Cantonese Bopomofo, or Cantonese Phonetic Symbols (traditional Chinese: 粵語注音符號; simplified Chinese: 粤语注音符号; Jyutping: Jyut⁶jyu⁵ zyu³jam¹ fu⁴hou⁶; Cantonese Yale: Yuht-yúh jyu-yām fùh-houh) is an extended set of Bopomofo characters used to transcribe Yue Chinese and, specifically, its prestige Cantonese dialect. It was first introduced in early 1930s, and then standardized in 1950. It fell into disuse along with the original Bopomofo for Mandarin Chinese in the late 1950s.

History

The first system of phonetic characters for Cantonese was introduced in "Phonetic vocabulary of Cantonese characters for instruction of literacy to the people", 1931, by Ziu Ngaating. His system became a basis for the modern one, accepted in 1950 by the Guangdong Culture and Education department. In 1932, however, a different system was published in a draft by the Commission on the Unification of Pronunciation with supplementary symbols for non-Mandarin Sinitic languages, including Cantonese.

Symbols

Bopomofo for Cantonese contains additional characters to denote its specific sounds.

Initial consonants					Semi-vowels	Vowels				Final consonants
ㄅ [p]	ㄉ [t]	ㄍ [k]	ㄐ [t͡s]	ㆼ [kʷ]	ㄧ [iː], [j-]	ㄚ [aː]	ㄞ [aːi]	ㄢ [aːn]	ㄇ [m̩]	ㄇ [-m]	ㄆ [-p̚]
ㄆ [pʰ]	ㄊ [tʰ]	ㄎ [kʰ]	ㄑ [t͡sʰ]	ㆽ [kʷʰ]	ㄨ [uː], [w-]	ㄛ [ɔː]	ㄟ [ɐi]	ㄣ [ɐn]	ㄫ [ŋ̩]	ㄋ [-n]	ㄊ [-t̚]
ㄇ [m]	ㄋ [n]	ㄫ [ŋ]			ㄩ [y], [jy-]	ㄝ [ɛː]	ㄠ [aːu]	ㄤ [aːŋ]		ㄫ [-ŋ]	ㄎ [-k̚]
ㄈ [f]	ㄌ [l]	ㄏ [h]	ㄒ [s]			ㆿ [ɐ]	ㄡ [ɐu]	ㄥ [ɐŋ]
						ㆾ [œː]

Combined rhymes

The original Bopomofo was based on a two vowel model of Mandarin phonology, it contains two sets of vowel signs, one for the /a/-nucleus and another one for the /ə/ nucleus. These characters were inherited, with /a/ set used to denote long /aː/ of Cantonese, and /ə/ set for short /ɐ/. For the rhymes not found in Mandarin, Cantonese Bopomofo implements digraphs composed of a vowel character and a final consonants character. The monographs are highlighted in bold in the following table .

Notes:

¹ Final ㆿ [ɐ] does not occur by itself.

² Finals ㄝㄨ [ɛːu], ㄝㄇ [ɛːm], ㄝㄆ [ɛːp̚], ㄝㄊ [ɛːt̚], ㄝㄋ [ɛːn] only occur in colloquial readings, they were not included in the initial draft.

References

• Ziu Ngaating (趙雅庭), "Phonetic dictionary of Cantonese characters for instruction of literacy to the people" 《民眾識字粵語拼音字彙》, Guangzhou, 1931
• Commission on the Unification of Pronunciation (國語統一籌備委員會), "General table of phonetic characters" 《注音符號總表》, Beiping, 1932
• Guangdong People's government, Culture and Education department (廣東省人民政府文敎廳), "Literacy course for Guangdong peasants" 《廣州音農民速成識字課本》, Guangzhou, 1952
• Guangdong People's government, Culture and Education department (廣東省人民政府文敎廳), "Literacy course for Guangdong workers" 《廣州音職工速成識字課本》, Guangzhou, 1952
• Chinese script reform research committee secretariat, transcription program working group (中國文字改革研究委員會秘書處拼音方案工作組), "Comparative list of the country's major dialect" 《全國主要方言區方音對照表》, Beijing, 1954
• Fung Tinlip (馮田獵), "Cantonese Homophone Characters Dictionary" 《粵語同音字典》, Hong Kong, 1974