Jyutping - Comparison With Yale Romanization

Comparison With Yale Romanization

Jyutping and the Yale romanization system of Cantonese represent Cantonese pronunciations with the same letters in:

• The initials: b, p, m, f, d, t, n, l, g, k, ng, h, s, gw, kw, w.
• The vowel: aa (except when used alone), a, e, i, o, u, yu.
• The nasal stop: m, ng.
• The coda: i, u, m, n, ng, p, t, k.

But they differ in the following:

• The vowels eo and oe represent /ɵ/ and /œː/ respectively in Jyutping, while the eu represents both vowels in Yale.
• The initial j represents /j/ in Jyutping while y is used instead in Yale.
• The initial z represents /ts/ in Jyutping while j is used instead in Yale.
• The initial c represents /tsʰ/ in Jyutping while ch is used instead in Yale.
• In Jyutping, if no consonant precedes the vowel yu, then the initial j is appended before the vowel. In Yale, the corresponding initial y is never appended before yu under any circumstances.
• Jyutping defines three finals not in Yale: eu /ɛːu/, em /ɛːm/, and ep /ɛːp/. These three finals are used in colloquial Cantonese words, such as deu6 (掉), lem2 (舐), and gep6 (夾).
• To represent tones, only tone numbers are used in Jyutping while Yale traditionally uses tone marks together with the letter h (though tone numbers can be used in Yale as well).