Cantonese phonology
Encyclopedia
The standard pronunciation of the Cantonese language is that of Guangzhou
, also known as Canton, the capital of Guangdong
Province. Hong Kong Cantonese
is related to the Guangzhou dialect, and the two diverge only slightly. Cantonese dialects in other parts of Guangdong and Guangxi
provinces, such as Taishanese, may be considered divergent to a greater degree.
Phonetically speaking, a Cantonese syllable has only two parts – the sound and the tone.
) and a final (rime
). There are about 630 sounds in the Cantonese syllabary.
Some of these, such as /ɛː˨/ and /ei˨/ (欸), /pʊŋ˨/ (埲), /kʷɪŋ˥/ (扃) are not common any more; some such as /kʷɪk˥/ and /kʷʰɪk˥/ (隙), or /kʷaːŋ˧˥/ and /kɐŋ˧˥/ (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 /kʷʰɔːk˧/ (擴), /pʰuːi˥/ (胚), /jɵy˥/ (錐), /kɛː˥/ (痂) have alternative nonstandard pronunciations which have become mainstream (as /kʷʰɔːŋ˧/, /puːi˥/, /tʃɵy˥/ and /kʰɛː˥/ respectively), again making some of the sounds disappear from the everyday use of the language; and yet others such as /faːk˧/ (謋), /fɐŋ˩/ (揈), /tɐp˥/ (耷) have 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 those sounds before these vernacular usages became popular.
On the other hand, there are new words circulating in Hong Kong which use combinations of sounds which had not appeared in Cantonese before, such as get1 (note: this is non standard usage as /ɛːt/ was never an accepted/valid final for sounds in Cantonese, though the final sound /ɛːt/ has appeared in vernacular Cantonese before this, /pʰɛːt˨/ - notably in describing the measure word
of gooey or sticky substances such as mud, glue, chewing gum, etc.); the sound is borrowed from the English word get meaning "to understand".
which may occur at the beginning of a sound
. Some sounds have no initials and they are said to have null initial. The following is the inventory for Cantonese as represented in IPA
:
Note the aspiration
contrast and the lack of voicing
contrast for stops
. The affricates
are grouped with the stops for compactness in the chart.
The position of the coronals
varies from dental to alveolar
, with /t/ and /tʰ/ more likely to be dental. The position of the coronal affricates
and sibilants
/t͡s/, /t͡sʰ/, /s/ are usually alveolar ([t͡s], [t͡sʰ], and [s]), but can be postalveolar
([t͡ʃ], [t͡ʃʰ], and [ʃ]) or alveolo-palatal
([t͡ɕ], [t͡ɕʰ], and [ɕ]), especially before the front high vowels /iː/, /ɪ/, /yː/. Some speakers treat these as different phonemes
depending on the character, e.g. 所 would be /ɕɔː˧˥/ and 鎖 would be /sɔː˧˥/, while 詩 would be /ɕiː˥/ and 思 would be /siː˥/, somewhat resembling Middle Chinese
phonology. Other speakers treat the coronal variants as allophones
of a single phoneme, pronouncing both 所 and 鎖 as /sɔː˧˥/ as the vowel is more open
, while pronouncing both 詩 and 思 as /ɕiː˥/ as the vowel is more close
. This trend is a marker of historical phonological change in Cantonese, as discussed below.
Some native speakers do not distinguish between /n/ and /l/, nor between /ŋ/ and the null initial. Usually they pronounce only /l/ and the null initial. See the discussion on phonological shift below.
). There are 53 finals (including the two syllabic nasals) for all the sounds of the Cantonese dialect.
A main vowel can be long or short, depending on vowel length
. This is the only indispensble part of a sound.
A terminal can be a tail vowel, a nasal consonant, or a stop consonant. Finals with no terminal are called open finals.
The following chart lists all possible finals in Cantonese as represented in IPA
.
Based on the chart above, the following pairs of vowels are usually considered to be allophones:
Although that satisfies the minimal pair
requirement, some linguists find it difficult to explain why the coda affects the vowel length. They recognize the following two allophone groups instead:
In that way, the phoneme set consists of seven long vowels and three short vowels that are in contrast with three of the long vowels, as presented in the following chart:
, but Hong Kong Cantonese has six with the high-falling tone having merged with the high tone; current models use the latter. However, it is often said to have nine, the additional tones in the counts being the three checked (or entering) tones. There are in addition two 'changed' or 'modified' tones
used for certain morphological purposes. In Chinese, the number of possible tones depends on the rime
type. There are six contour tones
in rimes or finals that end in a semi-vowel or nasal consonant
. (Some of these have more than one realization, but such differences are seldom used to distinguish words.) In finals that end in a stop consonant
, the number of tones is reduced to three; in Chinese descriptions, these "checked tones" are treated separately, so that Cantonese is traditionally said to have nine tones. However, phonetically these are a conflation of tone and rime type; the number of phonemic tones is six in Hong Kong and seven in Guangzhou.
For purposes of meters
in Chinese poetry
, the first and fourth tones are the "flat tones" (平聲), while the rest are the "oblique tones" (仄聲). This follows their regular evolution from the four tones of Middle Chinese.
