Cantonese Romanization System - Research Paper Example

CANTONESE ROMANIZATION SYSTEMS Introduction Cantonese is the commonly used language by Chinese in Hong Kong. Romanization system is the system used to convert writing from a different writing system to a script in Latin (Roman) while Romanization is the process involved in conversion or transformation of the writing into roman. The art of Chinese Romanization began way back when westerners such as Macro polo made contact with the Chinese culture. Chinese Romanization was started in the early 17th century by Jesuit priests as they came to china to promote Christianity and learn the Chinese language. There are several Cantonese Romanization schemes which includes; Hong Kong government, Jyupting, Yale, Sidney Lau, Guangdong, Cantonese pinyin and Meyer-Wempe. Hong Kong government Romanization scheme This is a form of Romanizing Cantonese proper nouns that is widely used by the Hong Kong government departments and non-governmental organizations in Hong Kong. This use of this method by the government has a long history dating back to the days of British rule and it has undergone a lot of metamorphosis through the two world wars. There are no strict guidelines laid on the method since it just established itself and since then it became a common practice. Due to the un-standardized nature of the method, this system got its critics to a point that other systems are recommended in teaching institutions for its place (Guo, 1985). Usage The Dyer-Ball/Eitel system of Romanization was first adopted by the government of Hong Kong in 1960 whose bases was on spoken Cantonese language to standardize Romanization of place names throughout Hong Kong. In 1960 the standardized place names were published in ‘A Gazetteer of Place Names in Hong Kong, the New Territories and Kowloon’ which was a government publication. Since then this system was has been adopted, standardized and extended to the naming of local Chinese to assign distinct characters to Romanized names of Hong Kong Chinese. The Romanized names are pronounced in anglicized manner when in an English conversation (Guo, 1985). Drawbacks of Hong Kong government Romanization system There are several drawbacks associated with Hong Kong government Romanization system. Firstly, Hong Kong government Romanization system not fully standardized as a system and thus posses a great challenge in spelling since many of the phonemes are similar to more than one letter combination or the other way round. Secondly, In Hong Kong government Romanization system, all tones and distinctions between unaspirated and aspirated stops are omitted and this leads to a great problem in spelling. Lastly, there is existence of inconsistencies throughout Hong Kong government Romanization system as a result of loss of distinctions historically. That is, a distinction between alveolar and palatal sounds making most consonants undistinguished in present-day speech, lacks tone marks, lacks diacritics and different spellings sometimes used for the similar phonemes. Jyutping Romanization system Jyupting Cantonese Romanization scheme was developed in 1993 by the Linguistic Society of Hong Kong (LSHK). This system is very user friendly in that, it employs no diacritics to indicate vowel quality or tones and each sound is assigned one letter (but in some instances a set of two letters). Jyupting system is the most preferred system of all by the government (Guo, 1985). Jyupting initials Jyupting final (vowels) Coda (entering tone) Tone mark Nasal syllable Advantages of Jyutping Romanization system There are many advantages associated with Jyupting Romanization system. Firstly, Jyutping is highly recommended by linguistic society of Hong Kong since they invented it. Jyutping uses similar letters for the same sound since it is based on pinyin. Jyutping is more accurate and distinguishes more sounds unlike most of other Romanization systems. The tones in Jyupting are right, consistent and straight forward that is it does not entirely ignore tones and has only 6 tones. It is systematic, user friendly, multifunctional, compatible with almost all possible modern sounds in Cantonese and is entirely based on alphanumeric alphabets without any strange symbols and diacritics. Jyutping is used as a computer input method by Chinese. Lastly, Jyutping basic principles are easy to learn, simple and professional. Yale Romanization system Yale Romanization system was developed at Yale University during the period of World War 2 to enhance communication between Chinese military personnel and their American counterparts. This system uses a more regular spelling of Cantonese phonemes than most of its systems of the day. The system uses acute and accents and letter h to denote tones and it uses English letters. In addition, it marks the pronunciation almost similar to English pronunciation rules. The main reason as to the long usage of this system is that it was used in phrase-book and as part of Yale system used for Chinese teaching. The main advantages of Yale Romanization scheme are ease to read and offers a very good idea on pronunciation of things than majority of other systems that provides one with a hard time trying to figure out which number goes with which tone and the fact that Yale has the most references to date (Pong, 2009). Yale initials Yale final (vowel) Nasal syllable Similarities between Yale and Jyutping Romanization systems The significant commonality between the two systems is that both systems use same letters to represent Cantonese pronunciations. That is, same letters in the initials (b,p,m,f,d,t,n,l,g,k,ng,h,s,gw,kw,w.), the vowel (aa,a,e,i,o,u,yu), the nasal stop (ng,m.) and the coda (i,u,m,n,ng,p,t,k.). Differences between Yale and Jyupting Romanization systems There are various differences between the two systems. Firstly, the vowels oe and eo represent /œ:/ and /ɵ/ respectively in Jyupting whereas in Yale both vowels are represented by eu. In Jyupting the initial j represents /j/ while in Yale y is used instead. In Yale the j is used to represent /ts/ whereas in Jyupting initial z is used instead. In Yale, never under any circumstance that the corresponding initial y is appended before yu while in Jyupting, the initial j is appended before the vowel yu if yu is not preceded by any consonant. Finally, when representing tones in Jyupting, only tone numbers are used whereas Yale traditionally makes use of use of tone marks in combination with letter h. Sidney Lau Romanization system The Romanization system was Lau’s own Romanization system which she first wrote in a series of textbooks in the 1970s as an aid to Anglophones to speak Cantonese. These books were initially