Written Cantonese
Encyclopedia
Cantonese
has the most well-developed written form of all Chinese varieties apart from the standard varieties of Mandarin
and Classical Chinese
. Standard written Chinese is based on Mandarin, but when spoken word for word as Cantonese, it sounds unnatural because its expressions are ungrammatical and unidiomatic in Cantonese. As a result, modern Cantonese speakers have developed their own written script, sometimes creating new characters
for words that either do not exist or have been lost in standard Chinese.
A good source for well documented written Cantonese words can be found in the scripts for Cantonese opera
. Readings in Cantonese colloquial: being selections from books in the Cantonese vernacular with free and literal translations of the Chinese character and romanized spelling (1894) by James Dyer Ball has a bibliography of printed works available in Cantonese characters in the last decade of the nineteenth century. A few libraries have collections of so-called "wooden fish books" written in Cantonese characters. Facsimiles and plot precis of a few of these have been published in Wolfram Eberhard's Cantonese Ballads. See also Cantonese love-songs, translated with introduction and notes by Cecil Clementi (1904) or a newer translation of these by Yue Ou in Cantonese love songs : an English translation of Jiu Ji-yung's Cantonese songs of the early 19th century (1992). Cantonese character versions of the Bible, Pilgrims Progress, and Peep of Day, as well as simple catechisms, were published by mission presses. The special Cantonese characters used in all of these were not standardized and show wide variation.
With the advent of the computer and standardization of character sets specifically for Cantonese, many printed materials in predominantly Cantonese speaking areas of the world are written to cater to their population with these written Cantonese characters. As a result, mainstream media such as newspapers and magazines have become progressively less conservative and more colloquial in their dissemination of ideas. Generally speaking, some of the older generation of Cantonese speakers regard this trend as a step backwards and away from tradition. This tension between the traditional and colloquial is a reflection of a transition that is taking place in the Cantonese-speaking population.
was Classical Chinese
, which has grammar and vocabulary based on the Chinese used in ancient China, Old Chinese
. However, while this written standard remained essentially static for over two thousand years, the actual spoken language diverged further and further away. Some writings based on local vernacular
speech did exist but these were rare. In the early 20th century, Chinese reformers like Hu Shi saw the need for language reform and championed the development of a vernacular that allowed modern Chinese to write the language the same way they speak. The vernacular language movement took hold, and the written language was standardized as Vernacular Chinese
. Because they had the largest number of speakers, Mandarin
was chosen as the basis for the new standard.
The standardization and adoption of written Mandarin pre-empted the development and standardization of vernaculars based on other varieties of Chinese. No matter which dialect one spoke, one still wrote in standardized Mandarin for everyday writing. However, Cantonese is unique among the non-Mandarin varieties in having a widely used written form. Cantonese-speaking Hong Kong
was a British
colony isolated from mainland China
so most HK citizens do not speak Mandarin. Written Cantonese was developed as a means of informal communication. Still, Cantonese speakers have to use standard written Chinese, or even literary Chinese, in most formal written communications, since written Cantonese may be unintelligible to speakers of other varieties of Chinese.
Historically, written Cantonese has been used in Hong Kong for legal proceedings in order to write down the exact spoken testimony of a witness, instead of paraphrasing spoken Cantonese into standard written Chinese. However, its popularity and usage has been rising in the last two decades, the late Wong Jim
being one of the pioneers of its use as an effective written language. Written Cantonese has become quite popular in certain tabloids, online chat room
s, instant messaging
, and even social networking websites. Although most foreign movies and TV shows are subtitled in Standard Chinese, some, such as The Simpsons
, are subtitled using written Cantonese. Some tabloids like Apple Daily
are written largely in Cantonese, other newspapers (e.g. Hong Kong Economic Journal
) may have editorials or columns that contain Cantonese discourses, and Cantonese characters are increasing in popularity on advertisements and billboards.
It has been stated that Written Cantonese remains limited outside Hong Kong, including other Cantonese-speaking areas in Guangdong, China; e.g. (Snow, 2004). However, colloquial Cantonese advertisements are sometimes seen on the mainland, suggesting that written Cantonese is widely understood and is regarded favourably, at least in some contexts.
Some sources will use only colloquial Cantonese forms, resulting in text similar to natural speech. However, it is more common to use a mixture of colloquial forms and Standard Chinese forms, some of which are alien to natural speech. Thus the resulting "hybrid" text lies on a continuum between two norms: Standard Chinese, and colloquial Cantonese as spoken.
for use in electronic communication, there is still significant disagreement about which characters are "correct" in written Cantonese.
s of words used in standard written Chinese. For example, the character for "not" is the synonym of , the third-person
pronoun
( "he/she") is a synonym of , the plural pronoun marker is the synonym of and the possessive particle
is a synonym of . For example:
lòih (standard) and lèih (Cantonese), meaning "to come." Both share the same meaning and usage, but because the colloquial pronunciation differs from the literary pronunciation, they are represented using two different characters. Some people argue that representing the colloquial pronunciation with a different (and often extremely complex) character is superfluous, and encourage using the same character for both forms since they are cognate
s (see Derived characters below).
