| Pic: | Jyutpingexample.svg |
| Picsize: | 210px |
| Piccap: | Jyutping Romanization |
| P: | Yuèpīn |
| Bpmf: | ㄩㄝˋ ㄆㄧㄣ |
| Gr: | Yuehpin |
| Y: | Yuhtping |
| J: | jyut6 ping3 |
| Gd: | yüd6 ping3 |
| Showflag: | jy |
| L: | Yue (i.e. Cantonese) spelling |
| Tp: | Yuè-pin |
pronounced as /notice/
The Linguistic Society of Hong Kong Cantonese Romanization Scheme, also known as Jyutping, is a romanisation system for Cantonese developed in 1993 by the Linguistic Society of Hong Kong (LSHK).
The name Jyutping (itself the Jyutping romanisation of its Chinese name, 粵拼) is a contraction of the official name, and it consists of the first Chinese characters of the terms jyut6 jyu5 (meaning "Yue language") and ping3 jam1 ("phonetic alphabet", also pronounced as "pinyin" in Mandarin).
Despite being intended as a system to indicate pronunciation, it has also been employed in writing Cantonese as an alphabetic language—in effect, elevating Jyutping from its assistive status to a written language.
The Jyutping system[1] departs from all previous Cantonese romanisation systems (approximately 12, including Robert Morrison's pioneering work of 1828, and the widely used Standard Romanization, Yale and Sidney Lau systems) by introducing z and c initials and the use of eo and oe in finals, as well as replacing the initial y, used in all previous systems, with j.[2]
In 2018, it was updated to include the -a and -oet finals, to reflect syllables recognized as part of Cantonese phonology in 1997 by the Jyutping Work Group of the Linguistic Society of Hong Kong.
| b pronounced as //p// 巴 | p pronounced as //pʰ// 怕 | m pronounced as //m// 媽 | f pronounced as //f// 花 | ||
| d pronounced as //t// 打 | t pronounced as //tʰ// 他 | n pronounced as //n// 那 | l pronounced as //l// 啦 | ||
| g pronounced as //k// 家 | k pronounced as //kʰ// 卡 | ng pronounced as //ŋ// 牙 | h pronounced as //h// 蝦 | ||
| gw pronounced as //kʷ// 瓜 | kw pronounced as //kʷʰ// 誇 | w pronounced as //w// 蛙 | |||
| z pronounced as //ts// 渣 | c pronounced as //tsʰ// 叉 | s pronounced as //s// 沙 | j pronounced as //j// 也 |
| aa pronounced as //aː// 沙 | aai pronounced as //aːi̯// 徙 | aau pronounced as //aːu̯// 梢 | aam pronounced as //aːm// 三 | aan pronounced as //aːn// 山 | aang pronounced as //aːŋ// 坑 | aap pronounced as //aːp̚// 圾 | aat pronounced as //aːt̚// 剎 | aak pronounced as //aːk̚// 客 | |
| a pronounced as //ɐ// | ai pronounced as //ɐi̯// 西 | au pronounced as //ɐu̯// 收 | am pronounced as //ɐm// 心 | an pronounced as //ɐn// 新 | ang pronounced as //ɐŋ// 笙 | ap pronounced as //ɐp̚// 濕 | at pronounced as //ɐt̚// 失 | ak pronounced as //ɐk̚// 塞 | |
| e pronounced as //ɛː// 些 | ei pronounced as //ei̯// 四 | eu pronounced as //ɛːu̯// 掉 | em pronounced as //ɛːm// 舐 | eng pronounced as //ɛːŋ// 鄭 | ep pronounced as //ɛːp̚// 夾 | et pronounced as //ɛːt̚// 噼 | ek pronounced as //ɛːk̚// 石 | ||
| i pronounced as //iː// 詩 | iu pronounced as //iːu̯// 消 | im pronounced as //iːm// 閃 | in pronounced as //iːn// 先 | ing pronounced as //ɪŋ// 星 | ip pronounced as //iːp̚// 攝 | it pronounced as //iːt̚// 洩 | ik pronounced as //ɪk// 識 | ||
| o pronounced as //ɔː// 疏 | oi pronounced as //ɔːy̯// 開 | ou pronounced as //ou̯// 蘇 | on pronounced as //ɔːn// 看 | ong pronounced as //ɔːŋ// 康 | ot pronounced as //ɔːt̚// 喝 | ok pronounced as //ɔːk̚// 索 | |||