The first tone can be either high level or high falling usually without affecting the meaning of the words being spoken. Most speakers are in general not consciously aware of when they use and when to use high level and high falling. In Hong Kong, most speakers have merged the high level and high falling tones. In Guangzhou, the high falling tone is disappearing as well, but is still prevalent among certain words, e.g. in traditional Yale Romanization with diacritics, sàam (high falling) means the number three 三, whereas sāam (high level) means shirt 衫.
The numbers "394052786" when pronounced in Cantonese, will give the nine tones in order (Romanisation (Yale
) saam1, gau2, sei3, ling4, ng5, yi6, chat7, baat8, luk9), thus giving a good mnemonic
for remembering the nine tones.
Like other Yue dialects, Cantonese preserves an analog to the voicing
distinction of Middle Chinese
in the manner shown in the chart below.
The distinction of voiced and voiceless consonants found in Middle Chinese was preserved by the distinction of tones in Cantonese. The difference in vowel length further caused the splitting of the dark entering tone, making Cantonese (as well as other Yue Chinese branches) one of the few Chinese languages to have further split a tone after the voicing-related splitting of the Middle Chinese four tones.
Cantonese is special in the way that the vowel length can affect both the rime and the tone. Some linguists believe that the vowel length feature may have roots in the Old Chinese
language.
There are also two changed tone
s, which add the diminutive
-like meaning "that familiar example" to a standard word. For example, the word for "woman" in a modified tone means "daughter". They are comparable to the diminutive suffixes 儿 and 子 of Mandarin. In addition, modified tones are used in compounds, reduplications and direct address to family members. The two modified tones are high level, like tone 1, and mid rising, like tone 2, though for some people not as high as tone 2. The high level changed tone is more common for speakers with a high falling tone; for others, mid rising (or its variant realization) is the main changed tone, in which case it only operates on those syllables with a non-high level and non-mid rising tone (i.e. only tones 3, 4, 5 and 6 in Yale and Jyutping romanizations may have changed tones). However, in certain specific vocatives, the changed tone does indeed result in a high level tone (tone 1), including speakers without a phonemically distinct high falling tone.
, processes where more and more native speakers of a language change the pronunciations of certain sounds.
One shift that affected Cantonese in the past was the loss of distinction between the alveolar and the alveolo-palatal (sometimes termed as postalveolar) sibilants, which occurred during the late 19th and early 20th centuries. This distinction was documented in many Cantonese dictionaries and pronunciation guides published prior to the 1950s but is no longer distinguished in any modern Cantonese dictionary.
Publications that documented this distinction include:
The depalatalization of sibilants caused many words that were once distinct to sound the same. For comparison, this distinction is still made in modern Standard Mandarin, with most alveolo-palatal sibilants in Cantonese corresponding to the retroflex
sibilants in Mandarin. For instance:
Even though the aforementioned references observed the distinction, most of them also noted that the depalatalization phenomenon was already occurring at the time. Williams (1856) writes:
Cowles (1914) adds:
A vestige of this palatalization difference is sometimes reflected in the romanization scheme used to romanize Cantonese names in Hong Kong
. For instance, many names will be spelled with sh even though the "sh sound" (/ɕ/) is no longer used to pronounce the word. Examples include the surname 石 (/sɛːk˨/), which is often romanized as Shek, and the names of places like Sha Tin
(沙田; /saː˥ tʰiːn˩/).
After the shift was complete, even though the alveolo-palatal sibilants were no longer distinguished, they still continue to occur in complementary distribution
with the alveolar sibilants, making the two groups of sibilants allophone
s. Thus, most modern Cantonese speakers will pronounce the alveolar sibilants unless the following vowel is /iː/, /i/, or /y/, in which case the alveolo-palatal (or postalveolar) is pronounced. Canton romanization attempts to reflect this phenomenon in its romanization scheme, even though most current Cantonese romanization schemes don't.
The alveolo-palatal sibilants occur in complementary distribution with the retroflex sibilants in Mandarin as well, with the alveolo-palatal sibilants only occurring before /i/, or /y/. However, Mandarin also retains the medials, where /i/ and /y/ can occur, as can be seen in the examples above. Cantonese had lost its medials sometime ago in its history, reducing the ability for speakers to distinguish its sibilant initials.
In modern-day Hong Kong, many younger 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 becoming more common and is influencing other Cantonese-speaking regions. (See Hong Kong Cantonese
.)
Guangzhou
Guangzhou , known historically as Canton or Kwangchow, is the capital and largest city of the Guangdong province in the People's Republic of China. Located in southern China on the Pearl River, about north-northwest of Hong Kong, Guangzhou is a key national transportation hub and trading port...
, also known as Canton, the capital of Guangdong
Guangdong
Guangdong is a province on the South China Sea coast of the People's Republic of China. The province was previously often written with the alternative English name Kwangtung Province...