Today those characters can mainly be found in ancient rime dictionaries
such as Guangyun
. Some scholars have made some "archaeological" efforts to find out what the "original characters" are. Often, however, these efforts are of little use to the modern Cantonese writer, since the characters so discovered are not available in the standard character sets
provided to computer users, and many have fallen out of usage.
Examples:
- "mē" placed at end of sentence to indicate disbelief - "nē" placed at end of sentence to indicate question - "meih" placed at end of sentence to ask if action is done yet - (more correctly should be ) "háh" placed after a verb to indicate a little bit, i.e. "eat a little bit"; "há" used singly, to show uncertainty or unbelief - "gán" placed after a verb to indicate a progressive, i.e. "I am eating" - "jó" placed after verb to indicate a completed action, i.e. "I finished eating" - "maàih" placed after verb to indicate a future tense, i.e. "I will finish eating" - "wa" wow!
, which may represent either a word
, morpheme
, or particle
, and multi-syllabic words. Characters are generally represented by a unique character, while a word may be composed of two or more characters, which may not be necessarily related in meaning. Thus, some Cantonese words may use existing characters to form words which do not exist or possess different meaning in Mandarin.
Also, some existing Chinese words are used differently in Cantonese than they are in Mandarin. For example, the word for "to eat" in Mandarin is 吃 (e.g. 吃飯 - to eat a meal). However, 吃 is never used in Cantonese. Instead, the word 食 is used in Cantonese to mean "to eat" (e.g. 食飯 - to eat a meal). 食 is also used in Mandarin, but not as a verb; instead, it is a noun mainly meaning "food". So when writing in Cantonese, it is necessary to use the appropriate Cantonese word. Some examples include:
see http://www.arts.cuhk.edu.hk/~phorum/read.php?f=2&i=927&t=927 for a list of loan words in Cantonese.
There is evidence that the mouth radical in such characters can, over time, be replaced by a Signific, which indicates the meaning of the character. The new character is then a semantic compound. For instance, (lām, "bud"), written with the signific ("cover"), is instead written in older dictionaries as , with the mouth radical.
The development of new Cantonese characters is interesting linguistically, because they have never been subject to government standardization, in contrast to Standard Chinese, which has been regulated for over 2000 years. Therefore, a better understanding can be gained of the linguistics of how Chinese writing evolves, and how the script is modelled perceptually by the Chinese reader.
not have). Originally . Standard: haih (v.
be). Standard: kéuih (pron.
he/she/it). Originally . Standard: māt (pron.
what) often followed by 嘢 to form 乜嘢. Standard: jái (n.
son, child, small thing). Originally . lóu (n.
guy, dude) béi (v.
give) Standard: leng (adj.
pretty, handsome). Originally 令. written vernacular Chinese: saai (adv.
completely; v.
bask in sun) fan (v.
sleep). Originally . Standard: , ló (v.
take, get) Standard: leih (n.
tongue) Standard: guih (adj.
tired) Standard: dehng (n.
place) often followed by 方 to form 埞方. Standard:
The words represented by these characters are sometimes cognate
s with pre-existing Chinese words. However, their colloquial Cantonese pronunciations have diverged from formal Cantonese pronunciations. For example, ("without") is normally pronounced mòuh in literature. In spoken Cantonese, (móuh) has the same usage, meaning, and pronunciation as , except for tone. represents the spoken Cantonese form of the word "without", while represents the word used in Classical Chinese
and Mandarin. However, is still used in some instances in spoken Cantonese, such as ("no matter what happens"). Another example is the doublet
, which means "come". (lòih) is used in literature; (lèih) is the spoken Cantonese form.
Cantonese
Cantonese is a dialect spoken primarily in south China.Cantonese may also refer to:* Yue Chinese, the Chinese language that includes Cantonese* Cantonese cuisine, the cuisine of Guangdong province...
has the most well-developed written form of all Chinese varieties apart from the standard varieties of Mandarin
Vernacular Chinese
Written Vernacular Chinese refers to forms of written Chinese based on the vernacular language, in contrast to Classical Chinese, the written standard used from the Spring and Autumn Period to the early twentieth century...
and Classical Chinese
Classical Chinese
Classical Chinese or Literary Chinese is a traditional style of written Chinese based on the grammar and vocabulary of ancient Chinese, making it different from any modern spoken form of Chinese...
. Standard written Chinese is based on Mandarin, but when spoken word for word as Cantonese, it sounds unnatural because its expressions are ungrammatical and unidiomatic in Cantonese. As a result, modern Cantonese speakers have developed their own written script, sometimes creating new characters
Chinese character
Chinese characters are logograms used in the writing of Chinese and Japanese , less frequently Korean , formerly Vietnamese , or other languages...
for words that either do not exist or have been lost in standard Chinese.
