Jyutping

Jyutping (粵拼, Jyut6ping3, jỳːt̚.pʰēŋ) is a romanisation system for Cantonese developed by the Linguistic Society of Hong Kong (LSHK), an academic group, in 1993. Its formal name is The Linguistic Society of Hong Kong Cantonese Romanisation Scheme. The LSHK promotes the use of this romanisation system.

The name Jyutping (itself the Jyutping romanisation of its Chinese name, 粵拼) is a contraction consisting of the first Chinese characters of the terms Jyut6jyu5 (粵語, meaning "Cantonese speech") and ping3jam1 (拼音 "phonetic alphabet"). Template:RCL

History

The Jyutping system marks a departure from all previous Cantonese romanisation systems (approximately, 12 including Robert Morrison's pioneering work of 1828, and the widely used Standard Romanization, Yale and Sidney Lau systems) by introducing z and c initials and the use of eo and oe in finals, as well as replacing the initial y, used in all previous systems, with j.

Initials

b Template:IPA 巴	p Template:IPA 怕	m Template:IPA 媽	f Template:IPA 花
d Template:IPA 打	t Template:IPA 他	n Template:IPA 那		l Template:IPA 啦
g Template:IPA 家	k Template:IPA 卡	ng Template:IPA 牙	h Template:IPA 蝦
gw Template:IPA 瓜	kw Template:IPA 誇			w Template:IPA 蛙
z Template:IPA 渣	c Template:IPA 叉		s Template:IPA 沙	j Template:IPA 也

Finals

aa Template:IPA 沙	aai Template:IPA 徙	aau Template:IPA 梢	aam Template:IPA 三	aan Template:IPA 山	aang Template:IPA 坑	aap Template:IPA 圾	aat Template:IPA 剎	aak Template:IPA 客
	ai Template:IPA 西	au Template:IPA 收	am Template:IPA 心	an Template:IPA 新	ang Template:IPA 笙	ap Template:IPA 濕	at Template:IPA 失	ak Template:IPA 塞
e Template:IPA 些	ei Template:IPA 四	eu Template:IPA 掉Template:Ref	em Template:IPA 舐Template:Ref		eng Template:IPA 鄭	ep Template:IPA 夾Template:Ref		ek Template:IPA 石
i Template:IPA 詩		iu Template:IPA 消	im Template:IPA 閃	in Template:IPA 先	ing Template:IPA 星	ip Template:IPA 攝	it Template:IPA 洩	ik Template:IPA 識
o Template:IPA 疏	oi Template:IPA 開	ou Template:IPA 蘇		on Template:IPA 看	ong Template:IPA 康		ot Template:IPA 喝	ok Template:IPA 索
u Template:IPA 夫	ui Template:IPA 灰			un Template:IPA 寬	ung Template:IPA 鬆		ut Template:IPA 闊	uk Template:IPA 叔
oe Template:IPA 鋸	eoi Template:IPA 需			eon Template:IPA 詢	oeng Template:IPA 商		eot Template:IPA 摔	oek Template:IPA 削
yu Template:IPA 書				yun Template:IPA 孫			yut Template:IPA 雪
			m Template:IPA 唔		ng Template:IPA 吳

• Only the finals m and ng can be used as standalone nasal syllables.
• Template:NoteTemplate:NoteTemplate:Note Referring to the colloquial pronunciation of these words.

Tones

There are nine tones in six distinct tone contours in Cantonese. However, as three of the nine are entering tones (入聲, Jyutping: jap6sing1), which only appear in syllables ending with p, t, and k, they do not have separate tone numbers in Jyutping (though they do in Cantonese Pinyin; these are shown in parentheses in the table below).

Tone name	jam1ping4 (陰平)	jam1soeng5 (陰上)	jam1heoi3 (陰去)	joeng4ping4 (陽平)	joeng4soeng5 (陽上)	joeng4heoi3 (陽去)	gou1jam1jap6 (高陰入)	dai1jam1jap6 (低陰入)	joeng4jap6 (陽入)
Tone Number	1	2	3	4	5	6	1 (7)	3 (8)	6 (9)
The tone name in English	high level or high falling	mid rising	mid level	low falling	low rising	low level	entering high level	entering mid level	entering low level
Contour	Template:IPA 55 / Template:IPA 53	Template:IPA 35	Template:IPA 33	Template:IPA 21 / Template:IPA 11	Template:IPA 13	Template:IPA 22	Template:IPA 5	Template:IPA 3	Template:IPA 2
Character Example	分／詩	粉／史	訓／試	焚／時	奮／市	份／是	忽／識	發／錫	佛／食
Example	fan1／si1	fan2／si2	fan3／si3	fan4／si4	fan5／si5	fan6／si6	fat1／sik1	faat3／sek3	fat6／sik6

