Standard Cantonese
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Standard Cantonese refers to the most prestigious dialect of Cantonese (Yue), a vernacular variety of spoken Chinese. It is natively spoken in and around the cities of Guangzhou, Hong Kong, and Macau. Standard Cantonese is the official Chinese spoken language of Hong Kong and Macau, and a prestige dialect and lingua franca in Guangdong province and some neighboring areas. It is also spoken by some overseas Chinese communities in Singapore, Malaysia. Canada, United States, Australia, and elsewhere around the world.
It is casually known as just Cantonese, which in academic context can also refer to the broader category to which it belongs, Yue Chinese or Yuèyǔ (TC:粵語 / SC:粤语). Standard Cantonese is also known as the Guangdong dialect (Guǎngdōnghuà 廣東話 / 广东话), though this is imprecise, since many other dialects are spoken in Guangdong province. It is more formally called the Guangzhou dialect (Guǎngzhōuhuà 廣州話 / 广州话 or Guangfu dialect 廣府話 / 广府话).
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History
Details to be completed later.
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Phonology
Like any dialect, the phonology of Standard Cantonese varies among speakers. Unlike Standard Mandarin, there is no official agency to regulate Standard Cantonese. Below is the phonology accepted by most scholars and educators, the one usually heard on TV or radio in serious broadcast like news reports. Common variations are also described.
It is interesting to note that there are about 630 different sounds formed by the combinations of initials and vowels (before tones are taken into account). Though some of them, such as e6/ei6(欸), bung6(埲), gwing1(扃) are not really used any more; and some such as gwik1/kwik1(隙) or gwaang2/gang2(梗) which has traditionally had two equally correct pronunciations are beginning to be pronounced with only one particular way uniformly by its speakers (and this usually happens because the "unused" pronunciation is almost unique to that word alone) thus making the "unused" sounds effectively disappear from the language; while some such as kwok3(擴), pui1(胚), jeoi1(錐), ge1(痂) have alternative (sometimes incorrect) pronunciations which have become mainstream (as kwon3, bui1, zeoi1 and ke2 respectively) again making some of the sounds disappear from the everyday use of the language; and yet others such as faak3(謋), fang4(揈), dap1(耷) have now become popularly (but erroneously) believed to be made-up/borrowed words to represent sounds in modern vernacular Cantonese when they have in fact been retaining that sounds before these vernacular usage became popular.
On the other hand, there are new words in Cantonese circulating in Hong Kong which uses sounds which never appeared in Cantonese before, such as get1 (note: this is non standard usage as 'et' was never an accepted/valid final for sounds in Cantonese, though the final sound 'et' has appeared in vernacular Cantonese before this, pet6 - notably in describing the unit/"measure word"(量詞) of sticky substances such as mud, glue, chewing gum etc), the sound (not meaning) possibly borrowed from the English word "get" in a way pronounced by most people of Hong Kong, used to mean the act of amusing others by a (possibly practical) joke.
Initials
Initials (or onsets) are initial consonants of possible syllables. The following is the inventory for Standard Cantonese as represented in IPA:
| Labials | Coronals | Sibilants | Palatals | Velars | Labial-Velars | Glottals | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Unaspirated Stops | p | t | ts | k | ( kw ) | ( ʔ ) | |
| Aspirated Stops | pʰ | tʰ | tsʰ | kʰ | ( kʰw ) | ||
| Nasals | m | n | ŋ | ||||
| Fricatives | f | s | h | ||||
| Approximants | l | ( j ) | ( w ) |
Notice the aspiration contrast and the lack of phonation contrast for stops. The sibilant affricates are grouped with the stops for compactness in displaying the chart.
Some linguists prefer to analyze /j/ and /w/ as part of finals to make them analogous to the /i/ and /u/ medials in Standard Mandarin, especially in comparative phonological studies. However, since final-heads only appear with null initial, /k/ or /kʰ/, analyzing them as part of the initials greatly reduces the count of finals at the cost of only adding four initials. Some linguists analyze a /ʔ/ (glottal stop) when a vowel other than /i/, /u/ or /y/ begin a syllable.
The position of the coronals varies from dental to alveolar, with /t/ and /tʰ/ more likely to be dental. The position of the sibilants /ts/, /tsʰ/, and /s/ are usually alveolar ([ts], [tsʰ], and [s]), but can be postalveolar ([tʃ], [tʃʰ], and [ʃ]) or alveolo-palatal ([tɕ], [tɕʰ], and [ɕ]), especially before the /iː/, /ɪ/, or /yː/ vowels.
Some native speakers cannot distinguish between /n/ and /l/, and between /ŋ/ and the null initial. Usually they pronounce only /l/ and the null initial. See the discussion on phonological shift below.