A good source for well documented written Cantonese words can be found in the scripts for Cantonese opera
Cantonese opera
Cantonese opera is one of the major categories in Chinese opera, originating in southern China's Cantonese culture. It is popular in Guangdong, Guangxi, Hong Kong, Macau, Singapore and Malaysia. Like all versions of Chinese opera, it is a traditional Chinese art form, involving music, singing,...
. Readings in Cantonese colloquial: being selections from books in the Cantonese vernacular with free and literal translations of the Chinese character and romanized spelling (1894) by James Dyer Ball has a bibliography of printed works available in Cantonese characters in the last decade of the nineteenth century. A few libraries have collections of so-called "wooden fish books" written in Cantonese characters. Facsimiles and plot precis of a few of these have been published in Wolfram Eberhard's Cantonese Ballads. See also Cantonese love-songs, translated with introduction and notes by Cecil Clementi (1904) or a newer translation of these by Yue Ou in Cantonese love songs : an English translation of Jiu Ji-yung's Cantonese songs of the early 19th century (1992). Cantonese character versions of the Bible, Pilgrims Progress, and Peep of Day, as well as simple catechisms, were published by mission presses. The special Cantonese characters used in all of these were not standardized and show wide variation.
With the advent of the computer and standardization of character sets specifically for Cantonese, many printed materials in predominantly Cantonese speaking areas of the world are written to cater to their population with these written Cantonese characters. As a result, mainstream media such as newspapers and magazines have become progressively less conservative and more colloquial in their dissemination of ideas. Generally speaking, some of the older generation of Cantonese speakers regard this trend as a step backwards and away from tradition. This tension between the traditional and colloquial is a reflection of a transition that is taking place in the Cantonese-speaking population.
History
Before the 20th century, the standard written language of ChinaChina
Chinese civilization may refer to:* China for more general discussion of the country.* Chinese culture* Greater China, the transnational community of ethnic Chinese.* History of China* Sinosphere, the area historically affected by Chinese culture...
was Classical Chinese
Classical Chinese
Classical Chinese or Literary Chinese is a traditional style of written Chinese based on the grammar and vocabulary of ancient Chinese, making it different from any modern spoken form of Chinese...
, which has grammar and vocabulary based on the Chinese used in ancient China, 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....
. However, while this written standard remained essentially static for over two thousand years, the actual spoken language diverged further and further away. Some writings based on local vernacular
Vernacular
A vernacular is the native language or native dialect of a specific population, as opposed to a language of wider communication that is not native to the population, such as a national language or lingua franca.- Etymology :The term is not a recent one...
speech did exist but these were rare. In the early 20th century, Chinese reformers like Hu Shi saw the need for language reform and championed the development of a vernacular that allowed modern Chinese to write the language the same way they speak. The vernacular language movement took hold, and the written language was standardized as Vernacular Chinese
Vernacular Chinese
Written Vernacular Chinese refers to forms of written Chinese based on the vernacular language, in contrast to Classical Chinese, the written standard used from the Spring and Autumn Period to the early twentieth century...
. Because they had the largest number of speakers, Mandarin
Standard Chinese
Standard 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....
was chosen as the basis for the new standard.
The standardization and adoption of written Mandarin pre-empted the development and standardization of vernaculars based on other varieties of Chinese. No matter which dialect one spoke, one still wrote in standardized Mandarin for everyday writing. However, Cantonese is unique among the non-Mandarin varieties in having a widely used written form. Cantonese-speaking Hong Kong
Hong Kong
Hong Kong is one of two Special Administrative Regions of the People's Republic of China , the other being Macau. A city-state situated on China's south coast and enclosed by the Pearl River Delta and South China Sea, it is renowned for its expansive skyline and deep natural harbour...
was a British
United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...
colony isolated from mainland China
China
Chinese civilization may refer to:* China for more general discussion of the country.* Chinese culture* Greater China, the transnational community of ethnic Chinese.* History of China* Sinosphere, the area historically affected by Chinese culture...
so most HK citizens do not speak Mandarin. Written Cantonese was developed as a means of informal communication. Still, Cantonese speakers have to use standard written Chinese, or even literary Chinese, in most formal written communications, since written Cantonese may be unintelligible to speakers of other varieties of Chinese.
