yale
University around sixties (1961) when they wrote their
Cantonese textbook “Speak Cantonese”. The book was
published by the Yale University Press. Since then, it is
known as the Yale Romanization.
Yale Romanization uses English letters. Its way to
mark the pronunciation is very close to the pronunciation
rules in English. Besides, its tone marks are picturized. In
a
many of the learning and teaching practices, this system is
found easier to acquire by English speakers.
Example:
我哋都好中意學廣東話。
Ngóh deih dōu hóu jūng yi hohk Gwóng-dūng-wá.
(We all like to learn Cantonese.)
There are quite a few textbooks or dictionaries that
use Yale Romanization. They include:
1. “Colloquial Cantonese --- The Complete Course for
Beginners” by Keith S. T. Tong and Gregory James
This textbook is published by Routledge.
2. “A Dictionary of Cantonese Slang --- The Language
of Hong Kong Movies, Street Gangs and City Life” by
Christopher Hutton and Kingsley Bolton. This
dictionary is published by University of Hawai’I
Press, Honolulu.
3. “Cantonese Colloquial Expressions” (廣州話口語詞
彙) by Lo Tam Fee-yin. This dictionary is published
by the Chinese University Press.
4. “Learn Chinese Characters in Hon Kong” by Chan
Kwok Kin and William Crewe. This
dictionary/textbook is published by Greenwood
Press.
5. “Read and Write Chinese --- A simplified Guide to
The Chinese Characters” by Rita Mei-Wah Choy.
This dictionary is published by China West Book.
6. “Interesting Cantonese Colloquial Expressions” by
Lo Wood Wai and Tam Fee Yin. This book was
b
published by the Chinese University Press. It is out
of print now.
7. It is also being used now by an on-line Cantonese in
put software at http://cpime.hk/
2. Sidney Lau’s Romanization
This Romanization system was created first by Sidney
Lau when he wrote his textbook “Elementary Cantonese”
“Intermediate Cantonese” and “Advanced Cantonese”.
The books were published in seventies (1972) by the then
Hong Kong government.
This system uses the similar way to mark most of the
finals (except for euh/eu, oh/o, oo/u, ooi/ui, oot/ut,
ui/eui, un/eun, ut/eut) and initials as of the Yale
Romanization. But it uses numbers for its tones like the
Jyutping Romanization and the Guongjeowa
Romanization.
Example:
我哋都好中意學廣東話。
Ngoh5 dei6 dou1 hou2 jung1 yi3 hok6
Gwong2-dung1-wa2.
(We all like to learn Cantonese.)
It is being used now by an on-line Cantonese in put
software at http://cpime.hk/
3. Jyutping Romanization
This Romanization system was created in 1993 by
the Hong Kong Linguistics Association (香港語言學學
c
會)in its “Plan for Cantonese Romanization” (粵語拼音
方案).
This Romanization system’s finals are mostly the same
as the Yale Romanization except for five of them (oe/eu,
eoi/eui, eon/eun, oeng/eung, eot/eut, oek/euk.) As for its
tone marks, it uses numbers.
Example:
我哋都好中意學廣東話。
Ngo5 dei6 dou1 hou2 jung1 yi3 hok6
Gwong2-dung1-wa2.
(We all like to learn Cantonese.)
It is used by Zhan Bohui (詹伯慧)and Qiu Xueqiang (丘
學強) in their Cantonese textbook “Xinshikong Yueyu” (新
時空粵語”) published by the Jinan University Press (暨南
大學出版社).
It is also being used now by an on-line Cantonese in
put software at http://cpime.hk/
4. Guongjeowa Romanization
This Romanization system was created in 1981 by
饒秉才(Rao Bingcai), 歐陽覺亞 (Ouyang Jueya) and 周
無忌 (Zhou Wuji) in their book 廣州話方言詞典
(Gwongjeowa Dialect Dictionary) published by 香港商
務印書館(the Hong Kong Commercial Printing Press).
d
The marks for many of the finals in this
Romanization system are very different from the other
three Romanization system mentioned above. As for its
tone marks, it uses numbers.
Example:
我哋都好中意學廣東話。
Ngo5 déi6 dou1 hou2 jung1 yi3 hog6
Guong2-dung1-wa2.
(We all like to learn Cantonese.)
It is used by 鄭定歐 (Zheng Dingou), 張勵妍 (Zhang
Liyan) and 高石英(Gao Shiying) in their Cantonese
textbook “粵語 (香港話)教程” (“Yueyu
<Xiangganghua> Jiaocheng”) published by Joint Publishing
(H.K.) Co., LTD. (三聯書店(香港) 有限公司).
The textbooks chosen by the Cantonese courses at
Cornell University use the above mentioned
Romanization systems. These Cantonese Romanization
systems are the useful tools in the Cantonese teaching
and learning at Cornell University.
It is hoped that the students will be benefited from
the acquisition of these major Cantonese Romanization
Systems not only for their Cantonese learning at Cornell
University but also for their future learning or work
outside Cornell University.
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