Finals
Finals (or rhymes) are the remaining part of the syllable after the initial is taken off. There are two kinds of finals in Cantonese, depending on vowel length. The following chart lists all possible finals in Standard Cantonese as represented in IPA:
| ɑː | ɛː | iː | ɔː | uː | œː | yː | ||||||||
| Long | Short | Long | Short | Long | Short | Long | Short | Long | Short | Long | Short | Long | Short | |
| -i / -y | ɑːi | ɐi | ei | ɔːi | uːi | ɵy | ||||||||
| -u | ɑːu | ɐu | ɛːu | iːu | ou | |||||||||
| -m | ɑːm | ɐm | ɛːm | iːm | ||||||||||
| -n | ɑːn | ɐn | iːn | ɔːn | uːn | ɵn | yːn | |||||||
| -ŋ | ɑːŋ | ɐŋ | ɛːŋ | ɪŋ | ɔːŋ | ʊŋ | œːŋ | |||||||
| -p | ɑːp | ɐp | ɛːp | iːp | ||||||||||
| -t | ɑːt | ɐt | iːn | ɔːt | uːt | ɵt | yːt | |||||||
| -k | ɑːk | ɐk | ɛːk | ɪk | ɔːk | ʊk | œːk | |||||||
Syllabic nasals: /m̩/ /ŋ̩/
Comments to be added later, including alternative interpretion of short vowels.
Tones
Standard Cantonese has nine tones in six distinct tone contours.
| Tone name | Yīn Píng (陰平) | Yīn Shàng (陰上) | Yīn Qù (陰去) | Yáng Píng (陽平) | Yáng Shàng (陽上) | Yáng Qù (陽去) | Shàng Yīn Rù (上陰入) | Zhōng Yīn Rù (中陰入) | Yáng Rù (陽入) |
| Contour | 55 / 53 | 35 | 33 | 21 / 11 | 13 | 22 | 55 | 33 | 22 |
| Number | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 (1) | 8 (3) | 9 (6) |
For purposes of meters in Chinese poetry, the first and fourth tones are traditionally grouped in the "flat category" (平聲), while the rest are "oblique" (仄聲).
In Hong Kong, the first tone can be either high level or high falling without affecting the meaning of the words being spoken. Most Hong Kong speakers are in general not consciously aware of when they use and when to use high level and high falling. In Guangzhou the high falling tone is more usual.
It is interesting to note that there are not actually more tone levels in Standard Cantonese than in Standard Mandarin (three if one excludes the Cantonese low falling tone, which begins on the third level and needs somewhere to fall), only Cantonese has a more complete set of tone courses.
Standard Cantonese mostly preserves the tones in Middle Chinese in the manner shown in the chart below.
| Middle Chinese | Standard Cantonese | ||||
| Tone | Initial | Central Vowel | Tone Name | Tone Contour | Tone Number |
| Ping | V– | Yin Ping | 55 / 53 | 1 | |
| V+ | Yang Ping | 21 / 11 | 4 | ||
| Shang | V– | Yin Shang | 35 | 2 | |
| V+ | Yang Shang | 13 | 5 | ||
| Qu | V– | Yin Qu | 33 | 3 | |
| V+ | Yang Qu | 22 | 6 | ||
| Ru | V– | Short | Shang Yin Ru | 55 | 7 (1) |
| Long | Zhong Yin Ru | 33 | 8 (3) | ||
| V+ | Yang Ru | 22 | 9 (6) | ||
V– = voiceless initial consonant, V+ = voiced initial consonant. The voice distinction was found in Middle Chinese and has been lost in Cantonese, preserved only by tone differences.
Comments to be added later.
Current Phonological Shift
Like other languages, Cantonese is constantly undergoing sound changes, processes where more and more native speakers of a language change the pronunciations of certain sounds. In Hong Kong, younger native speakers are unable to distinguish between certain phoneme pairs and merge one sound into another. Although that is often considered as substandard and is denounced as being "lazy sounds" (懶音), it is gaining popularity and is influencing other Cantonese-speaking regions. These are the observed shifts:
- Merging of /n/ initial into /l/ initial
- Merging of /ŋ/ initial into null initial
- Merging of /kw/ and /kʰw/ initial into /k/ and /kʰ/ when followed by /ɔː/
- Merging of /ŋ/ ending into /n/ ending, eliminating contrast between these pairs of finals: /ɑːn/-/ɑːŋ/, /ɐn/-/ɐŋ/, and /ɔːn/-/ɔːŋ/.
- Merging of /k/ ending into /t/ ending analogously.
- Merging of the two syllabic nasals, /ŋ̩/ into /m̩/, eliminating contrast between 五 (five) and 唔 (not).
- Merging of some /tsʰ/ into /j/, accepting jang3 as an alternative for cang3 (撐).
