Jyutping

Jyutping (Traditional Chinese: 粵拼; Simplified Chinese: 粤拼; pinyin: yuèpīn; Yale: yuhtpīng; Jyutping: jyut6ping3; sometimes spelled Jyutpin) is a romanization system for Standard Cantonese developed by the Linguistic Society of Hong Kong (LSHK) in 1993. Its formal name is The Linguistic Society of Hong Kong Cantonese Romanization Scheme. The LSHK promotes the use of this romanization system.

The name Jyutping is a shorthand consisting of the first characters of the terms yuèyǔ (粵語; Cantonese) and pīnyīn (拼音; romanization).

Initials

Finals

• The finals m and ng can only be used as standalone nasal syllables.

Tones

There are nine tones in six distinct tone contours in Cantonese.

Compare with Yale Romanization

Jyutping and the Yale romanization system 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 using alone), a, e, i, o, u,yu.
• The nasal consonant: m, ng.
• The coda: i, u, m, n, ng, p, t, k.

But they have difference with the following exceptions:

• The vowels eo and oe represent [ɵ] and [œː], respectively, in Jyutping while the eu represents both vowels in Yale.
• The initial j represents [j] in Jyutping while y is used instead in Yale.
• The initial z represents [ts] in Jyutping while j is used instead in Yale.
• The initial c represents [tsʰ] in Jyutping while 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 [ɛːu], em [ɛːm], and ep [ɛːp]. 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 while Yale originally uses tone marks together with the letter h (though tone numbers can be used in Yale as well).

Compare with Standard Cantonese Pinyin

Jyutping and the Standard 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 consonant: m, ng.
• The coda: i (except of being the coda [y] in Jyutping), u, m, n, ng, p, t, k.

But they have difference with the following exceptions:

• The vowels oe represent [ɵ] and [œː] in Standard Cantonese Pinyin while the eo and oe represent [ɵ] and [œː] respectively in Jyutping.
• The vowel y represent [y] in Standard Cantonese Pinyin while both yu (use in nucleus) and i (use in coda) is used in Jyutping.
• The initial dz represents [ts] in Standard Cantonese Pinyin while z is used instead in Jyutping.
• The initial ts represents [tsʰ] in Standard Cantonese Pinyin while c is used instead in Jyutping.
• To represent tones, number 1 to 9 are usually used in Standard Cantonese Pinyin, although use 1, 3, 6 to replace 7, 8, 9 is acceptable. However, only number 1 to 6 are used in Jyutping.

Examples

Try to write an old Chinese poem:

External links

• LSHK Cantonese Romanization Scheme
• Jyutping Pronunciation Guide
• 粵語拼盤: Learning the phonetic system of Cantonese
• Chinese Character Database (Phonologically Disambiguated According to the Cantonese Dialect)
• MDBG free online Chinese-English dictionary (supports both Jyutping and Yale romanization)