Help talk:IPA/Cantonese

Best equivalent for [ɵy]

I'm not sure what the best rough English approximation for [ɵy] is. Listening to this audio file, it sounds kind of like it might be close to the vowel of English buy but I'm curious what other English speakers hear. Fête suggested low in British English, but that doesn't seem right to me. Should we just keep it as no English equivalent? — Ƶ§œš¹ _{[ãːɱ ˈfɹ̠ˤʷɪ̃ə̃nlɪ]} 14:34, 15 December 2012 (UTC)

'No English equivalent' seems best to me. The best source I have, Sidney Lau, has 'No English equivalent' and a French example Deuil. Boy is much closer to hoi/海 so to list it again would be confusing. "buy" to me is the same as ai/仔.--JohnBlackburne^words_deeds 14:59, 15 December 2012 (UTC)

It sounds like the "eu" in the word neutre in Quebec French. Fête (talk) 15:06, 15 December 2012 (UTC)

That would be the same as deuil then, given French's very regular spelling (I assume Quebecois French is not that different). I just removed 'no' as that's definitely wrong; like 'low' it rhymes with 'hoe' in British English. The best example I can think of is not really an equivalent: it's like the English word hurry with the r removed (but not the word huy which if it exists at all would be pronounced like hoy in English).--JohnBlackburne^words_deeds 21:40, 15 December 2012 (UTC)

Mistakes?

As a native speaker of Cantonese, I have to confess that I absolutely cannot perceive the initial phoneme of 角 (Jyutping: gok) or the example given in the article of voiceless velar stop, 家 (Jyutping: gaa), as a /k/ rather than a /g/ as is chosen to represent the sound in Jyutping. Yet since expert sources seem to say otherwise, I am utterly baffled. If someone were to pronounce 家 as kaa, I would not understand it as 家 at all. The same goes for the "b" in 班 被 畀, etc. If someone were to pronounce 畀 as "pei" (with the "p" in "span" as given in the example) instead of "bei," I would absolutely not understand what he's saying. And if someone were to pronounce "bak ging" as "pak-king," I wouldn't know what to think except that he is really, really, really, incredibly, atrociously incorrect. /g/ and /k/ simply sound so distinct, I without a doubt cannot liken the initial phoneme of 角, 家, 高, etc. to "scan" or "kiss." It is impossible for me to think that the initial phonemes of 班 and 家 are not exactly the same as the initial phonemes of "bill" and "go." I have not done a very thorough search online, but this page may be in agreement with me, though it seems to add to the confusion by citing the English "b" in "bill" and the "g" in "gone" as the IPA /p/ and the IPA /k/. Sol Pacificus (talk) 14:47, 27 April 2014 (UTC)

I agree with you that it's misleading, it's the same with Mandarin. The point is that those "unaspirated" consonants do have a lower voicing onset time than French p, t, k, so they sound like b, d, g. --2.245.197.242 (talk) 18:51, 6 May 2015 (UTC)

@Sol Pacificus:, you seem to understand neither IPA nor English phonetics; you also seem to mistake Jyutping and IPA, which are not the same thing. First of all, what are your sources? Cantonese ⟨p, t, ts, k⟩ are distinguished from ⟨b, d, dz, g⟩ by aspiration, and they're both voiceless, so that the former set is correctly transcribed [pʰ, tʰ, tsʰ, kʰ] (not [p, t, ts, k], since aspiration is phonemic), whereas the latter set is correctly transcribed [p, t, ts, k]. This is confirmed by the site you linked to, which also uses that transcription. The recordings prove that it is correct.

English /p, t, k/ are aspirated at the beginning of a stressed syllable (correct narrow IPA transcription: [pʰ, tʰ, kʰ]), except when /s/ precedes within the same syllable (correct narrow IPA transcription: [p, t, k]). So no, scan and kiss do not have the same [k] sound, the first one is [k] (unaspirated), the second one is [kʰ] (aspirated). Mr KEBAB (talk) 17:52, 2 September 2016 (UTC)

