Quantcast
Channel: Chinese Cantonese Forums
Viewing all articles
Browse latest Browse all 26958

Re: Jyutzyu (粵註) as a domestic alternative to Jyutping in Hong Kong

$
0
0
Quote
Changgi
The difference in height MAY be OK when type-written, but when hand-written...
Then again you probably don't intend for it to be handwritten, although that's what people will be ending up doing.

The only conclusive way to know is through example. I could write it clearly by hand, scan it, and post it here, but there's no stopping other people from writing it ambiguously. As I've neither the time nor the resources to conduct a professional study with a sufficiently large pool of test subjects, we'll have to simply remain content with our difference of opinion on this matter.

Quote
Changgi
One of the [major] problems with your Jyutzyu is you are forcing vowel length distinction to a language that does not have it.
There has been a Romanization that indicates phonemes by vowel length called Penkyamp. Also, native speakers more naturally pronounce in and ing the right way, than an iing vs an eng/ing the right way.

As I have stated, there is no vowel length distinction, and take, English, for instance, vowels are long before voiced consonants.

If we say for the sake of argument that /a/ (long) is unrelated to /ɐ/ (short), the remaining pairs are indeed allophonic. This does not mean that there exists no technical distinctions between /ɛ/&/e/, /i/&/ɪ/, /ɔ/&/o/, /u/&/ʊ/, and /œ/&/ɵ/, however, it just means that they are lexically interchangeable. This difference exists in US English as well: 'bite/bide', 'light/lied', 'height/hide' 'right/ride', 'sight/side', and 'tight/tied' are all long/short pairs based on the voicing of the coda. If you removed the coda, only the long versions are possible: 'buy', 'lie', 'high', 'rye', 'sigh'. Even in this English example, however, length is not the only difference; the vowels themselves are a different, albeit allophonic, quality. In fact, pairs like 'bite/bide' sound nearly identical to the Cantonese /ɐi/&/ai/ pairs in (general) US English, and yet most people just assume that the vowels are the same.

Quote
Changgi
It seems like you're trying to "change Cantonese into a purer form by referencing Middle Chinese in your transcription".

The Middle Chinese influence is undeniable, but I think that in the case of the classical and modern written languages, this actually proves to be a benefit. Also, these tone marks can apply to any Chinese language, living or dead. It's true that a tone system based on traditional classification—rather than actual pitch level or contour—renders it more cumbersome in transcribing colloquial tones, but for entering Chinese characters into a computer or reading anything with context, I believe such a system to be sufficient. As far as I know, or even C Chiu for that matter, every single Chinese character in existence can be defined by one of the eight traditional tone classifications. Where my system falls short is recording speech exactly as it is spoken, in which case simple annotations may be used wherever confusion may arise.

Quote
Changgi
That is precisely the error. Alveolo-palatals do not exist in Hong Kong speech for the most part. The only sh-like sound they have opposed to is the English one, which they immediately substitute to words like Sha Tin.

My system is primarily based on Guangzhou speech, but it is still compatible with Hong Kong speech, and other dialects as well.

Quote
Changgi
Well I hope you do realize that the vowel in "him1" is actually short.

I didn't know that. Is it a long vowel in other tones?

Quote
Changgi
"For Mandarin Zhuyin, I agree, but for reasons I've highlighted above, CPS is far more consistent than its Mandarin cousin."

It is still highly inconsistent.

Then I suppose you consider Mandarin Zhuyin to be highly inconsistent as well? Even that is more consistent than Hanyu Pinyin. As far as I can tell, CPS proves to be rather consistent with its 1:1 symbol-phoneme correspondence (once the user grasps the predictable mechanics of entering tones, that is).

Quote
Changgi
Do bare in mind that people learn English. And people pronounce Cantonese Romanizations in an Anglicized manner.

This is precisely what I'm trying to fight against. I don't mind if anyone in the world wants to learn English, but it shouldn't bleed into the education of their native languages. I would also be appalled if the mainland forced Hong Kong to adopt 'Guangdong Romanisation', leading to the justification of 'people learn Mandarin and thus pronounce Cantonese Romanisation in a Mandarin manner'. Despite what the government may currently proclaim, English is and forever will be a foreign tongue on the soil of Hong Kong, and it will regrettably take a lot more time to shed its colonial residue. If Hong Kong really wants to embrace its native Cantonese, it makes no sense to embrace English while spitting at Mandarin; it just reeks of Stockholm Syndrome.

Quote
Changgi
all you have managed to do is classify phonemes from the phonetics perspective and it bares little resemblance to the actual living language at all.

My native language is one whose orthography is perhaps the most removed from the actual living language, English. That was an extreme example, but in the case of CPS, it is naturally equipped to handle any standard Cantonese sounds, and fails only in distinguishing tone 7 from tone 8 in a minority of cases, and in representing tone sandhi, including the mid-rising form of the entering tone (which only occurs in compounds from what C Chiu tells me).

Perhaps you would find my friend's Cantonese Zhuyin system more agreeable to you, as it completely ignores vowel length, represents stop-consonant codas as distinct symbols, explicitly distinguishes tones 7, 8, 3*2, and 6*2, and has less symbols overall than does my system: [dl.dropboxusercontent.com]

Viewing all articles
Browse latest Browse all 26958

Trending Articles