Standard Cantonese

Standard Cantonese is a variant of Cantonese, generally considered the prestige dialect. It is spoken natively in and around the cities of Guangzhou, Hong Kong, and Macau in southern China. Standard Cantonese is the official Chinese spoken language of Hong Kong and Macau, and a prestige dialect and lingua franca in Guangdong province and some neighbouring areas. It is also spoken by many overseas Chinese, especially those of Cantonese descent, in Singapore, Malaysia, Canada, United States, Australia, Europe, and elsewhere. Traditionally, Cantonese was the lingua franca of overseas Chinese communities in the Western world, although that situation has changed with the increasing importance of Mandarin in the Chinese-speaking world as well as immigration from other provinces.

Phonology

Like any dialect, the phonology of Standard Cantonese varies among speakers. Unlike Standard Mandarin, there is no official agency to regulate Standard Cantonese. Below is the phonology accepted by most scholars and educators, the one usually heard on TV or radio in serious broadcast like news reports. Common variations are also described.

Related Topics:
Phonology - Standard Mandarin

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It is interesting to note that there are about 630 different sounds formed by the combinations of initials and vowels (before tones are taken into account). Though some of them, such as e6/ei6(欸), bung6(埲), gwing1(扃) are not really used any more; and some such as gwik1/kwik1(隙) or gwaang2/gang2(梗) which has traditionally had two equally correct pronunciations are beginning to be pronounced with only one particular way uniformly by its speakers (and this usually happens because the "unused" pronunciation is almost unique to that word alone) thus making the "unused" sounds effectively disappear from the language; while some such as kwok3(擴), pui1(胚), jeoi1(錐), ge1(痂) have alternative (sometimes incorrect) pronunciations which have become mainstream (as kwon3, bui1, zeoi1 and ke2 respectively) again making some of the sounds disappear from the everyday use of the language; and yet others such as faak3(謋), fang4(揈), dap1(耷) have now become popularly (but erroneously) believed to be made-up/borrowed words to represent sounds in modern vernacular Cantonese when they have in fact been retaining that sounds before these vernacular usage became popular.

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On the other hand, there are new words in Cantonese circulating in Hong Kong which uses sounds which never appeared in Cantonese before, such as get1 (note: this is non standard usage as 'et' was never an accepted/valid final for sounds in Cantonese, though the final sound 'et' has appeared in vernacular Cantonese before this, pet6 - notably in describing the unit/"measure word"(量詞) of sticky substances such as mud, glue, chewing gum etc), the sound is borrowed from the English word "gag" to mean the act of amusing others by a (possibly practical) joke.

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Initials

Initials (or onsets) are initial consonants of possible syllables. The following is the inventory for Standard Cantonese as represented in IPA:

Related Topics:
Initials - Consonant - Syllable - IPA

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Notice the aspiration contrast and the lack of phonation contrast for stops. The sibilant affricates are grouped with the stops for compactness in displaying the chart.

Related Topics:
Aspiration - Phonation - Stops - Sibilant - Affricates

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Some linguists prefer to analyze {{IPA|/j/}} and {{IPA|/w/}} as part of finals to make them analogous to the {{IPA|/i/}} and {{IPA|/u/}} medials in Standard Mandarin, especially in comparative phonological studies. However, since final-heads only appear with null initial, {{IPA|/k/}} or {{IPA|/kʰ/}}, analyzing them as part of the initials greatly reduces the count of finals at the cost of only adding four initials. Some linguists analyze a {{IPA|/ʔ/}} (glottal stop) when a vowel other than {{IPA|/i/}}, {{IPA|/u/}} or {{IPA|/y/}} begin a syllable.

Related Topics:
Finals - Medial - Standard Mandarin - Null initial - Glottal stop - Vowel

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The position of the coronals varies from dental to alveolar, with {{IPA|/t/}} and {{IPA|/tʰ/}} more likely to be dental. The position of the sibilants {{IPA|/ts/}}, {{IPA|/tsʰ/}}, and {{IPA|/s/}} are usually alveolar ({{IPA|}}, {{IPA|}}, and {{IPA|}}), but can be postalveolar ({{IPA|}}, {{IPA|}}, and {{IPA|}}) or alveolo-palatal ({{IPA|}}, {{IPA|}}, and {{IPA|}}), especially before the {{IPA|/iː/}}, {{IPA|/ɪ/}}, or {{IPA|/yː/}} vowels.

Related Topics:
Coronals - Dental - Alveolar - Sibilants - Postalveolar - Alveolo-palatal

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Some native speakers cannot distinguish between {{IPA|/n/}} and {{IPA|/l/}}, and between {{IPA|/ŋ/}} and the null initial. Usually they pronounce only {{IPA|/l/}} and the null initial. See the discussion on phonological shift below.

