S. L. Wong (Cantonese)

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The predominant system for transcribing Cantonese in IPA is a broad IPA transcription system devised by S. L. Wong, frequently referred to in Chinese phonological studies by names which can be translated “the S. L. Wong system” (Traditional Chinese: 黃錫凌式) or simply “the broad transcription” (寬式). This broad phonemic transcription system was created by S. L. Wong for use in A Chinese syllabary pronounced according to the dialect of Canton (粵音韻彙), considered by many to be an authoritative Cantonese dictionary. Its analysis of Cantonese phonemes is related to the theories of Y. R. Chao.

The system, with minor variations, has been adopted by some other Chinese dictionaries including the Zhonghua xin zi dian (中華新字典) and the Shang wu xin zi dian (商務新字典). It is also the basis for the Standard Cantonese Pinyin romanization system created by the Hong Kong Education and Manpower Bureau.

In Chinese phonological studies, other systems more phonetic in character (an example being the one used in Wikipedia) are collectively referred to as “the narrow transcription” (i.e., phonetic transcription) even though they are not necessarily exact phonetic transcription systems. It should be noted that the various “narrow” transcriptions by different scholars are not identical due to the scholars’ differing analyses of the Cantonese phonemes (for example, the /ts/ phoneme might be analyzed as /tʃ/).

For convenience purposes, in the rest of this article, when the “broad” system is mentioned it refers to S. L. Wong’s system; when “narrow” is mentioned, it refers to a representative narrow system but does not imply that all narrow systems are as described.

[edit] The transcription system

[edit] Initials

In modern Standard Cantonese, all non-nasal initial consonants are voiceless. However, there are many contrasting aspirated and unaspirated pairs of such initial consonants. The S. L. Wong system uses 〔b〕 in the broad transcription to represent the phoneme written [p] (also written [b̥], "devoiced b") in narrow transcriptions, and uses 〔p〕 in the broad system to repesent the phoneme written [pʰ] in the narrow system. The difference between 〔d〕 and 〔t〕, or 〔g〕 and 〔k〕, etc. is similarly a difference in aspiration and not in voicing.

One particular aspect of the S. L. Wong system is the differentiation of the fricative and affricative initials into (〔s〕 〔ts〕 〔dz〕) and (〔s₂〕 〔ts₂〕 〔dz₂〕) respectively to reflect the difference in Putonghua between ([x] [q] [j]) and ([s] [c] [z]), even though it was acknowledged that (〔s₂〕 〔ts₂〕 〔dz₂〕) are "duplicates" of (〔s〕 〔ts〕 〔dz〕) and are pronounced exactly the same in modern Standard Cantonese.

In the following table, the first row inside a square shows the broad transcription in IPA while the second row shows a narrow transcription.

[edit] Finals (Yunmu)

Except [ɑː] and [ɐ], long and short vowels in Standard Cantonese have complementary distributions and therefore do not function contrastively. Thus, [i] and [ɪ] can be considered the same phoneme 〔i〕; the same can be said of [u] and [ʊ] (representing the same phoneme 〔u〕), and [œ] and [ɵ] (also written [œ̝]) (representing the same phoneme 〔œ〕). The long vowel symbol "ː" can also be omitted since these allophonic long and short vowels have different points of articulation in modern Standard Cantonese.

In the following table, the first row, inside square brackets, shows the broad transcription in IPA, whereas the second row shows a narrow transcription.

* The finals m̩ and ŋ̩ can only be used as standalone nasal syllables.

[edit] Tones

Standard Cantonese has nine tones in six distinct tone contours.

[edit] Variations

Although adopted by many other dictionaries, the system is often not adopted verbatim. Variations of the system include the following:

• The use of suffixed superscripted tone numbers (usually 1–9, representing the nine traditional tones; or 1–6, representing the six distinct tone contours) instead of the tone symbols. (This practice is extremely common.)
• The use of a more phonetic (i.e., narrow) transcription for vowels, for example distinguishing between [i] and [ɪ]. When adopting a phonetic transcription for vowels, the symbol [ɵ] is often replaced by the symbol [ø].
• The use of slightly different tone symbols. For example, in _–jyt 'jɐm ^–dziŋ _–duk _–dzi _–wɐi (粵音正讀字彙), a superscript + is used to represent the tone contour 55, and the symbol √ replaces the original tone symbol / “to improve legibility”.
• The distinction between (〔s〕 〔ts〕 〔dz〕) and (〔s₂〕 〔ts₂〕 〔dz₂〕) is almost universally discarded.

[edit] See also

• S. L. Wong (phonetic symbols)
• S. L. Wong (romanisation)

[edit] External links

• The Chinese University of Hong Kong Research Centre for Humanities Computing: Chinese Character Database: With Word-formations Phonologically Disambiguated According to the Cantonese Dialect
• 粵語拼盤: Learning the phonetic system of Cantonese