Historically, written Cantonese has been used in Hong Kong for legal proceedings in order to write down the exact spoken testimony of a witness, instead of paraphrasing spoken Cantonese into standard written Chinese. However, its popularity and usage has been rising in the last two decades, the late Wong Jim
Wong Jim
James Wong Jim was a Cantopop lyricist and writer based primarily in Hong Kong. He was also a well known in Asia as a columnist, actor, film director, screenwriter and talk show hosts. He took part in creative directing positions within the entertainment industry in Hong Kong...
being one of the pioneers of its use as an effective written language. Written Cantonese has become quite popular in certain tabloids, online chat room
Chat room
The term chat room, or chatroom, is primarily used by mass media to describe any form of synchronous conferencing, occasionally even asynchronous conferencing...
s, instant messaging
Instant messaging
Instant Messaging is a form of real-time direct text-based chatting communication in push mode between two or more people using personal computers or other devices, along with shared clients. The user's text is conveyed over a network, such as the Internet...
, and even social networking websites. Although most foreign movies and TV shows are subtitled in Standard Chinese, some, such as The Simpsons
The Simpsons
The Simpsons is an American animated sitcom created by Matt Groening for the Fox Broadcasting Company. The series is a satirical parody of a middle class American lifestyle epitomized by its family of the same name, which consists of Homer, Marge, Bart, Lisa and Maggie...
, are subtitled using written Cantonese. Some tabloids like Apple Daily
Apple Daily
Apple Daily is a Hong-Kong-based tabloid-style newspaper founded in 1995 by Jimmy Lai Chee Ying and is published by its company, Next Media. A sister publication carrying the same name is published in Taiwan, Republic of China under a joint venture between Next Media and other Taiwanese companies...
are written largely in Cantonese, other newspapers (e.g. Hong Kong Economic Journal
Hong Kong Economic Journal
The Hong Kong Economic Journal is a Chinese language daily newspaper published in Hong Kong by the Shun Po Co., Ltd. Available in both Hong Kong and Macau, the newspaper mainly focuses on economic news and other related issues...
) may have editorials or columns that contain Cantonese discourses, and Cantonese characters are increasing in popularity on advertisements and billboards.
It has been stated that Written Cantonese remains limited outside Hong Kong, including other Cantonese-speaking areas in Guangdong, China; e.g. (Snow, 2004). However, colloquial Cantonese advertisements are sometimes seen on the mainland, suggesting that written Cantonese is widely understood and is regarded favourably, at least in some contexts.
Some sources will use only colloquial Cantonese forms, resulting in text similar to natural speech. However, it is more common to use a mixture of colloquial forms and Standard Chinese forms, some of which are alien to natural speech. Thus the resulting "hybrid" text lies on a continuum between two norms: Standard Chinese, and colloquial Cantonese as spoken.
Cantonese characters
Written Cantonese contains many characters not used in standard written Chinese in order to transcribe words not present in the standard lexicon. Despite attempts by the government of Hong Kong in the 1990s to standardize this character set, culminating in the release of the Hong Kong Supplementary Character SetHKSCS
The Hong Kong Supplementary Character Set is a set of Chinese characters -- 4,702 in total in the initial release—used in Cantonese, as well as when writing the names of some places in Hong Kong . It evolved from the preceding Government Chinese Character Set or GCCS...
for use in electronic communication, there is still significant disagreement about which characters are "correct" in written Cantonese.
Synonyms
Some characters used to represent words in Cantonese are synonymSynonym
Synonyms are different words with almost identical or similar meanings. Words that are synonyms are said to be synonymous, and the state of being a synonym is called synonymy. The word comes from Ancient Greek syn and onoma . The words car and automobile are synonyms...
s of words used in standard written Chinese. For example, the character for "not" is the synonym of , the third-person
Grammatical person
Grammatical person, in linguistics, is deictic reference to a participant in an event; such as the speaker, the addressee, or others. Grammatical person typically defines a language's set of personal pronouns...
pronoun
Pronoun
In linguistics and grammar, a pronoun is a pro-form that substitutes for a noun , such as, in English, the words it and he...
( "he/she") is a synonym of , the plural pronoun marker is the synonym of and the possessive particle
Grammatical particle
In grammar, a particle is a function word that does not belong to any of the inflected grammatical word classes . It is a catch-all term for a heterogeneous set of words and terms that lack a precise lexical definition...
is a synonym of . For example:
| Language | Characters | Romanization | Transliteration | Literal meaning |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Cantonese Cantonese Cantonese is a dialect spoken primarily in south China.Cantonese may also refer to:* Yue Chinese, the Chinese language that includes Cantonese* Cantonese cuisine, the cuisine of Guangdong province... |
Yale | haih m̀h haih keúih deih ge? | Be, not be theirs (s/he )? | |
| Mandarin Standard Chinese Standard 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.... |
Pinyin Pinyin Pinyin is the official system to transcribe Chinese characters into the Roman alphabet in China, Malaysia, Singapore and Taiwan. It is also often used to teach Mandarin Chinese and spell Chinese names in foreign publications and used as an input method to enter Chinese characters into... |
Shì bú shì tāmen de? | Be, not be theirs (s/he )? |
Cognates
There are certain words that share a common root with words in standard written Chinese. However, because they have diverged in pronunciation, tone, and/or meaning, they are often written using a different character. One example is the doubletDoublet (linguistics)
In etymology, two or more words in the same language are called doublets or etymological twins when they have different phonological forms but the same etymological root. Often, but not always, the variants have entered the language through different routes...