Today in Hong Kong, people still make an effort to avoid those merges in serious broadcasts and in education. Older people usually do not speak like that, but the majority of the younger generation does. Following the sound changes, the name of Hong Kong's Hang Seng Bank in Jyutping romanization, hoeng1 gong2 hang4 sang1 ngan4 hong4 (香港恆生銀行), becomes hoen1 gon2 han4 san1 an4 hon4, sounding like "Hon' Kon' itchy body bank". The name of the Cantonese language itself should be gwong2 dung1 waa2 ("Guangdong speech"), despite the fact that gong2 dung1 waa2 (sounding like "speak eastern speech") and gon2 dung1 waa2 (sounding like "chase away eastern speech") are overwhelmingly popular.
The shift even affects the way some Hong Kong people speak English. This is especially evident in the pronunciation of certain English names. "Nicole" becomes li col, and "Leonardo" becomes leo la do.
Prescriptivists who try to correct these "lazy sounds" often end up introducing hypercorrections though. For instance, in an attempt to ensure that people continue to pronounce the initial /ŋ/, words that historically should have a null initial end up being pronounced with /ŋ/. One of the most prominent examples is the word 愛, meaning "love." Even though the correct pronunciation should be oi3 (/ɔːi/), it ends up being pronounced ngoi3 (/ŋɔːi/).
Romanization
There are several major romanization schemes for Cantonese: Barnett-Chao, Meyer-Wempe, and Yale. While they do not differ greatly, Yale is the one most commonly seen in the west today. The Hong Kong linguist Sidney Lau modified the Yale system for his popular Cantonese-as-a-second-language course, so that is another system used today by contemporary Cantonese learners. The one advocated by the Linguistic Society of Hong Kong (LSHK) is called jyutping, which solves many of the inconsistencies and problems of the older, favored, and more familiar system of Yale Romanization, but departs considerably from it in a number of ways unfamiliar to Yale users. Some effort has been undertaken to promote jyutping, but it is too early to tell how successful it is.
However, learners may feel frustrated that most native Cantonese speakers, no matter how educated they are, really are not familiar with any romanization system. Apparently, there is no motive for local people to learn any of these systems. The romanization systems are not included in the education system neither in Hong Kong nor in Guangdong province.
Written Cantonese
See Written Cantonese.
Cultural role
The economic pre-eminence of Hong Kong, Macau, and Guangdong province, as well as its predominance in many overseas Chinese communities, has given Standard Cantonese a reach far beyond its comparatively small homeland. As the usual spoken variety of Chinese in Hong Kong and Macau, Cantonese is the only Chinese varieties to be used in official contexts other than Standard Mandarin, which remains the official dialect of both the People's Republic of China and the Republic of China on Taiwan; as a predominant language of the Chinese diaspora, Cantonese is also the main form of Chinese that many Westerners come into contact with. Together with Mandarin and Taiwanese, Cantonese is also one of the few Chinese spoken varieties to produce its own popular music (Cantopop). The prevalence of Cantonese popular culture has in fact spurred some Mandarin speakers to learn Cantonese, unique among the varieties of Chinese.
The contrast is especially clear with other Chinese varieties, such as Wu. Wu has more speakers than Yue (the wider Cantonese group), it is spoken in an area that is approximately equally wealthy, and Shanghainese, one of the prestige dialects of Wu, is spoken in Shanghai, arguably the economic center of Mainland China. However, Shanghainese is not used in official contexts, nor is it a usual subject of study among other Chinese people. Shanghainese does not produce its own popular music, and is virtually unknown in the West. However, spurred on by the success of Cantonese, some Wu speakers have begun to promote their home language.
Cantonese versus Mandarin
The so-called "Battle between Cantonese and Mandarin" started in Hong Kong in the mid-1980s, when large numbers of mainland Chinese people started crossing the border into Hong Kong during Deng Xiaoping's Reform & Opening Period. At that time, Hong Kong and Macau were still under British and Portuguese rule and Mandarin was not often heard in those territories. Businesspeople from the mainland and the colonies shared a mutual dislike and distrust of one another, and in magazines in China in the mid-1980s, they would publish polemics against the other's language - thus Cantonese became known on the mainland as "British Chinese" -and Mandarin became known as "Liu Mang Hua" - which literally means, "outlaw speak."
In Singapore, the government has had a Speak Mandarin Campaign (SMC), actively discouraging Cantonese and other Chinese dialects. This was seen as a way of creating greater cohesion among ethnic Chinese. For many years, television programs from Hong Kong were dubbed into Mandarin, although now Singapore residents can watch them in the original Cantonese on cable.
See also
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 (http://www.arts.cuhk.edu.hk/Lexis/lexi-can/)
- Research on Cantonese, HKU (http://cantonese.hku.hk/traditional/)
- Official Singapore Speak Mandarin Campaign (http://www.mandarin.org.sg/)
| Chinese: spoken varieties | |
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