Comparison with Yale romanisation

Jyutping and the Yale Romanisation of Cantonese represent Cantonese pronunciations with the same letters in:

• The initials: b, p, m, f, d, t, n, l, g, k, ng, h, s, gw, kw, w.
• The vowel: aa (except when used alone), a, e, i, o, u, yu.
• The nasal stop: m, ng.
• The coda: i, u, m, n, ng, p, t, k.

But they differ in the following:

• The vowels eo and oe represent Template:IPA and Template:IPA respectively in Jyutping, whereas the eu represents both vowels in Yale.
• The initial j represents Template:IPA in Jyutping whereas y is used instead in Yale.
• The initial z represents Template:IPA in Jyutping whereas j is used instead in Yale.
• The initial c represents Template:IPA in Jyutping whereas ch is used instead in Yale.
• In Jyutping, if no consonant precedes the vowel yu, then the initial j is appended before the vowel. In Yale, the corresponding initial y is never appended before yu under any circumstances.
• Jyutping defines three finals not in Yale: eu Template:IPA, em Template:IPA, and ep Template:IPA. These three finals are used in colloquial Cantonese words, such as deu6 (掉), lem2 (舐), and gep6 (夾).
• To represent tones, only tone numbers are used in Jyutping whereas Yale traditionally uses tone marks together with the letter h (though tone numbers can be used in Yale as well).

Comparison with Cantonese pinyin

Jyutping and Cantonese Pinyin represent Cantonese pronunciations with the same letters in:

• The initials: b, p, m, f, d, t, n, l, g, k, ng, h, s, gw, kw, j, w.
• The vowel: aa, a, e, i, o, u.
• The nasal stop: m, ng.
• The coda: i (except for its use in the coda Template:IPA in Jyutping; see below), u, m, n, ng, p, t, k.

But they have some differences:

• The vowel oe represents both Template:IPA and Template:IPA in Cantonese Pinyin whereas eo and oe represent Template:IPA and Template:IPA respectively in Jyutping.
• The vowel y represents Template:IPA in Cantonese Pinyin whereas both yu (used in the nucleus) and i (used in the coda of the final -eoi) are used in Jyutping.
• The initial dz represents Template:IPA in Cantonese Pinyin whereas z is used instead in Jyutping.
• The initial ts represents Template:IPA in Cantonese Pinyin whereas c is used instead in Jyutping.
• To represent tones, the numbers 1 to 9 are usually used in Cantonese Pinyin, although the use of 1, 3, 6 to replace 7, 8, 9 for the checked tones is acceptable. However, only the numbers 1 to 6 are used in Jyutping.

Examples

Traditional	Simplified	Romanization
廣州話	广州话	Gwong2zau1waa2
粵語	粤语	Jyut6jyu5
你好	你好	nei5 hou2

Sample transcription of one of the 300 Tang Poems:

Template:Lang Template:Lang	Ceon1 hiu2 Maang6 Hou6jin4
Template:Lang	Ceon1 min4 bat1 gok3 hiu2,
Template:Lang	cyu3 cyu3 man4 tai4 niu5.
Template:Lang	Je6 loi4 fung1 jyu5 sing1,
Template:Lang	faa1 lok6 zi1 do1 siu2?

Jyutping input method

The Jyutping method (Template:Zh) refers to a family of input methods based on the Jyutping romanization system.

The Jyutping method allows a user to input Chinese characters by entering the jyutping of a Chinese character (with or without tone, depending on the system) and then presenting the user with a list of possible characters with that pronunciation.

List of Jyutping keyboard input utilities

• Online Jyutping Input Method (網上粵拼輸入法)
• MDBG
• Red Dragonfly
• LSHK Jyutping for Macintosh Mac OS X and OS 9 (The page also includes Yale input version 0.2)

See also

Template:Portal

• Cantonese phonology

External links

• Jyutping Pronunciation Guide
• 粵語拼盤: Learning the phonetic system of Cantonese
• Chinese Character Database (Phonologically Disambiguated According to the Cantonese Dialect)
• The CantoDict Project is a dedicated Cantonese-Mandarin-English online dictionary which uses Jyutping by default
• MDBG free online Chinese-English dictionary (supports both Jyutping and Yale romanization)