Province. Hong Kong Cantonese
Hong Kong Cantonese
Hong Kong Cantonese is a form of Yue Chinese commonly spoken in Hong Kong. Although Hongkongers largely identify this variant of Chinese with the term "Cantonese" , a variety of publications in mainland China describe the variant as Hong Kong speech...
is related to the Guangzhou dialect, and the two diverge only slightly. Cantonese dialects in other parts of Guangdong and Guangxi
Guangxi
Guangxi, formerly romanized Kwangsi, is a province of southern China along its border with Vietnam. In 1958, it became the Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region of the People's Republic of China, a region with special privileges created specifically for the Zhuang people.Guangxi's location, in...
provinces, such as Taishanese, may be considered divergent to a greater degree.
Cantonese syllables
A syllable generally corresponds to a word or character. Most syllables are etymologically associated with either standard Chinese characters or colloquial Cantonese characters. Modern linguists have discovered there are about 1,760 syllables being used in the entire Cantonese vocabulary, which cover the pronunciations of more than 10,000 Chinese characters. Therefore, the average number of homophonous characters per syllable is six.Phonetically speaking, a Cantonese syllable has only two parts – the sound and the tone.
Sounds
A Cantonese sound (or sound segment) usually consists of an initial (onsetOnset
Onset may refer to:*Onset , the beginning of a musical note or sound*Interonset interval, a term in music*Syllable onset, a term in phonetics and phonology*Onset, Massachusetts, village in the United States...
) and a final (rime
Rime
Rime is a coating of ice:*Hard rime, white ice that forms when water droplets in fog freeze to the outer surfaces of objects, such as trees*Soft rime, similar to hard rime, but feathery and milky in appearance...
). There are about 630 sounds in the Cantonese syllabary.
Some of these, such as /ɛː˨/ and /ei˨/ (欸), /pʊŋ˨/ (埲), /kʷɪŋ˥/ (扃) are not common any more; some such as /kʷɪk˥/ and /kʷʰɪk˥/ (隙), or /kʷaːŋ˧˥/ and /kɐŋ˧˥/ (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 /kʷʰɔːk˧/ (擴), /pʰuːi˥/ (胚), /jɵy˥/ (錐), /kɛː˥/ (痂) have alternative nonstandard pronunciations which have become mainstream (as /kʷʰɔːŋ˧/, /puːi˥/, /tʃɵy˥/ and /kʰɛː˥/ respectively), again making some of the sounds disappear from the everyday use of the language; and yet others such as /faːk˧/ (謋), /fɐŋ˩/ (揈), /tɐp˥/ (耷) have 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 those sounds before these vernacular usages became popular.
On the other hand, there are new words circulating in Hong Kong which use combinations of sounds which had not appeared in Cantonese before, such as get1 (note: this is non standard usage as /ɛːt/ was never an accepted/valid final for sounds in Cantonese, though the final sound /ɛːt/ has appeared in vernacular Cantonese before this, /pʰɛːt˨/ - notably in describing the measure word
Measure word
In linguistics, measure words are words that are used in combination with a numeral to indicate an amount of some noun. They denote a unit or measurement and are used with nouns that are not countable. For instance, in English, is a mass noun and thus one cannot say *"three muds", but one can say...
of gooey or sticky substances such as mud, glue, chewing gum, etc.); the sound is borrowed from the English word get meaning "to understand".
Initial consonants
Initials (or onsets) refer to the 19 initial consonantsConsonant
In articulatory phonetics, a consonant is a speech sound that is articulated with complete or partial closure of the vocal tract. Examples are , pronounced with the lips; , pronounced with the front of the tongue; , pronounced with the back of the tongue; , pronounced in the throat; and ,...
which may occur at the beginning of a sound
Sound
Sound is a mechanical wave that is an oscillation of pressure transmitted through a solid, liquid, or gas, composed of frequencies within the range of hearing and of a level sufficiently strong to be heard, or the sensation stimulated in organs of hearing by such vibrations.-Propagation of...
. Some sounds have no initials and they are said to have null initial. The following is the inventory for Cantonese as represented in IPA
International Phonetic Alphabet
The International Phonetic Alphabet "The acronym 'IPA' strictly refers [...] to the 'International Phonetic Association'. But it is now such a common practice to use the acronym also to refer to the alphabet itself that resistance seems pedantic...
