| Transliteration of Chinese |
|---|
| Mandarin |
| Wu |
| Yue |
| Min |
| Gan |
| Hakka |
| Xiang |
| Polylectal |
| See also |
Sidney Lau romanisation is a system of romanisation forCantonese that was developed in the 1970s bySidney Lau for teaching Cantonese toHong Kong Government expatriates. It is based on the Hong Kong Government'sStandard Romanisation which was the result of the work ofJames D. Ball andErnst J. Eitel about a century earlier.
Lau's romanisation indicates tonality with superscript numbers, so nodiacritics are required.[1] His system was a plain attempt at simplification which proved popular with western learners of Cantonese as a second language and was initially the system of romanisation adopted by theUniversity of Hong Kong.[2] However, the university now employs theJyutping system for its Cantonese courses.[3]
| b /p/ 巴 | p /pʰ/ 怕 | m /m/ 媽 | f /f/ 花 | |
| d /t/ 打 | t /tʰ/ 他 | n /n/ 那 | l /l/ 啦 | |
| g /k/ 家 | k /kʰ/ 卡 | ng /ŋ/ 牙 | h /h/ 蝦 | |
| gw /kʷ/ 瓜 | kw /kʷʰ/ 誇 | w /w/ 蛙 | ||
| j /ts/ 渣 | ch /tsʰ/ 叉 | s /s/ 沙 | y /j/ 也 |
In his system, Lau treats /ɵ/ and /o/ as allophones of one phoneme represented with "u", while they are often respectively regarded as allophones of /œ:/ and /u:/ in other systems.[4]
| Coda | ||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| ∅ | /i/ | /u/ | /m/ | /n/ | /ŋ/ | /p̚/ | /t̚/ | /k̚/ | ||
| Vowel | /aː/ | a /aː/ 沙 | aai /aːi̯/ 徙 | aau /aːu̯/ 梢 | aam /aːm/ 三 | aan /aːn/ 山 | aang /aːŋ/ 坑 | aap /aːp̚/ 圾 | aat /aːt̚/ 剎 | aak /aːk̚/ 客 |
| /ɐ/ | ai /ɐi̯/ 西 | au /ɐu̯/ 收 | am /ɐm/ 心 | an /ɐn/ 新 | ang /ɐŋ/ 笙 | ap /ɐp̚/ 濕 | at /ɐt̚/ 失 | ak /ɐk̚/ 塞 | ||
| /ɛː/ /e/ | e /ɛː/ 些 | ei /ei̯/ 四 | eng /ɛːŋ/ 鄭 | ek /ɛːk̚/ 石 | ||||||
| /iː/ | i /iː/ 詩 | iu /iːu̯/ 消 | im /iːm/ 閃 | in /iːn/ 先 | ing /eŋ/ 星 | ip /iːp̚/ 攝 | it /iːt̚/ 洩 | ik /ek̚/ 識 | ||
| /ɔː/ | oh /ɔː/ 疏 | oi /ɔːy̯/ 開 | o /ou̯/ 蘇 | on /ɔːn/ 看 | ong /ɔːŋ/ 康 | ot /ɔːt̚/ 喝 | ok /ɔːk̚/ 索 | |||
| /uː/ | oo /uː/ 夫 | ooi /uːy̯/ 灰 | oon /uːn/ 寬 | oot /uːt̚/ 闊 | ||||||
| /ɵ/ /ʊ/ | ui /ɵy̯/ 需 | un /ɵn/ 詢 | ung /ʊŋ/ 鬆 | ut /ɵt̚/ 摔 | uk /ʊk̚/ 叔 | |||||
| /œː/ | euh /œː/ 靴 | eung /œːŋ/ 商 | euk /œːk̚/ 削 | |||||||
| /yː/ | ue /yː/ 書 | uen /yːn/ 孫 | uet /yːt̚/ 雪 | |||||||
| ∅ | m /m̩/ 唔 | ng /ŋ̩/ 五 | ||||||||
| Tone symbol | Tone description | Example | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Romanization | Word | Meaning | ||
| 1° or N° | high flat | si1° | 詩 | poem |
| ga1 je2° | 家姐 | elder sister | ||
| 1 | high falling | tim1 | 添 | finalparticle expressing the idea of addition or regret. |
| 2 or N* | mid rising | si2 | 史 | history |
| dik1 si6* | 的士 | taxi | ||
| 3 | mid flat | si3 | 試 | try |
| 4 | low falling | si4 | 時 | time |
| 5 | low rising | si5 | 市 | city |
| 6 | low flat | si6 | 是 | is |
1° indicates the high flat tone. If ° appears after any other tones, it signifies a changed tone and that the word is to be pronounced as 1°, but 1° is not the original/normal tone of the word. Similar to °, if * appears after any tones apart from tone 2, it indicates that the word is to be pronounced as tone 2, but tone 2 is not the original/normal tone of the word.[5]
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