Hong Kong Cantonese - Pronunciation

Pronunciation

In modern-day Hong Kong, many native speakers are unable to distinguish between certain phoneme pairs, causing them to merge one sound into another. Although this is often considered substandard and is frequently denounced as "lazy sound" (懶音), the phenomenon is becoming more widespread and is influencing other Cantonese-speaking regions. Contrary to popular opinion, some of these changes are not recent. The loss of the velar nasal (/ŋ/) was documented by Williams (1856), and the substitution of the liquid nasal (/l/) for the nasal initial (/n/) was documented by Cowles (1914).

Other observed shifts:

• Merging of /n/ initial into /l/ initial.
• Merging of /ŋ/ initial into null initial.
• Merging of /kʷ/ and /kʷʰ/ initials into /k/ and /kʰ/ when followed by /ɔː/. Note that /ʷ/ is the only glide (介音) in Cantonese.
• Merging of /ŋ/ coda into /n/ coda, eliminating contrast between these pairs of finals (except after /ɪ/ and /ʊ/: /aːn/-/aːŋ/, /ɐn/-/ɐŋ/, and /ɔːn/-/ɔːŋ/.
• Merging of entering-tone (入聲) /k/ coda into /t/ coda analogously.
• Merging of the two syllabic nasals, /ŋ̩/ into /m̩/, eliminating the contrast of sounds between 吳 (surname Ng) and 唔 (not).
• Merging of some /tsʰ/ into /ts/.

Today in Hong Kong, people still make an effort to avoid these sound merges in serious broadcasts and in education. Older people often do not exhibit these shifts in their speech, but some do. With the sound changes, the name of Hong Kong's Hang Seng Bank (香港恆生銀行), /hœ́ːŋ kɔ̌ːŋ hɐ̏ŋ sɐ́ŋ ŋɐ̏n hɔ̏ːŋ/, becomes /hœ́ːn kɔ̌ːn hɐ̏n sɐ́n ɐ̏n hɔ̏ːn/, sounding like Hon' Kon' itchy body (痕身 /hɐ̏n sɐ́n/) 'un cold (UN寒 /ɐ̏n hɔ̏ːn/) . The name of the Cantonese language (廣東話, "Guangdong speech") itself would be /kʷɔ̌ːŋ tʊ́ŋ wǎː/ without the merger, whereas /kɔ̌ːŋ tʊ́ŋ wǎː/ (sounding like "講東話": "speak eastern speech") and /kɔ̌ːn tʊ́ŋ wǎː/ (sounding like "趕東話" : "chase away eastern speech") are overwhelmingly popular.

The shift affects the way some Hong Kong people speak other languages as well. This is especially evident in the pronunciation of certain English names: "Nicole" becomes leg ko, and "Leonardo" becomes lee on la doh. A very common example of the mixing of (/n/) and (/l/) is that of the word 你, meaning "you." Even though the standard pronunciation should be (/nei/), the word is often pronounced (/lei/), which is a surname,李, or the word 理, meaning theory. The merger of (/n/) and (/l/) also affects the choice of characters when the Cantonese media transliterate foreign names.

Prescriptivists who try to correct these "lazy sounds" often end up introducing hypercorrections. For instance, while attempting to ensure that people pronounce the initial /ŋ/, they may introduce it into words which have historically had a null-initial. One common example is that of the word 愛, meaning "love." Even though the standard pronunciation would be /ɔ̄ːi/, the word is often pronounced /ŋɔ̄ːi/.

In recent years, a number of Hong Kong secondary schools have tried to reverse this change by making the learning of Cantonese Pinyin part of the school Chinese curriculum.