Re: [OT] Cantonese romanization

On Monday, May 13, 2002, at 06:00 AM, Marco Cimarosti wrote:

> I don't know myseklf what to ask for... I was trying to understand the
> kCantonese field in the Unicode's UniHan database, which seems to be
> written
> in a sort of compromise between Yale and Jyutping.
>

No, it's written in a slightly modified Yale. The only differences
between what we use and standard Yale are:

1) We do not differentiate between the high level and high falling tones
(which are not distinct in all varieties of Cantonese anyway, particularly
current Hong Kong Cantonese), and

2) We use numbers rather than an embedded 'h' and diacritics to indicate
the tone.

This is explained in the header to the Unihan.txt file.

> But all the Hong Kong people I knew were unfamiliar with seeing letters
> like
> B, D, G, etc. in Cantonese words. Is there also a Wade-Giles-like
> transcription in current use?
>
>

Meyer-Wempe. It's rather passe now except for Hong Kong place names,
which makes for an interesting time when you listen to Hong Kong news in
English.

==========
John H. Jenkins
jenkins@...
jenkins@...
http://homepage.mac.com/jenkins/