:
| Labial Labial consonant Labial consonants are consonants in which one or both lips are the active articulator. This precludes linguolabials, in which the tip of the tongue reaches for the posterior side of the upper lip and which are considered coronals... |
Coronal Coronal consonant Coronal consonants are consonants articulated with the flexible front part of the tongue. Only the coronal consonants can be divided into apical , laminal , domed , or subapical , as well as a few rarer orientations, because only the front of the tongue has such... |
Palatal Palatal consonant Palatal consonants are consonants articulated with the body of the tongue raised against the hard palate... |
Velar Velar consonant Velars are consonants articulated with the back part of the tongue against the soft palate, the back part of the roof of the mouth, known also as the velum).... |
Glottal Glottal consonant Glottal consonants, also called laryngeal consonants, are consonants articulated with the glottis. Many phoneticians consider them, or at least the so-called fricative, to be transitional states of the glottis without a point of articulation as other consonants have; in fact, some do not consider... |
||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| plain | sibilant Sibilant consonant A sibilant is a manner of articulation of fricative and affricate consonants, made by directing a stream of air with the tongue towards the sharp edge of the teeth, which are held close together. Examples of sibilants are the consonants at the beginning of the English words sip, zip, ship, chip,... |
plain | labialized Labial-velar consonant Labial–velar consonants are doubly articulated at the velum and the lips. They are sometimes called "labiovelar consonants", a term that can also refer to labialized velars, such as and the approximant .... |
|||||
| Nasal Nasal consonant A nasal consonant is a type of consonant produced with a lowered velum in the mouth, allowing air to escape freely through the nose. Examples of nasal consonants in English are and , in words such as nose and mouth.- Definition :... |
m | n | ŋ | |||||
| Stop Stop consonant In phonetics, a plosive, also known as an occlusive or an oral stop, is a stop consonant in which the vocal tract is blocked so that all airflow ceases. The occlusion may be done with the tongue , lips , and &... |
plain | p | t | t͡s | k | kʷ ¹ | (ʔ) ² | |
| aspirated Aspiration (phonetics) In phonetics, aspiration is the strong burst of air that accompanies either the release or, in the case of preaspiration, the closure of some obstruents. To feel or see the difference between aspirated and unaspirated sounds, one can put a hand or a lit candle in front of one's mouth, and say pin ... |
pʰ | tʰ | t͡sʰ | kʰ | kʷʰ ¹ | |||
| Fricative Fricative consonant Fricatives are consonants produced by forcing air through a narrow channel made by placing two articulators close together. These may be the lower lip against the upper teeth, in the case of ; the back of the tongue against the soft palate, in the case of German , the final consonant of Bach; or... |
f | s | h | |||||
| Approximant Approximant consonant Approximants are speech sounds that involve the articulators approaching each other but not narrowly enough or with enough articulatory precision to create turbulent airflow. Therefore, approximants fall between fricatives, which do produce a turbulent airstream, and vowels, which produce no... |
l | j ¹ | w ¹ | |||||
Note the aspiration
Aspiration (phonetics)
In phonetics, aspiration is the strong burst of air that accompanies either the release or, in the case of preaspiration, the closure of some obstruents. To feel or see the difference between aspirated and unaspirated sounds, one can put a hand or a lit candle in front of one's mouth, and say pin ...
contrast and the lack of voicing
Voice (phonetics)
Voice or voicing is a term used in phonetics and phonology to characterize speech sounds, with sounds described as either voiceless or voiced. The term, however, is used to refer to two separate concepts. Voicing can refer to the articulatory process in which the vocal cords vibrate...
contrast for stops
Stop consonant
In phonetics, a plosive, also known as an occlusive or an oral stop, is a stop consonant in which the vocal tract is blocked so that all airflow ceases. The occlusion may be done with the tongue , lips , and &...
. The affricates
Affricate consonant
Affricates are consonants that begin as stops but release as a fricative rather than directly into the following vowel.- Samples :...
are grouped with the stops for compactness in 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 MandarinStandard ChineseStandard Chinese, or Modern Standard Chinese, also known as Mandarin or Putonghua, is the official language of the People's Republic of China and Republic of China , and is one of the four official languages of Singapore....
, 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 stopGlottal stopThe glottal stop, or more fully, the voiceless glottal plosive, is a type of consonantal sound used in many spoken languages. In English, the feature is represented, for example, by the hyphen in uh-oh! and by the apostrophe or [[ʻokina]] in Hawaii among those using a preservative pronunciation of...
) when a vowelVowelIn phonetics, a vowel is a sound in spoken language, such as English ah! or oh! , pronounced with an open vocal tract so that there is no build-up of air pressure at any point above the glottis. This contrasts with consonants, such as English sh! , where there is a constriction or closure at some...
other than /i/, /u/ or /y/ begins a sound.
The position of the coronals
Coronal consonant
Coronal consonants are consonants articulated with the flexible front part of the tongue. Only the coronal consonants can be divided into apical , laminal , domed , or subapical , as well as a few rarer orientations, because only the front of the tongue has such...
varies from dental to alveolar
Alveolar consonant
Alveolar consonants are articulated with the tongue against or close to the superior alveolar ridge, which is called that because it contains the alveoli of the superior teeth...
, with /t/ and /tʰ/ more likely to be dental. The position of the coronal affricates
Affricate consonant
Affricates are consonants that begin as stops but release as a fricative rather than directly into the following vowel.- Samples :...
and sibilants
Sibilant consonant
A sibilant is a manner of articulation of fricative and affricate consonants, made by directing a stream of air with the tongue towards the sharp edge of the teeth, which are held close together. Examples of sibilants are the consonants at the beginning of the English words sip, zip, ship, chip,...
/t͡s/, /t͡sʰ/, /s/ are usually alveolar ([t͡s], [t͡sʰ], and [s]), but can be postalveolar
Postalveolar consonant
Postalveolar consonants are consonants articulated with the tongue near or touching the back of the alveolar ridge, further back in the mouth than the alveolar consonants, which are at the ridge itself, but not as far back as the hard palate...