Thank you for responding to my confusion, as I truly had not expected it to ever receive a response. First of all, I did not conflate Jyutping and IPA, but instead did not notice that the site was using Jyutping in regards to ⟨b, d, dz, g, g⟩from quickly perusing it. However, you misunderstood my question and did not address it. For example, you say this: "Cantonese ⟨p, t, ts, k⟩ are distinguished from ⟨b, d, dz, g⟩ by aspiration, and they're both voiceless, so that the former set is correctly transcribed [pʰ, tʰ, tsʰ, kʰ] (not [p, t, ts, k]." The confusion does not concern the distinction between the aspirated [pʰ, tʰ, kʰ] and the unaspirated [p, t, k] at all, nor was I arguing that ⟨p, t, ts, k⟩ in Jyutping correspond to [p, t, ts, k] and not [pʰ, tʰ, tsʰ, kʰ]. That was not in disagreement, but rather that the sounds marked as the unaspirated [p, t, k] correspond to [b, d, g] respectively. The reason is because using the examples provided in that link, according to IPA, 盃 bui1, 道 dou6, and 加 gaa1 are pronounced with /puːy/, /toʊ/, and /kaː/ respectively. As the English words pill (/pɪl/), toe (/toʊ/), and cat (/kæt/) also begin with the exact same phonemes according to the IPA, this implies that they are pronounced with the same initial phonemes (i.e. [p, t, k]) and even that 道 dou6 is pronounced exactly the same as toe (with respect to accent and tone of course). So let's assume then by the IPA that the [p, t, k] of 盃 /puːy/ (cup), 道 /toʊ/ (way), and 加 /kaː/ (add) is identical to the [p, t, k] of the English words pill (/pɪl/), toe (/toʊ/), and cat (/kæt/). The problem is that if you were to pronounce 盃 as /puːy/ and not /buːy/, 道 as /toʊ/ and not /doʊ/, and 加 as /kaː/ instead of /gaː/, you will NOT be understood . My confusion does not stem from Jyutping's usage at all. I am a native Cantonese speaker, and a fluent English speaker since the age of 3. I have also asked this of my relatives, of my other friends bilingual in both languages. Even if I, as a native speaker of both languages, is not a credible source, this doesn't change the fact that there remains the confusion that the IPA treats the initial phonemes of 盃 bui1, 道 dou6, and 加 gaa1 as identical to the initial phonemes of the English words pill, toe, and cat respectively, and that is simply incorrect because you won't be intelligible. My confusion isn't that I think there's no distinction between the aspirated [pʰ, tʰ, kʰ] and the unaspirated [p, t, k] but rather that the IPA seems to treat as though there's no distinction between the unaspirated [p, t, k] and the [b, d, g] in regards to Chinese languages (both Mandarin and Cantonese) when there obviously is considering that they are distinct in the IPA, and they're very much distinct in English. Why would they identify the initial phonemes of 盃 /puːy/, 道 /toʊ/, 加 /kaː/, and 高 [koʊ] as [p, t, k] when they do not sound like [p, t, k] as used in English but rather [b, d, g]? 高 [kou] (tall) sounds exactly like the English word go /ɡoʊ/, but if you were teaching someone basic Cantonese and told them to say "He is very tall" (佢好高) by pronouncing it [khɵy][hoʊ][koʊ] as in Marco, you will not be understood because /k/ and /g/ are very distinct, and 高 is properly pronounced [goʊ] as in the English word go. Sol Pacificus (talk) 10:32, 15 September 2016 (UTC)

As a side-note, for clarification when I said "I without a doubt cannot liken the initial phoneme of 角, 家, 高, etc. to "scan" or "kiss". I did not mean that scan and kiss have the same [k] sound, but that the initial phonemes of 角, 家, 高, and 加 correspond neither to the aspirated [pʰ] in scan nor the unaspirated [k] in kiss. Sol Pacificus (talk) 10:43, 15 September 2016 (UTC)

@Sol Pacificus: No problem, but I don't think you understood me. Please read phoneme, allophone and phonetic transcription. You're mixing up phonemic (between slashes //) and phonetic (between square brackets []) transcription, which I can tell by reading things like "Why would they identify the initial phonemes of (...) [p, t, k]" (should be /p, t, k/).

Pronouncing Cantonese /p, t, k/ as unaspirated voiceless plosives (which they are, according to reliable sources) wouldn't lead to lack of intelligibility, as they contrast with /pʰ, tʰ, kʰ/ by aspiration, not voicing (there are no phonemic */b, d, ɡ/ in Cantonese!). The same phenomenon can be observed in Danish, Faroese and Icelandic. Your confusion must be coming from not fully understanding the IPA and the difference between phonemes and allophones, as well as phonemic transcription and phonetic transcription. English /p, t, k/ are not unaspirated when they begin a stressed syllable (unless /s/ precedes), they are aspirated [pʰ, tʰ, kʰ] like Cantonese /pʰ, tʰ, kʰ/. However, we write English plosives as /p, b, t, d, k, ɡ/ because aspiration is not phonemic in English (and in many dialects occurs only in stressed syllables), and because English /b, d, ɡ/ are only sometimes realized as voiceless (or weakly voiced).

For sources, see e.g. Zee, Eric (1991), "Chinese (Hong Kong Cantonese)", published in the Journal of the International Phonetic Association (one of the most important linguistic journals in the world). We're not making this stuff up, you know.

Pinging @Officer781: if he has any further comments. Mr KEBAB (talk) 17:45, 15 September 2016 (UTC)

I understand a bit more now about the confusion between phonetic and phonemic transcription that you referred to. So to confirm, are the English words pill, toe, and cat narrowly transcribed with initial [pʰ, tʰ, kʰ] then? I see now that I had thought that it would not be intelligible because what I was really thinking was that 高 gou1 would be pronounced with what is actually initial [kʰ]. But if what you are saying is correct, then it is difficult for me to see how one distinguishes [k] and [g] then. My confusion stems only from the fact that I have been fluent in both Cantonese and English for all my life, the former being my first language, the latter I learned at the age of 3. My accents in both languages are that of native speakers (I have actually asked friends, relatives, and teachers, and especially strangers & for both languages I am always told that my accent in both is natural). But, I have always equated the Jyutping ⟨g⟩ with the English /g/ from the earliest age, even without knowing Jyutping. 高 gou1 in my mind is pronounced exactly the same as the English go and 被 the same as bay. In terms of accent, I have always found that the distinction to be in the vowels, not the consonants. Is the English go properly transcribed narrowly with initial [k] then? Sol Pacificus (talk) 23:58, 15 September 2016 (UTC)

Being from Singapore and having listened to Malay and being somewhat fluent in Hokkien, the distinction should be quite apparent. Malay pronounces its voiceless stops without aspiration which gives it a certain tone. They sound exactly the same to cantonese "voiced" stops. This is also how they are transcribed in Chinese dialects (nearly all of them have the voiceless unaspirated series. My dialect, Hokkien, even contrasts three stops: voiced, voiceless unaspirated and voiceless aspirated). So for both Mandarin and Cantonese (which are rather boring really as they don't have voiced stops to contrast with), the voiceless unaspirated stop transcription is correct.--Officer781 (talk) 03:13, 16 September 2016 (UTC)