Jyutping

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Jyutping (sometimes spelled Jyutpin) is a romanization system for Standard Cantonese developed by the Linguistic Society of Hong Kong (LSHK) in 1993. Its formal name is The Linguistic Society of Hong Kong Cantonese Romanization Scheme. The LSHK promotes the use of this romanization system.

The name Jyutping is a contraction consisting of the first Chinese characters of the terms jyut jyu (粵語, lit. Cantonese) and ping jam (拼音, lit. romanization).

Initials

Finals

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

Tones

There are nine tones in six distinct tone contours in Cantonese. However, as three of the nine are Ru tones (入聲), which only appear in syllables ending with p, t, and k, they do not have separate tone numbers in Jyutping (though they do in Yale; these are shown in parentheses in table below).

Comparison with Yale Romanization

Jyutping 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,yu.
• The nasal consonant: m, ng.
• The coda: i, u, m, n, ng, p, t, k.

But they have difference with the following exceptions:

• The vowels eo and oe represent /ɵ/ and /œː/, respectively, in Jyutping while the eu represents both vowels in Yale.
• The initial j represents /j/ in Jyutping while y is used instead in Yale.
• The initial z represents /ts/ in Jyutping while j is used instead in Yale.
• The initial c represents /tsʰ/ in Jyutping while 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 while Yale originally uses tone marks together with the letter h (though tone numbers can be used in Yale as well).

Comparison with Standard Cantonese Pinyin

Jyutping and the Standard 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 consonant: m, ng.
• The coda: i (except of being the coda /y/ in Jyutping), u, m, n, ng, p, t, k.

But they have some differences:

• The vowels oe represent /ɵ/ and /œː/ in Standard Cantonese Pinyin while the eo and oe represent /ɵ/ and /œː/ respectively in Jyutping.
• The vowel y represent /y/ in Standard Cantonese Pinyin while both yu (use in nucleus) and i (use in coda) is used in Jyutping.
• The initial dz represents /ts/ in Standard Cantonese Pinyin while z is used instead in Jyutping.
• The initial ts represents /tsʰ/ in Standard Cantonese Pinyin while c is used instead in Jyutping.
• To represent tone, numbers 1 to 9 are usually used in Standard Cantonese Pinyin (as in Yale), though substituting 1, 3, and 6 for 7, 8, and 9 is acceptable. However, only numbers 1 to 6 are used in Jyutping.

Examples

Try to write an old Chinese poem:

See also

• Jyutping method

Wikipedia information about Jyutping This article is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. It uses material from the Wikipedia article "Jyutping". It may not have been reviewed by professional editors (see full disclaimer). Help contribute to Americola and edit this article.