([t͡ʃ], [t͡ʃʰ], and [ʃ]) or alveolo-palatal
Alveolo-palatal consonant
In phonetics, alveolo-palatal consonants are palatalized postalveolar sounds, usually fricatives and affricates, articulated with the blade of the tongue behind the alveolar ridge, and the body of the tongue raised toward the palate...
([t͡ɕ], [t͡ɕʰ], and [ɕ]), especially before the front high vowels /iː/, /ɪ/, /yː/. Some speakers treat these as different phonemes
Phoneme
In a language or dialect, a phoneme is the smallest segmental unit of sound employed to form meaningful contrasts between utterances....
depending on the character, e.g. 所 would be /ɕɔː˧˥/ and 鎖 would be /sɔː˧˥/, while 詩 would be /ɕiː˥/ and 思 would be /siː˥/, somewhat resembling Middle Chinese
Middle Chinese
Middle Chinese , also called Ancient Chinese by the linguist Bernhard Karlgren, refers to the Chinese language spoken during Southern and Northern Dynasties and the Sui, Tang, and Song dynasties...
phonology. Other speakers treat the coronal variants as allophones
Allophone
In phonology, an allophone is one of a set of multiple possible spoken sounds used to pronounce a single phoneme. For example, and are allophones for the phoneme in the English language...
of a single phoneme, pronouncing both 所 and 鎖 as /sɔː˧˥/ as the vowel is more open
Open vowel
An open vowel is defined as a vowel sound in which the tongue is positioned as far as possible from the roof of the mouth. Open vowels are sometimes also called low vowels in reference to the low position of the tongue...
, while pronouncing both 詩 and 思 as /ɕiː˥/ as the vowel is more close
Close vowel
A close vowel is a type of vowel sound used in many spoken languages. The defining characteristic of a close vowel is that the tongue is positioned as close as possible to the roof of the mouth without creating a constriction that would be classified as a consonant.This term is prescribed by the...
. This trend is a marker of historical phonological change in Cantonese, as discussed below.
Some native speakers do not distinguish between /n/ and /l/, nor between /ŋ/ and the null initial. Usually they pronounce only /l/ and the null initial. See the discussion on phonological shift below.
Vowels and terminals
Finals (or rimes) are the part of the sound after the initial. A final is typically composed of a main vowel (nucleus) and a terminal (codaCoda
Coda can denote any concluding event, summation, or section.Coda may also refer to:-Acronyms:* Calgary Olympic Development Association, the former name of the Canadian Winter Sport Institute, a non profit organization...
). There are 53 finals (including the two syllabic nasals) for all the sounds of the Cantonese dialect.
A main vowel can be long or short, depending on vowel length
Vowel length
In linguistics, vowel length is the perceived duration of a vowel sound. Often the chroneme, or the "longness", acts like a consonant, and may etymologically be one, such as in Australian English. While not distinctive in most dialects of English, vowel length is an important phonemic factor in...
. This is the only indispensble part of a sound.
A terminal can be a tail vowel, a nasal consonant, or a stop consonant. Finals with no terminal are called open finals.
The following chart lists all possible finals in Cantonese as represented in IPA
International Phonetic Alphabet
The International Phonetic Alphabet "The acronym 'IPA' strictly refers [...] to the 'International Phonetic Association'. But it is now such a common practice to use the acronym also to refer to the alphabet itself that resistance seems pedantic...
.
| V | aː | ɛː | iː | ɔː | uː | œː | yː | |||||||
| Long | Short | Long | Short | Long | Short | Long | Short | Long | Short | Long | Short | Long | Short | |
| -i / -y | aːi | ɐi | ei | ɔːi | uːi | ɵy | ||||||||
| -u | aːu | ɐu | ɛːu¹ | iːu | ou | |||||||||
| -m | aːm | ɐm | ɛːm¹ | iːm | ||||||||||
| -n | aːn | ɐn | iːn | ɔːn | uːn | ɵn | yːn | |||||||
| -ŋ | aːŋ | ɐŋ | ɛːŋ | ɪŋ | ɔːŋ | ʊŋ | œːŋ | |||||||
| -p | aːp | ɐp | ɛːp¹ | iːp | ||||||||||
| -t | aːt | ɐt | ɛːt¹ | iːt | ɔːt | uːt | ɵt | yːt | ||||||
| -k | aːk | ɐk | ɛːk | ɪk | ɔːk | ʊk | œːk |
- Syllabic nasals: [m̩] [ŋ̩]
- ¹Finals [ɛːu], [ɛːm], [ɛːp], and [ɛːt] only appear in colloquial pronunciations of characters. They are absent from some analyses and romanization systems.
- [ɛː] - [e], [iː] - [ɪ], [ɔː] - [o], [uː] - [ʊ], and [œː] - [ɵ].
Although that satisfies the minimal pair
Minimal pair
In phonology, minimal pairs are pairs of words or phrases in a particular language, which differ in only one phonological element, such as a phone, phoneme, toneme or chroneme and have distinct meanings...
requirement, some linguists find it difficult to explain why the coda affects the vowel length. They recognize the following two allophone groups instead:
- [e] - [ɪ] and [o] - [ʊ] - [ɵ].