lòih (standard) and lèih (Cantonese), meaning "to come." Both share the same meaning and usage, but because the colloquial pronunciation differs from the literary pronunciation, they are represented using two different characters. Some people argue that representing the colloquial pronunciation with a different (and often extremely complex) character is superfluous, and encourage using the same character for both forms since they are cognate
Cognate
In linguistics, cognates are words that have a common etymological origin. This learned term derives from the Latin cognatus . Cognates within the same language are called doublets. Strictly speaking, loanwords from another language are usually not meant by the term, e.g...
s (see Derived characters below).
Native words
Some Cantonese words have no equivalents in Mandarin-based standard modern Chinese (though equivalents may exist in classical or other varieties of Chinese). Cantonese writers have from time to time reinvented or borrowed a new character if they are not aware of the original one. For example, some suggest that the common word (leng), meaning pretty in Cantonese but also looking into the mirror in Chinese, is in fact the character .http://www.cantonese.org.cn/Articles/2006/200606/Articles_20060623184855.htmlToday those characters can mainly be found in ancient rime dictionaries
Rime dictionary
thumb|upright=1.0|A page from Shiyun Hebi , a rime dictionary of the [[Qing Dynasty]]A rime dictionary, rhyme dictionary, or rime book is an ancient type of Chinese dictionary used for writing poetry or other genres requiring rhymes. A rime dictionary focuses on pronunciation and collates...
such as Guangyun
Guangyun
The Guangyun is a Chinese rime dictionary that was compiled from 1007 to 1008 under the auspices of Emperor Zhenzong of Song. Chen Pengnian and Qiu Yong were the chief editors....
. Some scholars have made some "archaeological" efforts to find out what the "original characters" are. Often, however, these efforts are of little use to the modern Cantonese writer, since the characters so discovered are not available in the standard character sets
Chinese character encoding
In computing, Chinese character encodings can be used to represent text written in the CJK languages — Chinese, Japanese, Korean — and obsolete Vietnamese, all of which use Chinese characters...
provided to computer users, and many have fallen out of usage.
Loanwords
New characters have been created to represent new concepts or loanwords.Examples:
- Lift/Elevator
- (single character "") /líp/, composed of the radical ("car", symbolising a transportation vehicle) and the phonetic component /lɐ̀p/.
Particles
Cantonese particles may be added to the end of a sentence or suffixed to verbs to indicate aspect. There are many such particles; here are a few.- "mē" placed at end of sentence to indicate disbelief - "nē" placed at end of sentence to indicate question - "meih" placed at end of sentence to ask if action is done yet - (more correctly should be ) "háh" placed after a verb to indicate a little bit, i.e. "eat a little bit"; "há" used singly, to show uncertainty or unbelief - "gán" placed after a verb to indicate a progressive, i.e. "I am eating" - "jó" placed after verb to indicate a completed action, i.e. "I finished eating" - "maàih" placed after verb to indicate a future tense, i.e. "I will finish eating" - "wa" wow!
Cantonese words
In Chinese, distinction is made between single syllable charactersChinese character
Chinese characters are logograms used in the writing of Chinese and Japanese , less frequently Korean , formerly Vietnamese , or other languages...
, which may represent either a word
Word
In language, a word is the smallest free form that may be uttered in isolation with semantic or pragmatic content . This contrasts with a morpheme, which is the smallest unit of meaning but will not necessarily stand on its own...
, morpheme
Morpheme
In linguistics, a morpheme is the smallest semantically meaningful unit in a language. The field of study dedicated to morphemes is called morphology. A morpheme is not identical to a word, and the principal difference between the two is that a morpheme may or may not stand alone, whereas a word,...
, or particle
Grammatical particle
In grammar, a particle is a function word that does not belong to any of the inflected grammatical word classes . It is a catch-all term for a heterogeneous set of words and terms that lack a precise lexical definition...
, and multi-syllabic words. Characters are generally represented by a unique character, while a word may be composed of two or more characters, which may not be necessarily related in meaning. Thus, some Cantonese words may use existing characters to form words which do not exist or possess different meaning in Mandarin.
