Meyer–Wempe
romanization
Romanization or romanisation, in linguistics, is the conversion of text from a different writing system to the Roman (Latin) script, or a system for doing so. Methods of romanization include transliteration, for representing written text, a ...
was the system used by two
Roman Catholic
Roman or Romans most often refers to:
*Rome, the capital city of Italy
* Ancient Rome, Roman civilization from 8th century BC to 5th century AD
* Roman people, the people of ancient Rome
*'' Epistle to the Romans'', shortened to ''Romans'', a let ...
missionaries in
Hong Kong
Hong Kong ( (US) or (UK); , ), officially the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region of the People's Republic of China (abbr. Hong Kong SAR or HKSAR), is a city and special administrative region of China on the eastern Pearl River Delta i ...
,
Bernard F. Meyer
Bernard Francis Meyer, M.M. (June 16, 1891 – May 8, 1975) was an American Catholic missionary. As a member of the Catholic Foreign Mission Society of America (Maryknoll), he was assigned to missions in China. He served as the Prefect Apostolic o ...
and
Theodore F. Wempe, for romanizing
Cantonese
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 ar ...
in their ''Student's Cantonese English Dictionary'' published in 1935.
Provenance
Although some attribute development of the system to them, there was nothing new in it
as their entire schema followed the system devised in the last decade of the 19th century known as
Standard Romanization (SR), which, in turn, was almost identical to John Chalmers' system of 1870. Chalmers' system was significant in that it was the first system to virtually do away with diacritics entirely, the sole survivor being his final ö, which is eu in the Standard Romanization while being in this one oeh.
Initials
The distinction between the
alveolar sibilants
Sibilants are fricative consonants of higher amplitude and pitch, made by directing a stream of air with the tongue towards the teeth. Examples of sibilants are the consonants at the beginning of the English words ''sip'', ''zip'', ''ship'', and ...
(, , and ) and
alveolo-palatal
In phonetics, alveolo-palatal (or alveopalatal) consonants, sometimes synonymous with pre-palatal consonants, are intermediate in articulation between the coronal and dorsal consonants, or which have simultaneous alveolar and palatal artic ...
sibilants (, , and ) has been lost in modern Cantonese, though the distinction still existed at the time this system was devised. See
Cantonese phonology for more information.
Finals
The finals ''m'' and ''ng'' can only be used as standalone
nasal syllables.
Tones
Diacritics are used to mark the six
tones of Cantonese.
The tone mark should be placed above the first letter of the final.
References
*
{{DEFAULTSORT:Meyer-Wempe
Cantonese romanisation