In that way, the phoneme set consists of seven long vowels and three short vowels that are in contrast with three of the long vowels, as presented in the following chart:
| V | aː | ɔː | ɛː | iː | uː | œː | yː | |||
| Long | Short | Long | Short | Long | Short | Long | Long | Long | Long | |
| -i / -y | aːi | ɐi | ɔːi | ɵy | ei | uːi | ||||
| -u | aːu | ɐu | ou | iːu | ||||||
| -m | aːm | ɐm | iːm | |||||||
| -n | aːn | ɐn | ɔːn | ɵn | iːn | uːn | yːn | |||
| -ŋ | aːŋ | ɐŋ | ɔːŋ | ʊŋ | ɛːŋ | ɪŋ | œːŋ | |||
| -p | aːp | ɐp | iːp | |||||||
| -t | aːt | ɐt | ɔːt | ɵt | iːt | uːt | yːt | |||
| -k | aːk | ɐk | ɔːk | ʊk | ɛːk | ɪk | œːk |
- Syllabic nasals: [m̩] [ŋ̩]
Tones
Guangzhou Cantonese traditionally has seven tonesTone (linguistics)
Tone is the use of pitch in language to distinguish lexical or grammatical meaning—that is, to distinguish or inflect words. All verbal languages use pitch to express emotional and other paralinguistic information, and to convey emphasis, contrast, and other such features in what is called...
, but Hong Kong Cantonese has six with the high-falling tone having merged with the high tone; current models use the latter. However, it is often said to have nine, the additional tones in the counts being the three checked (or entering) tones. There are in addition two 'changed' or 'modified' tones
Changed tone
Cantonese changed tones occur when a word's tone becomes a different tone due to a particular context or meaning. The changed tone is the tone of the word when read in a particular lexical or grammatical context, while the base tone is usually the tone of the word when read in citation...
used for certain morphological purposes. In Chinese, the number of possible tones depends on the rime
Rime
Rime is a coating of ice:*Hard rime, white ice that forms when water droplets in fog freeze to the outer surfaces of objects, such as trees*Soft rime, similar to hard rime, but feathery and milky in appearance...
type. There are six contour tones
Tone contour
A tone contour is a tone in a tonal language which shifts from one pitch to another over the course of the syllable or word. Tone contours are especially common in East and Southeast Asia, but occur elsewhere, such as the Kru languages of Liberia and the Ju languages of Namibia.-Themes:When the...
in rimes or finals that end in a semi-vowel or nasal consonant
Nasal consonant
A nasal consonant is a type of consonant produced with a lowered velum in the mouth, allowing air to escape freely through the nose. Examples of nasal consonants in English are and , in words such as nose and mouth.- Definition :...
. (Some of these have more than one realization, but such differences are seldom used to distinguish words.) In finals that end in a stop consonant
Stop consonant
In phonetics, a plosive, also known as an occlusive or an oral stop, is a stop consonant in which the vocal tract is blocked so that all airflow ceases. The occlusion may be done with the tongue , lips , and &...
, the number of tones is reduced to three; in Chinese descriptions, these "checked tones" are treated separately, so that Cantonese is traditionally said to have nine tones. However, phonetically these are a conflation of tone and rime type; the number of phonemic tones is six in Hong Kong and seven in Guangzhou.
| Syllable type | |Open syllables | |Checked syllables | |||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Tone name Tone name In the Chinese and Vietnamese languages, tone names are the names given to the tones these languages use.*In Chinese, tone names are given in terms of the four tones, namely level , rising , departing , and entering , as well as dark and light , and high and low .* Standard Vietnamese has six... |
dark flat (陰平) |
dark rising (陰上) |
dark departing (陰去) |
light flat (陽平) |
light rising (陽上) |
light departing (陽去) |
upper dark entering (上陰入) |
lower dark entering (下陰入) |
light entering (陽入) |
| Description | high level, high falling |
medium rising | medium level | low falling, very low level |
low rising | low level | high level | medium level | low level |
| Yale or Jyutping Jyutping Jyutping is a romanization system for Cantonese developed by the Linguistic Society of Hong Kong in 1993. Its formal name is The Linguistic Society of Hong Kong Cantonese Romanization Scheme... tone number Tone number A tone number is a numeral used in a notational system for marking the tones of a language. The number is usually placed after the romanized syllable. Notice that a number may have very different meanings in different contexts since the systems may have developed independently.Other means of... |
1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 (or 1) | 8 (or 3) | 9 (or 6) |
| Example | 詩 | 史 | 試 | 時 | 市 | 是 | 識 | 錫 | 食 |
| Tone letter Tone letter Tone letters are letters that represent the tones of a language, most commonly in languages with contour tones.-Chao tone letters :A series of iconic tone letters based on a musical staff was invented by Yuen Ren Chao and adopted into the International Phonetic Alphabet.Combinations of these tone... |
siː˥, siː˥˧ | siː˧˥ | siː˧ | siː˨˩, siː˩ | siː˩˧ | siː˨ | sɪk˥ | sɛːk˧ | sɪk˨ |
| IPA diacritic | síː, sîː | sǐː | sīː | si̖ː, sı̏ː | si̗ː | sìː | sɪ́k | sɛ̄ːk | sɪ̀k |
| Yale diacritic | sī, sì | sí | si | sìh | síh | sih | sīk | sek | sihk |
For purposes of meters
Tone pattern
Tone patterns are common constraints in classical Chinese poetry.The four tones of Middle Chinese—level , rising , departing , and entering tones—are categorized into level tones and oblique tones. All level tones are level. All other tones are oblique...
in Chinese poetry
Chinese poetry
Chinese poetry is poetry written, spoken, or chanted in the Chinese language, which includes various versions of Chinese language, including Classical Chinese, Standard Chinese, Mandarin Chinese, Cantonese, Yue Chinese, as well as many other historical and vernacular varieties of the Chinese language...