| u pronounced as //uː// 夫 | ui pronounced as //uːy̯// 灰 | un pronounced as //uːn// 寬 | ung pronounced as //ʊŋ// 鬆 | ut pronounced as //uːt̚// 闊 | uk pronounced as //ʊk// 叔 | ||||
| eoi pronounced as //ɵy̯// 需 | eon pronounced as //ɵn// 詢 | eot pronounced as //ɵt̚// 摔 | |||||||
| oe pronounced as //œː// 鋸 | oeng pronounced as //œːŋ// 商 | oet pronounced as //œːt̚// | oek pronounced as //œːk̚// 削 | ||||||
| yu pronounced as //yː// 書 | yun pronounced as //yːn// 孫 | yut pronounced as //yːt̚// 雪 | |||||||
| m pronounced as //m̩// 唔 | ng pronounced as //ŋ̩// 吳 |
There are nine tones in six distinct tone contours in Cantonese. However, as three of the nine are entering tones, which only appear in syllables ending with p, t, and k, they do not have separate tone numbers in Jyutping (though they do in Cantonese Pinyin; these are shown in parentheses in the table below). A mnemonic which some use to remember this is Chinese: t=「風水到時我哋必發達」|j=fung1 seoi2 dou3 si4 ngo5 dei6 bit1 faat3 daat6|labels=no or "Feng Shui [dictates that] we will be lucky."
| Tone name | (陰平) | (陰上) | (陰去) | (陽平) | (陽上) | (陽去) | (高陰入) | (低陰入) | (陽入) | |||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| (In English) | high level or high falling | mid rising | mid level | low falling | low rising | low level | entering high level | entering mid level | entering low level | |||||||||
| Tone number | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 1 (7) | 3 (8) | 6 (9) | |||||||||
| Contour[4] | pronounced as /˥/ 55 | pronounced as /˥˧/ 53 | pronounced as /˧˥/ 35 | pronounced as /˧/ 33 | pronounced as /˨˩/ 21 | pronounced as /˩/ 11 | pronounced as /˩˧/ 13 | pronounced as /˨/ 22 | pronounced as /˥/ 5 | pronounced as /˧/ 3 | pronounced as /˨/ 2 | |||||||
| Character example | 分 | 詩 | 粉 | 史 | 訓 | 試 | 焚 | 時 | 奮 | 市 | 份 | 是 | 忽 | 識 | 發 | 錫 | 佛 | 食 |
| fan1 | si1 | fan2 | si2 | fan3 | si3 | fan4 | si4 | fan5 | si5 | fan6 | si6 | fat1 | sik1 | faat3 | sek3 | fat6 | sik6 | |
Jyutping and the Yale Romanisation of Cantonese represent Cantonese pronunciations with the same letters in:
But they differ in the following:
Jyutping and Cantonese Pinyin represent Cantonese pronunciations with the same letters in:
But they have some differences:
| Traditional | Simplified | Romanization | |
|---|---|---|---|
| 廣州話 | 广州话 | gwong2 zau1 waa2 | |
| 粵語 | 粤语 | jyut6 jyu5 | |
| 你好 | 你好 | nei5 hou2 |
Sample transcription of one of the 300 Tang Poems:
| width=200 | {{linktext|春曉 | ceon1 hiu2 maang6 hou6 jin4 |
|---|---|---|
| 春眠不覺曉， | ceon1 min4 bat1 gok3 hiu2, | |
| 處處聞啼鳥。 | cyu3 cyu3 man4 tai4 niu5. | |
| 夜來風雨聲， | je6 loi4 fung1 jyu5 sing1, | |
| 花落知多少？ | faa1 lok6 zi1 do1 siu2? |
The Jyutping method refers to a family of input methods based on the Jyutping romanization system.
The Jyutping method allows a user to input Chinese characters by entering the Jyutping romanization of a Chinese character (with or without tone, depending on the system) and then presenting the user with a list of possible characters with that pronunciation.
As of macOS Ventura, Jyutping input with Traditional Chinese now comes standard on macOS under the name "Phonetic – Cantonese".