Also, some existing Chinese words are used differently in Cantonese than they are in Mandarin. For example, the word for "to eat" in Mandarin is 吃 (e.g. 吃飯 - to eat a meal). However, 吃 is never used in Cantonese. Instead, the word 食 is used in Cantonese to mean "to eat" (e.g. 食飯 - to eat a meal). 食 is also used in Mandarin, but not as a verb; instead, it is a noun mainly meaning "food". So when writing in Cantonese, it is necessary to use the appropriate Cantonese word. Some examples include:
- Mandarin: (v.VerbA verb, from the Latin verbum meaning word, is a word that in syntax conveys an action , or a state of being . In the usual description of English, the basic form, with or without the particle to, is the infinitive...
walk) - Cantonese: (as in Classical Chinese) - Mandarin: (v.VerbA verb, from the Latin verbum meaning word, is a word that in syntax conveys an action , or a state of being . In the usual description of English, the basic form, with or without the particle to, is the infinitive...
eat) - Cantonese: (as in Classical Chinese) - Mandarin: (v.VerbA verb, from the Latin verbum meaning word, is a word that in syntax conveys an action , or a state of being . In the usual description of English, the basic form, with or without the particle to, is the infinitive...
drink) - Cantonese: (as in Classical Chinese) (Mandarin has since adapted this from Hong Kong.) - Mandarin: (v.VerbA verb, from the Latin verbum meaning word, is a word that in syntax conveys an action , or a state of being . In the usual description of English, the basic form, with or without the particle to, is the infinitive...
look) - Cantonese: (as in its Classical Chinese counterpart, 睼) - Mandarin: (adv.AdverbAn adverb is a part of speech that modifies verbs or any part of speech other than a noun . Adverbs can modify verbs, adjectives , clauses, sentences, and other adverbs....
how) - Cantonese: - Mandarin: (v.VerbA verb, from the Latin verbum meaning word, is a word that in syntax conveys an action , or a state of being . In the usual description of English, the basic form, with or without the particle to, is the infinitive...
resemble, adv.AdverbAn adverb is a part of speech that modifies verbs or any part of speech other than a noun . Adverbs can modify verbs, adjectives , clauses, sentences, and other adverbs....
like) - Cantonese: - Mandarin: (adv.AdverbAn adverb is a part of speech that modifies verbs or any part of speech other than a noun . Adverbs can modify verbs, adjectives , clauses, sentences, and other adverbs....
still) - Cantonese: (zung6; as in Classical Chinese)
Loanwords
Some Cantonese loanwords are written in existing Chinese characters.| English word | Cantonese | Mandarin |
|---|---|---|
| bus | (ba1 si2) | |
| taxi | (dik7 si2) | / (but is increasingly recognized in Mandarin) |
| bye bye | (bai1 bai3) | (zàijiàn) (Also uses in speech) |
| chocolate | (zyu1 gu1 lik7) | (qiǎokèlì) |
| sandwich | (saam1 man4 zi6) | (sānmíngzhì) |
see http://www.arts.cuhk.edu.hk/~phorum/read.php?f=2&i=927&t=927 for a list of loan words in Cantonese.
Cantonese character formation
Cantonese characters, as with regular Chinese characters, are formed in one of several ways:Borrowings
Some characters already exist in standard Chinese, but are simply reborrowed into Cantonese with new meanings. Most of these tend to be archaic or rarely used characters. An example is the character 子, which means "child". The Cantonese word for child is represented by 仔(jai), which has the original meaning of "young animal".Marked phonetic loans
Many characters used in Cantonese writings are formed by putting a mouth radical on the left hand side of another more well known character, usually a standard Chinese character. This indicates that the new character sounds like the standard character, but is only used phonetically in the Cantonese context. (An exception is 咩, which does not sound like 羊 (sheep), but sounds like the sound that sheep make.) The characters which are commonly used in Cantonese writing include:- gaa (function wordFunction wordFunction words are words that have little lexical meaning or have ambiguous meaning, but instead serve to express grammatical relationships with other words within a sentence, or specify the attitude or mood of the speaker...
) háah/háa (function word) yaa/yaah (function word) ngāak (v.VerbA verb, from the Latin verbum meaning word, is a word that in syntax conveys an action , or a state of being . In the usual description of English, the basic form, with or without the particle to, is the infinitive...
cheat, hoax) Standard Chinese: gám (function word like this) Standard Chinese: e.g. gam (function word like this) Standard Chinese: e.g. jó (function word past tense) Standard Chinese: mē (function word) saai (function word complete e.g. moved all, finished moving) Standard Chinese: , deih (function word; to show pluralPluralIn linguistics, plurality or [a] plural is a concept of quantity representing a value of more-than-one. Typically applied to nouns, a plural word or marker is used to distinguish a value other than the default quantity of a noun, which is typically one...
from of pronounPronounIn linguistics and grammar, a pronoun is a pro-form that substitutes for a noun , such as, in English, the words it and he...
