Yale Romanization / 耶魯式粵語拼音方案


The Yale romanizations are four systems created at Yale University for romanizing the four East Asian languages of Mandarin, Cantonese, Korean, and Japanese. The Yale romanization for Mandarin was created during World War II for use by United States military personnel, while the Yale romanization systems for the other three languages were created later, in the 1960s and 1970s.

[edit] Cantonese

Unlike the Mandarin Yale romanization, Cantonese Yale is still widely used in books and dictionaries for Cantonese, especially for foreign learners. Developed by Parker Po-fei Huang and Gerald P. Kok and published in 1970,[2] it shares some similarities with Hanyu Pinyin in that unvoiced, unaspirated consonants are represented by letters traditionally used in English and most other European languages to represent voiced sounds. For example, [p] is represented as b in Yale, whereas its aspirated counterpart, [pʰ] is represented as p. Because of this and other factors, Yale romanization is usually held to be easy for American English speakers to pronounce without much training. In Hong Kong, more people use Cantonese Pinyin and Jyutping, as these systems are more localised to Hong Kong people. Foreign students of Cantonese who attend Hong Kong University use Sidney Lau's spelling of Cantonese from his three-volume textbooks. Foreign students of Cantonese who attend Chinese University of Hong Kong's New-Asia Yale-in-China Chinese Language Centre are taught to use the Yale spelling of Cantonese and eventually learn to read those traditional English voiced consonants in a new unvoiced Cantonese way, subconsciously, without realizing they are doing so or without usually being aware of the linguistic difference.

[edit] Initials

b
[p] p
[pʰ] m
[m] f
[f]
d
[t] t
[tʰ] n
[n] l
[l]
g
[k] k
[kʰ] ng
[ŋ] h
[h]
gw
[kw] kw
[kʰw] w
[w]
j
[ts] ch
[tsʰ] s
[s] y
[j]
[edit] Finals

a
[a] aai
[ai] aau
[au] aam
[am] aan
[an] aang
[aŋ] aap
[ap] aat
[at] aak
[ak]
ai
[ɐi] au
[ɐu] am
[ɐm] an
[ɐn] ang
[ɐŋ] ap
[ɐp] at
[ɐt] ak
[ɐk]
e
[ɛ] ei
[ei] eng
[ɛŋ] ek
[ɛk]
i
[i] iu
[iu] im
[im] in
[in] ing
[ɪŋ] ip
[ip] it
[it] ik
[ɪk]
o
[ɔ] oi
[ɔi] ou
[ou] on
[ɔn] ong
[ɔŋ] ot
[ɔt] ok
[ɔk]
u
[u] ui
[ui] un
[un] ung
[ʊŋ] ut
[ut] uk
[ʊk]
eu
[œ] eui
[ɵy] eun
[ɵn] eung
[œŋ] eut
[ɵt] euk
[œk]
yu
[y] yun
[yn] yut
[yt]
m
[m̩] ng
[ŋ̩]
The finals m and ng can only be used as standalone nasal syllables.
[edit] Tones

Historically, there were seven phonemically distinct tones in Guangzhou Cantonese. Cantonese Yale represents these tones using tone marks and the letter h, as shown in the following table:

No. Description Yale representation
1 high-flat sī sīn sīk
1 high-falling sì sìn
2 mid-rising sí sín
3 mid-flat si sin sik
4 low-falling sìh sìhn
5 low-rising síh síhn
6 low-flat sih sihn sihk
Tones can also be written using the tone number instead of the tone mark and h.
Modern Standard Cantonese has only six tones, with the high-flat and high-falling tones having merged. Therefore, they are represented with the same tone number.
Traditional Chinese linguistics treats the tones in syllables ending with a stop consonant as separate "entering tones". Cantonese Yale follows modern linguistic conventions in treating these the same as tones 1, 3 and 6, respectively.
[edit] Examples

Traditional Simplified Romanization using Tone Marks Romanization using Numbers
廣州話 广州话 gwóng jàu wá gwong2 jau1 wa2
粵語 粤语 yuht yúh yut6 yu5
你好 你好 néih hóu nei5 hou2

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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yale_Romanization