The Hong Kong Government uses an unpublished system of Romanisation of Cantonese for public purposes which is based on the 1888 standard described by Roy T Cowles in 1914 as
Standard Romanisation.
The primary need for Romanisation of Cantonese by the Hong Kong Government is in the assigning of names to new streets and places. It has not formally or publicly disclosed its method for determining the appropriate Romanisation in any given instance.
Method
Currently, government departments, particularly the Survey and Mapping Office of the
Lands Department
The Lands Department is a government department under the Development Bureau responsible for all land matters in Hong Kong
Hong Kong ( (US) or (UK); , ), officially the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region of the People's Republic ...
, consult the Chinese Language Department of the
Civil Service Bureau
The Civil Service Bureau (CSB) is one of the 15 policy bureaux under the Government Secretariat of the Government of Hong Kong and is responsible for the formulation and implementation of policies on the management of the Hong Kong Civil Servi ...
before gazetting names and the latter vet proposed names using the ''Three Way Chinese Commercial/Telegraphic Code Book'', originally published by the
Royal Hong Kong Police Force
The Hong Kong Police Force (HKPF) is the primary law enforcement, investigative agency, and largest disciplined service under the Security Bureau of Hong Kong. The Royal Hong Kong Police Force (RHKPF) reverted to its former name after the t ...
Special Branch for internal government use in 1971. The code book system is devoid of any tone indications and, being grossly simplified, is susceptible to confusion.
Although the code book has only been available for several decades, the Romanisation approach for place names in Hong Kong has been broadly consistent since before 1888. This can be seen in maps of the period
and in the government's publication ''A Gazetteer of Place Names in Hong Kong, Kowloon and the New Territories'' of 1960.
Typical features
For place names, the type of the place in English is often used instead of a romanisation (e.g., "Street" and "Road" in place of "Kai" and "Lo"). Nevertheless, exceptions are not uncommon (for example, "Fong" in "Lan Kwai Fong", meaning "Square" if translated). "Wan" for "Bay" and "Tsuen" (or "Chuen") for "Estate" (or "Village") are also common. There are also many instances of surviving pre-1888 Romanisation, such as "Kowloon" and "Un Chau Street", which would be "Kau Lung" and "Yuen Chau" under this system, respectively.
Romanisation of names is mandatory in government identification documents such as identity cards issued by the Registration of Persons Office. This standard is used by the office by default though individuals are at liberty to choose their own spelling or another romanisation system.
Spelling
All tones are omitted as are distinctions between
aspirated and unaspirated stops. The distinctions between the long vowel and the short vowel are omitted like Fat (, ; meaning "to issue") and Fat (, ; meaning "
Buddha
Siddhartha Gautama, most commonly referred to as the Buddha, was a wandering ascetic and religious teacher who lived in South Asia during the 6th or 5th century BCE and founded Buddhism.
According to Buddhist tradition, he was born in L ...
").
Some of the inconsistencies are due to a distinction that has been lost historically (a distinction between palatal and alveolar sounds, viz. ''ch'' versus ''ts'', ''sh'' versus ''s'', and ''j'' versus ''z''). These consonants are
no longer distinguished in present-day speech.
The following table of geographical names illustrates the standard.
Consonants
Initials
Finals
Vowels, diphthongs, and syllabic consonants
* The
standard Standard may refer to:
Symbols
* Colours, standards and guidons, kinds of military signs
* Standard (emblem), a type of a large symbol or emblem used for identification
Norms, conventions or requirements
* Standard (metrology), an object th ...
pronunciation of 五 is . However, a more common pronunciation in Hong Kong is and many words are merging with it. The only word that was originally pronounced as m̩ is "唔" (not) and it is not used in place names.
See also
*
List of common Chinese surnames
These are lists of the most common Chinese surnames in China (People's Republic of China), Taiwan (Republic of China), and the Chinese diaspora overseas as provided by authoritative government or academic sources. Chinese names also form the bas ...
shows how they are romanised in this scheme.
References
{{reflist
External links
粵語拼盤 Learning the Phonetic System of Cantonese
Linguistic Society of Hong Kong (LSHK)
Cantonese Romanisation
Cantonese ( zh, t=廣東話, s=广东话, first=t, cy=Gwóngdūng wá) is a language within the Chinese (Sinitic) branch of the Sino-Tibetan languages originating from the city of Guangzhou (historically known as Canton) and its surrounding are ...
Cantonese romanisation