) Standard Chinese: nī/nēi (adv. this) Standard Chinese: m̀h (adv.AdverbAn adverb is a part of speech that modifies verbs or any part of speech other than a noun . Adverbs can modify verbs, adjectives , clauses, sentences, and other adverbs....
not, no, cannot; originally a function word) Standard Chinese: lāang (function word) ngāam (adv.AdverbAn adverb is a part of speech that modifies verbs or any part of speech other than a noun . Adverbs can modify verbs, adjectives , clauses, sentences, and other adverbs....
just, nearly) Standard Chinese: ; (adv.AdverbAn adverb is a part of speech that modifies verbs or any part of speech other than a noun . Adverbs can modify verbs, adjectives , clauses, sentences, and other adverbs....
correct, suitable) Standard Chinese: dī/dīt (genitive, similar to 's but pluralizing i.e. this one->these, ==hurry) Standard Chinese: , , yūk (v.VerbA verb, from the Latin verbum meaning word, is a word that in syntax conveys an action , or a state of being . In the usual description of English, the basic form, with or without the particle to, is the infinitive...
move) Standard Chinese: douh (adv.AdverbAn adverb is a part of speech that modifies verbs or any part of speech other than a noun . Adverbs can modify verbs, adjectives , clauses, sentences, and other adverbs....
there, here) Standard Chinese: hái (prep.) At, in, during (time), at, in (place) Standard Chinese: gó (adv. that) Standard Chinese: ge (genitive, similar to 's; sometimes function word) Standard Chinese: ,, māk (n. mark, trademark; transliterationTransliterationTransliteration is a subset of the science of hermeneutics. It is a form of translation, and is the practice of converting a text from one script into another...
of "mark") laak (function word) laa (function word) yéh (n. thing, stuff) Standard Chinese:, sāai (v.VerbA verb, from the Latin verbum meaning word, is a word that in syntax conveys an action , or a state of being . In the usual description of English, the basic form, with or without the particle to, is the infinitive...
waste) Standard Chinese: lèih/làih (v.VerbA verb, from the Latin verbum meaning word, is a word that in syntax conveys an action , or a state of being . In the usual description of English, the basic form, with or without the particle to, is the infinitive...
come, sometimes function word) Standard Chinese: háaih (function word) gauh (function word, piece of) lō/lo (function word) táu (v.VerbA verb, from the Latin verbum meaning word, is a word that in syntax conveys an action , or a state of being . In the usual description of English, the basic form, with or without the particle to, is the infinitive...
rest) haam (v.VerbA verb, from the Latin verbum meaning word, is a word that in syntax conveys an action , or a state of being . In the usual description of English, the basic form, with or without the particle to, is the infinitive...
cry) Standard Chinese: maih/máih (v.VerbA verb, from the Latin verbum meaning word, is a word that in syntax conveys an action , or a state of being . In the usual description of English, the basic form, with or without the particle to, is the infinitive...
not be, contraction of 唔係 m̀h haih, used following 係 in yes-no questions) Standard Chinese: , ; also other uses aá (final particle expressing consent and denial, liveliness and irritation, etc.) Mandarin:
There is evidence that the mouth radical in such characters can, over time, be replaced by a Signific, which indicates the meaning of the character. The new character is then a semantic compound. For instance, (lām, "bud"), written with the signific ("cover"), is instead written in older dictionaries as , with the mouth radical.
The development of new Cantonese characters is interesting linguistically, because they have never been subject to government standardization, in contrast to Standard Chinese, which has been regulated for over 2000 years. Therefore, a better understanding can be gained of the linguistics of how Chinese writing evolves, and how the script is modelled perceptually by the Chinese reader.
Derived characters
Other common characters are unique to Cantonese or are different from their Mandarin usage, including: etc. The characters which are commonly used in Cantonese writing include: móuh (v.Verb
A verb, from the Latin verbum meaning word, is a word that in syntax conveys an action , or a state of being . In the usual description of English, the basic form, with or without the particle to, is the infinitive...
not have). Originally . Standard: haih (v.
Verb
A verb, from the Latin verbum meaning word, is a word that in syntax conveys an action , or a state of being . In the usual description of English, the basic form, with or without the particle to, is the infinitive...
be). Standard: kéuih (pron.
Pronoun
In linguistics and grammar, a pronoun is a pro-form that substitutes for a noun , such as, in English, the words it and he...
he/she/it). Originally . Standard: māt (pron.
Pronoun
In linguistics and grammar, a pronoun is a pro-form that substitutes for a noun , such as, in English, the words it and he...
what) often followed by 嘢 to form 乜嘢. Standard: jái (n.
Noun
In linguistics, a noun is a member of a large, open lexical category whose members can occur as the main word in the subject of a clause, the object of a verb, or the object of a preposition .Lexical categories are defined in terms of how their members combine with other kinds of...
son, child, small thing). Originally . lóu (n.
Noun
In linguistics, a noun is a member of a large, open lexical category whose members can occur as the main word in the subject of a clause, the object of a verb, or the object of a preposition .Lexical categories are defined in terms of how their members combine with other kinds of...
guy, dude) béi (v.