used in teaching western expatriates working in other Hong Kong government bodies and police force but later these books were incorporated in radio programs for in an effort to teach foreigners. This system used superscripted symbols and numbers to represent the tone of the words. The system is still in use up to date in Hong Kong. Despite of the age of the dictionary and books that Lau wrote, they are very popular as they are among few comprehensive books used in teaching spoken Cantonese (Pong, 2009). Cantonese pinyin Romanization system Cantonese pinyin Romanization system was developed by Yu BingZhao in 1971 and later modified by the Education Department of Zhan Bohui and Hong Kong. It the only Romanization system that is generally accepted and used by Hong Kong Examination and Assessment Authority and Education and Manpower Bureau of Hong Kong. It is widely used by dictionary of standard Cantonese pronunciation, Tongyin Zihui and Cantonese pronunciation list of Chinese Characters while commonly used for primary education (Guo, 1985). Similarities between Cantonese pinyin and Jyupting Romanization systems There is one major commonality between the two systems. Both systems use similar letters in representation of Cantonese pronunciations that is, 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 (ng, m) and the coda (i,u,n,m,ng,k,p,t). Differences between Cantonese pinyin and Jyupting Romanization systems Among the many differences of the two systems are, firstly, in Jyupting, oe and eo represent /œ:/ and /ɵ/ respectively whereas in Cantonese pinyin the vowel oe represents both. Z is used to represent /ts/ in jyupting whereas the initial dz is used instead in Cantonese pinyin. Lastly, in representation of tones in Jyupting numbers 1 to 9 are used whereas in Cantonese pinyin only numbers 1 to 6 are used (Pong, 2009). Meyer-Wempe Meyer-Wempe Romanization system was developed by a group of two Roman Catholic missionaries in Hong Kong, Theodore F. Wempe and Bernard F. Meyer for Romanizing Cantonese during the period of 1920s and 1930s. During the period of development of the system the distinction alveolo-palatal and alveolar sibilants still existed although with time the distinction has been lost in modern Cantonese (Hawley, 1948). Guangdong Romanization system Although not popular like other Romanization schemes, it is still used in certain publications, specifically in the works regarding Cantonese released in the People’s Republic of China. It clearly indicates the difference between alveolo-palatal consonants j, q, x and the alveolar consonants z, c, s which is not the case in most other Romanization systems (Hawley, 1948). Advantages of Cantonese Romanization schemes There many benefits of Cantonese Romanization schemes. Firstly, they play an important role as useful tools for foreigners learning Chinese as they indicate unfamiliar characters’ pronunciation. They can also be used in clarification of pronunciation. They simplify the use of QWERTRY keyboard by Chinese. Replacing of Chinese characters aided in bringing functional literacy to native Cantonese speakers who were illiterate. Romanization aided in teaching written and spoken Chinese to foreigners. Romanization helped in simplifying communication between Chinese and non Chinese. Lastly, Romanization systems helps in simplification of the problem of complex sorting rules for characters associated with Chinese dictionary by alphabetically listing characters by their Latin form (Lee, 2012). Drawbacks of Cantonese Romanization schemes The major disadvantage of Cantonese Romanization scheme is the fact that they do not give all information about pronunciation that is contained in the script or writing. Cantonese Romanization is biased in that it is structured for the Chinese and people who understand Latin only leaving other foreigners who do not understand either Chinese or Latino disadvantaged. There is no standardized platform for teaching Cantonese. The government took learning Cantonese as a form of self defense against foreign nations making Cantonese appear as an inferior thus discouraging many foreign and even foreign from learning the language. The effort of finding the most preferred system of teaching spoken Cantonese has so far been elusive. There is lack of consistency based on different Romanization approach and there exists very few documented Cantonese usage. Lastly, Cantonese Romanization leads to massive acculturation and the parties involved may end being assimilated in the superior group this losing their heritage identity (Topley & DeBernardi, 2011). Conclusion Romanization is a tool that is very useful in converting different writings into Latin or any other preferred language which greatly aid communication and facilitate preservation of cultural heritages of the community whose writing is being Romanized. Hong Kong government and people Romanized Cantonese for foreigners to understand the language while still preserving their heritage. Dating back in the years of colonization and trade, Chinese Romanization was endorsed as a mean to aid communication between foreigners and the native people. This endorsement have extended to present day life as many foreigners arrive in china’s cities for business, settlement or educational purposes and they need to learn Chinese in order to communicate effectively with the native citizens of china. There different schemes of Romanization and there is no one that is preferred over the other but one chooses the one that is comfortable with in terms of ease to understand, write or pronounce. References Guo zi zheng li xiao zu (China). (1985). Guo zi zhu yin zong he yin biao dui zhao biao =: A comparative study of romanization systems. Taibei: Xing zheng yuan wen hua jian she wei yuan hui. Hawley, W. M. (1948). Romanization of Chinese: A comparative table of the systems in common use at various times = Zhongguo Luoma zi biao. Hollywood, CA: W.M. Hawley. Kranz, P. (1910). The key to the character problem, or, The Chinese alphabet: Four thousand most frequent characters according to Rev. W.E. Soothills phonetics, but divided into six classes of frequency with standard romanisation for self examination and private study. Shanghai: Presbyterian Mission Press. Lee, P. P. (2012). Cantonese particles and affixal quantification. Dordrecht: Springer. Leimgruber, J. R. (2013). Singapore English: Structure, variation, and usage. Pong, D. (2009). Encyclopedia of modern China. Farmington Hills, MI: Charles Scribners Sons/Gale Cengage Learning. Topley, M., & DeBernardi, J. (2011). Cantonese Society in Hong Kong and Singapore: Gender, Religion, Medicine and Money. Hong Kong: Hong Kong University Press, HKU. Read More