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Finals

Finals (or rhymes) are the remaining part of the syllable after the initial is taken off. There are two kinds of finals in Cantonese, depending on vowel length. The following chart lists all possible finals in Standard Cantonese as represented in IPA:

Related Topics:
Finals - Vowel length - IPA

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Syllabic nasals: {{IPA|/m̩/}} {{IPA|/ŋ̩/}}

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Comments to be added later, including alternative interpretion of short vowels.

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Tones

Standard Cantonese has nine tones in six distinct tone contours.

Related Topics:
Tones - Tone contour

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For purposes of meters in Chinese poetry, the first and fourth tones are traditionally grouped in the "flat category" (平聲), while the rest are "oblique" (仄聲).

Related Topics:
Meters - Chinese poetry

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In Hong Kong, the first tone can be either high level or high falling without affecting the meaning of the words being spoken. Most Hong Kong speakers are in general not consciously aware of when they use and when to use high level and high falling. In Guangzhou the high falling tone is more usual.

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It is interesting to note that there are not actually more tone levels in Standard Cantonese than in Standard Mandarin (three if one excludes the Cantonese low falling tone, which begins on the third level and needs somewhere to fall), only Cantonese has a more complete set of tone courses.

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Standard Cantonese mostly preserves the tones in Middle Chinese in the manner shown in the chart below.

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V– = voiceless initial consonant, V+ = voiced initial consonant. The voice distinction was found in Middle Chinese and has been lost in Cantonese, preserved only by tone differences.

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Comments to be added later.

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Current Phonological Shift

Like other languages, Cantonese is constantly undergoing sound changes, processes where more and more native speakers of a language change the pronunciations of certain sounds. In Hong Kong, younger native speakers are unable to distinguish between certain phoneme pairs and merge one sound into another. Although that is often considered as substandard and is denounced as being "lazy sounds" (懶音), it is gaining popularity and is influencing other Cantonese-speaking regions. These are the observed shifts:

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• Merging of {{IPA|/n/}} initial into {{IPA|/l/}} initial
• Merging of {{IPA|/ŋ/}} initial into null initial
• Merging of {{IPA|/kw/}} and {{IPA|/kʰw/}} initial into {{IPA|/k/}} and {{IPA|/kʰ/}} when followed by {{IPA|/ɔː/}}
• Merging of {{IPA|/ŋ/}} ending into {{IPA|/n/}} ending, eliminating contrast between these pairs of finals: {{IPA|/ɑːn/}}-{{IPA|/ɑːŋ/}}, {{IPA|/ɐn/}}-{{IPA|/ɐŋ/}}, and {{IPA|/ɔːn/}}-{{IPA|/ɔːŋ/}}.
• Merging of {{IPA|/k/}} ending into {{IPA|/t/}} ending analogously.
• Merging of the two syllabic nasals, {{IPA|/ŋ̩/}} into {{IPA|/m̩/}}, eliminating contrast between 五 (five) and 唔 (not).
• Merging of some {{IPA|/tsʰ/}} into {{IPA|/j/}}, accepting jang3 as an alternative for cang3 (撐).

Today in Hong Kong, people still make an effort to avoid those merges in serious broadcasts and in education. Older people usually do not speak like that, but the majority of the younger generation does. Following the sound changes, the name of Hong Kong's Hang Seng Bank in Jyutping romanization, hoeng1 gong2 hang4 sang1 ngan4 hong4 (香港恆生銀行), becomes hoen1 gon2 han4 san1 an4 hon4, sounding like "Hon' Kon' itchy body (han4 san1 痕身) bank". The name of the Cantonese language itself should be gwong2 dung1 waa2 ("Guangdong speech"), despite the fact that gong2 dung1 waa2 (sounding like "speak eastern speech") and gon2 dung1 waa2 (sounding like "chase away eastern speech") are overwhelmingly popular.

Related Topics:
Hang Seng Bank - Jyutping - Romanization

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The shift even affects the way some Hong Kong people speak English. This is especially evident in the pronunciation of certain English names. "Nicole" becomes li col, and "Leonardo" becomes leo la do.

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Prescriptivists who try to correct these "lazy sounds" often end up introducing hypercorrections. For instance, in an attempt to ensure that people continue to pronounce the initial {{IPA|/ŋ/}}, words that historically should have a null initial end up being pronounced with {{IPA|/ŋ/}}. One of the most prominent examples is the word 愛, meaning "love." Even though the correct pronunciation should be oi3 ({{IPA|/ɔːi/}}), it ends up being pronounced ngoi3 ({{IPA|/ŋɔːi/}}).

Related Topics:
Prescriptivists - Hypercorrection

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