Verb
A verb, from the Latin verbum meaning word, is a word that in syntax conveys an action , or a state of being . In the usual description of English, the basic form, with or without the particle to, is the infinitive...
give) Standard: leng (adj.
Noun
In linguistics, a noun is a member of a large, open lexical category whose members can occur as the main word in the subject of a clause, the object of a verb, or the object of a preposition .Lexical categories are defined in terms of how their members combine with other kinds of...
pretty, handsome). Originally 令. written vernacular Chinese: saai (adv.
Adverb
An adverb is a part of speech that modifies verbs or any part of speech other than a noun . Adverbs can modify verbs, adjectives , clauses, sentences, and other adverbs....
completely; v.
Verb
A verb, from the Latin verbum meaning word, is a word that in syntax conveys an action , or a state of being . In the usual description of English, the basic form, with or without the particle to, is the infinitive...
bask in sun) fan (v.
Verb
A verb, from the Latin verbum meaning word, is a word that in syntax conveys an action , or a state of being . In the usual description of English, the basic form, with or without the particle to, is the infinitive...
sleep). Originally . Standard: , ló (v.
Verb
A verb, from the Latin verbum meaning word, is a word that in syntax conveys an action , or a state of being . In the usual description of English, the basic form, with or without the particle to, is the infinitive...
take, get) Standard: leih (n.
Noun
In linguistics, a noun is a member of a large, open lexical category whose members can occur as the main word in the subject of a clause, the object of a verb, or the object of a preposition .Lexical categories are defined in terms of how their members combine with other kinds of...
tongue) Standard: guih (adj.
Adjective
In grammar, an adjective is a 'describing' word; the main syntactic role of which is to qualify a noun or noun phrase, giving more information about the object signified....
tired) Standard: dehng (n.
Noun
In linguistics, a noun is a member of a large, open lexical category whose members can occur as the main word in the subject of a clause, the object of a verb, or the object of a preposition .Lexical categories are defined in terms of how their members combine with other kinds of...
place) often followed by 方 to form 埞方. Standard:
The words represented by these characters are sometimes cognate
Cognate
In linguistics, cognates are words that have a common etymological origin. This learned term derives from the Latin cognatus . Cognates within the same language are called doublets. Strictly speaking, loanwords from another language are usually not meant by the term, e.g...
s with pre-existing Chinese words. However, their colloquial Cantonese pronunciations have diverged from formal Cantonese pronunciations. For example, ("without") is normally pronounced mòuh in literature. In spoken Cantonese, (móuh) has the same usage, meaning, and pronunciation as , except for tone. represents the spoken Cantonese form of the word "without", while represents the word used in Classical Chinese
Classical Chinese
Classical Chinese or Literary Chinese is a traditional style of written Chinese based on the grammar and vocabulary of ancient Chinese, making it different from any modern spoken form of Chinese...
and Mandarin. However, is still used in some instances in spoken Cantonese, such as ("no matter what happens"). Another example is the doublet
Doublet (linguistics)
In etymology, two or more words in the same language are called doublets or etymological twins when they have different phonological forms but the same etymological root. Often, but not always, the variants have entered the language through different routes...
, which means "come". (lòih) is used in literature; (lèih) is the spoken Cantonese form.
Use
As not all Cantonese words can be found in the current encoding system, or their encoding or input method may be obscure, some Cantonese writers use simple romanization (e.g. use D as 啲), symbols (add a Latin letter "o" in front of another Chinese character; e.g. 㗎 is defined in recent versions of Unicode, but will not display in many browsers due to lack of proper fonts or the browser's failure to use the correct fonts, hence the proxy o架 is often used), homophones (e.g. use 果 as 嗰), and Chinese characters with that have different meanings in Mandarin (e.g. 乜, 係, 俾; etc.) For example, "你喺嗰喥好喇, 千祈咪搞佢啲嘢。" is often written in easier form as "你o係果度好喇, 千祈咪搞佢D野。" (character-by-character, approximately 'you, being, there (two characters), good, (final particle), thousand, pray, don't, mess with, him, (genitive particle), things', translation 'You'd better stay there, and please don't mess with his/her stuff.')External links
- Chinese and English phrase book : with the Chinese pronunciation indicated in English by Benoni Lanctot(published in 1867)
- Vocabulary of the Canton Dialect: Chinese words and phrases by Robert Morrison (missionary), published in 1828)
- Written Cantonese Wiki A collection of written Cantonese articles from magazines and newspapers.
- S. L. Wong's A Chinese Syllabary Pronounced according to the Dialect of Canton, by the CUHK
- A Chinese Talking Syllabary of the Cantonese Dialect: An Electronic Repository, by the CUHK
- Modern Standard Mandarin and Cantonese conversion, by the CUHK
- Yueyu.net
- Learn Cantonese! Cantonese learning, including Cantonese characters
- Orthographic Change: Yue (Cantonese) Chinese Dialect