, the first and fourth tones are the "flat tones" (平聲), while the rest are the "oblique tones" (仄聲). This follows their regular evolution from the four tones of Middle Chinese.
The first tone can be either high level or high falling usually without affecting the meaning of the words being spoken. Most speakers are in general not consciously aware of when they use and when to use high level and high falling. In Hong Kong, most speakers have merged the high level and high falling tones. In Guangzhou, the high falling tone is disappearing as well, but is still prevalent among certain words, e.g. in traditional Yale Romanization with diacritics, sàam (high falling) means the number three 三, whereas sāam (high level) means shirt 衫.
The numbers "394052786" when pronounced in Cantonese, will give the nine tones in order (Romanisation (Yale
Yale Romanization
The Yale romanizations are four systems created at Yale University for romanizing the four East Asian languages of Mandarin, Cantonese, Korean, and Japanese...
) saam1, gau2, sei3, ling4, ng5, yi6, chat7, baat8, luk9), thus giving a good mnemonic
Mnemonic
A mnemonic , or mnemonic device, is any learning technique that aids memory. To improve long term memory, mnemonic systems are used to make memorization easier. Commonly encountered mnemonics are often verbal, such as a very short poem or a special word used to help a person remember something,...
for remembering the nine tones.
Like other Yue dialects, Cantonese preserves an analog to the voicing
Voice (phonetics)
Voice or voicing is a term used in phonetics and phonology to characterize speech sounds, with sounds described as either voiceless or voiced. The term, however, is used to refer to two separate concepts. Voicing can refer to the articulatory process in which the vocal cords vibrate...
distinction of Middle Chinese
Middle Chinese
Middle Chinese , also called Ancient Chinese by the linguist Bernhard Karlgren, refers to the Chinese language spoken during Southern and Northern Dynasties and the Sui, Tang, and Song dynasties...
in the manner shown in the chart below.
| Middle Chinese | Cantonese | ||||
| Tone | Initial | Nucleus | Tone Name | Tone Contour | Tone Number |
| Level | voiceless | dark level |˥, ˥˧ |
1 | ||
| voiced | light flat |˨˩, ˩ |
4 | |||
| Rising | voiceless | dark rising |˧˥ |
2 | ||
| voiced | light rising |˩˧ |
5 | |||
| Departing | voiceless | dark departing |˧ |
3 | ||
| voiced | light departing |˨ |
6 | |||
| Entering | voiceless | Short | upper dark entering |˥ |
7 (1) | |
| Long | lower dark entering |˧ |
8 (3) | |||
| voiced | light entering |˨ |
9 (6) |
The distinction of voiced and voiceless consonants found in Middle Chinese was preserved by the distinction of tones in Cantonese. The difference in vowel length further caused the splitting of the dark entering tone, making Cantonese (as well as other Yue Chinese branches) one of the few Chinese languages to have further split a tone after the voicing-related splitting of the Middle Chinese four tones.
Cantonese is special in the way that the vowel length can affect both the rime and the tone. Some linguists believe that the vowel length feature may have roots in the Old Chinese
Old Chinese
The earliest known written records of the Chinese language were found at a site near modern Anyang identified as Yin, the last capital of the Shang dynasty, and date from about 1200 BC....
language.
There are also two changed tone
Changed tone
Cantonese changed tones occur when a word's tone becomes a different tone due to a particular context or meaning. The changed tone is the tone of the word when read in a particular lexical or grammatical context, while the base tone is usually the tone of the word when read in citation...
s, which add the diminutive
Diminutive
In language structure, a diminutive, or diminutive form , is a formation of a word used to convey a slight degree of the root meaning, smallness of the object or quality named, encapsulation, intimacy, or endearment...
-like meaning "that familiar example" to a standard word. For example, the word for "woman" in a modified tone means "daughter". They are comparable to the diminutive suffixes 儿 and 子 of Mandarin. In addition, modified tones are used in compounds, reduplications and direct address to family members. The two modified tones are high level, like tone 1, and mid rising, like tone 2, though for some people not as high as tone 2. The high level changed tone is more common for speakers with a high falling tone; for others, mid rising (or its variant realization) is the main changed tone, in which case it only operates on those syllables with a non-high level and non-mid rising tone (i.e. only tones 3, 4, 5 and 6 in Yale and Jyutping romanizations may have changed tones). However, in certain specific vocatives, the changed tone does indeed result in a high level tone (tone 1), including speakers without a phonemically distinct high falling tone.
Historical change
Like other languages, Cantonese is constantly undergoing sound changeSound change
Sound change includes any processes of language change that affect pronunciation or sound system structures...
, processes where more and more native speakers of a language change the pronunciations of certain sounds.
One shift that affected Cantonese in the past was the loss of distinction between the alveolar and the alveolo-palatal (sometimes termed as postalveolar) sibilants, which occurred during the late 19th and early 20th centuries. This distinction was documented in many Cantonese dictionaries and pronunciation guides published prior to the 1950s but is no longer distinguished in any modern Cantonese dictionary.
Publications that documented this distinction include:
- Williams, S., A Tonic Dictionary of the Chinese Language in the Canton Dialect, 1856.
- Cowles, R., A Pocket Dictionary of Cantonese, 1914.
- Meyer, B. and Wempe, T., The Student's Cantonese-English Dictionary, 3rd edition, 1947.
- Chao, Y. Cantonese Primer, 1947.
The depalatalization of sibilants caused many words that were once distinct to sound the same. For comparison, this distinction is still made in modern Standard Mandarin, with most alveolo-palatal sibilants in Cantonese corresponding to the retroflex
Retroflex consonant
A retroflex consonant is a coronal consonant where the tongue has a flat, concave, or even curled shape, and is articulated between the alveolar ridge and the hard palate. They are sometimes referred to as cerebral consonants, especially in Indology...
sibilants in Mandarin. For instance:
| Sibilant Category | Character | Modern Cantonese | Pre-1950's Cantonese | Standard Mandarin |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Unaspirated affricate | 將 | /tsœːŋ/ (alveolar) | /tsœːŋ/ (alveolar) | /tɕiɑŋ/ (alveolo-palatal) |
| 張 | /tɕœːŋ/ (alveolo-palatal) | /tʂɑŋ/ (retroflex) | ||
| Aspirated affricate | 槍 | /tsʰœːŋ/ (alveolar) | /tsʰœːŋ/ (alveolar) | /tɕʰiɑŋ/ (alveolo-palatal) |
| 昌 | /tɕʰœːŋ/ (alveolo-palatal) | /tʂʰɑŋ/ (retroflex) | ||
| Fricative | 相 | /sœːŋ/ (alveolar) | /sœːŋ/ (alveolar) | /ɕiɑŋ/ (alveolo-palatal) |
| 傷 | /ɕœːŋ/ (alveolo-palatal) | /ʂɑŋ/ (retroflex) |
Even though the aforementioned references observed the distinction, most of them also noted that the depalatalization phenomenon was already occurring at the time. Williams (1856) writes:
Cowles (1914) adds:
A vestige of this palatalization difference is sometimes reflected in the romanization scheme used to romanize Cantonese names in Hong Kong
Hong Kong Government Cantonese Romanisation
The Hong Kong Government Cantonese Romanisation is the more or less consistent way for romanising Cantonese proper nouns employed by the Hong Kong Government departments and many non-governmental organisations in Hong Kong...
. For instance, many names will be spelled with sh even though the "sh sound" (/ɕ/) is no longer used to pronounce the word. Examples include the surname 石 (/sɛːk˨/), which is often romanized as Shek, and the names of places like Sha Tin
Sha Tin
Sha Tin, also spelled Shatin, is an area around the Shing Mun River in the New Territories of Hong Kong. Administratively, it is part of the Sha Tin District.-Geography:...
(沙田; /saː˥ tʰiːn˩/).
After the shift was complete, even though the alveolo-palatal sibilants were no longer distinguished, they still continue to occur in complementary distribution
Complementary distribution
Complementary distribution in linguistics is the relationship between two different elements, where one element is found in a particular environment and the other element is found in the opposite environment...
with the alveolar sibilants, making the two groups of sibilants allophone
Allophone
In phonology, an allophone is one of a set of multiple possible spoken sounds used to pronounce a single phoneme. For example, and are allophones for the phoneme in the English language...
s. Thus, most modern Cantonese speakers will pronounce the alveolar sibilants unless the following vowel is /iː/, /i/, or /y/, in which case the alveolo-palatal (or postalveolar) is pronounced. Canton romanization attempts to reflect this phenomenon in its romanization scheme, even though most current Cantonese romanization schemes don't.
The alveolo-palatal sibilants occur in complementary distribution with the retroflex sibilants in Mandarin as well, with the alveolo-palatal sibilants only occurring before /i/, or /y/. However, Mandarin also retains the medials, where /i/ and /y/ can occur, as can be seen in the examples above. Cantonese had lost its medials sometime ago in its history, reducing the ability for speakers to distinguish its sibilant initials.
In modern-day Hong Kong, many younger 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 becoming more common and is influencing other Cantonese-speaking regions. (See Hong Kong Cantonese
Hong Kong Cantonese
Hong Kong Cantonese is a form of Yue Chinese commonly spoken in Hong Kong. Although Hongkongers largely identify this variant of Chinese with the term "Cantonese" , a variety of publications in mainland China describe the variant as Hong Kong speech...
.)