Teochew Romanization, also known as Swatow Church Romanization, or locally as ''Pe̍h-ūe-jī'' (), is an orthography similar to ''
Pe̍h-ōe-jī
( ; , , ; POJ), also known as Church Romanization, is an orthography used to write variants of Hokkien Southern Min, particularly Taiwanese Hokkien, Taiwanese and Amoy dialect, Amoy Hokkien, and it is widely employed as one of the writing syst ...
'' used to write the
Teochew language
Teochew, also known as Swatow or Teo-Swa, is a Southern Min language spoken by the Teochew people in the Chaoshan region of eastern Guangdong and by their diaspora around the world. It is sometimes referred to as ''Chiuchow'', its Cantonese ...
(including
Swatow dialect
The Swatow dialect, also known as the Shantou dialect, is a variety of Chinese mostly spoken in Shantou in Guangdong, China. It is typically classified in the Teochew group of dialects.
Phonology
Swatow dialect has 18 initials, over 60 rimes, a ...
). It was introduced by
John Campbell Gibson
John is a common English name and surname:
* John (given name)
* John (surname)
John may also refer to:
New Testament
Works
* Gospel of John, a title often shortened to John
* First Epistle of John
The First Epistle of John is the ...
and
William Duffus, two British missionaries, to
Swatow
Shantou, alternately romanized as Swatow and sometimes known as Santow, is a prefecture-level city on the eastern coast of Guangdong, China, with a total population of 5,502,031 as of the 2020 census (5,391,028 in 2010) and an administrative a ...
in 1875.
History
Romanization of Teochew can be traced back to the 1840s. The earliest attempt to write the language in the Latin script was undertaken by Baptist missionary
William Dean
William, Will, Bill or Billy Dean is the name of the following people:
Arts and entertainment
* Bill Dean (1921–2000), British actor
* Billy Dean (born 1962), American country music singer
Sports
* William Dean (Hampshire cricketer) (c. 1882� ...
in his 1841 publication ''First Lessons in the Tie-chiw Dialect'' published in Bangkok, Thailand; however, his tonal system was said to be incomplete.
The first complete orthographic system was devised by
John Campbell Gibson
John is a common English name and surname:
* John (given name)
* John (surname)
John may also refer to:
New Testament
Works
* Gospel of John, a title often shortened to John
* First Epistle of John
The First Epistle of John is the ...
and
William Duffus, two Presbyterianism missionaries, in 1875. The orthography was generally based on the ''
Pe̍h-ōe-jī
( ; , , ; POJ), also known as Church Romanization, is an orthography used to write variants of Hokkien Southern Min, particularly Taiwanese Hokkien, Taiwanese and Amoy dialect, Amoy Hokkien, and it is widely employed as one of the writing syst ...
'' system, another work of presbyterian origin devised for the
Amoy dialect
The Amoy dialect or Xiamen dialect (), also known as Amoyese, Amoynese, Amoy Hokkien, Xiamenese or Xiamen Hokkien, is a dialect of Hokkien spoken in the city of Xiamen (historically known as "Amoy") and its surrounding metropolitan area, in the ...
. The first translation of the ''
Gospel of Luke
The Gospel of Luke is the third of the New Testament's four canonical Gospels. It tells of the origins, Nativity of Jesus, birth, Ministry of Jesus, ministry, Crucifixion of Jesus, death, Resurrection of Jesus, resurrection, and Ascension of ...
'' in Swatow romanization was published in 1876. It has been said that the vernacular orthographic system is more easier for illiterate persons to learn in their own mother tongue.
Besides Gibson and Duffus's original romanization system, several variations of the system were later devised, such as those by
William Ashmore (1884) and
Lim Hiong Seng (1886).
Other systems developed by Baptist missionaries such as
Adele Marion Fielde
Adele Marion Fielde (March 30, 1839February 23, 1916) was a social activist, Baptist missionary, scientist, and writer.
Biography
Adelia Field was born in East Rodman, New York on March 30, 1839. Her parents were Leighton Field and Sophia (Tiff ...
(1883) and
Josiah Goddard (1888) were generally used as a means of phonetic notation instead of a full orthographic system.
Through the church's use of the romanization system, the number of users of the system grew and came to its high point in the 1910s. However, starting in the 1920s, the Chinese government promoted education in Mandarin and more people learned to read and write in Chinese characters. Thus, the promotion of romanized vernacular writing become less necessary. By the 1950s, there were an estimated one thousand users of the system remaining in the Chaoshan area.
Spelling schemes
Alphabet
The orthography uses 18 letters of the
basic Latin alphabet.
Initial
The initial consonants in Teochew are listed below:
The letters in the table represent the initial with its pronunciation in
IPA
IPA commonly refers to:
* International Phonetic Alphabet, a system of phonetic notation
** International Phonetic Association, the organization behind the alphabet
* India pale ale, a style of beer
* Isopropyl alcohol, a chemical compound
IPA ...
, followed by the example of Chinese word and its translation in Teochew romanization.
The
affricate
An affricate is a consonant that begins as a stop and releases as a fricative, generally with the same place of articulation (most often coronal). It is often difficult to decide if a stop and fricative form a single phoneme or a consonant pai ...
consonants ''ts/ch'', ''tsh/chh'', and ''z/j'' are three
allophone
In phonology, an allophone (; from the Greek , , 'other' and , , 'voice, sound') is one of multiple possible spoken soundsor '' phones''used to pronounce a single phoneme in a particular language. For example, in English, the voiceless plos ...
pairs where those
voiced
Voice or voicing is a term used in phonetics and phonology to characterize speech sounds (usually consonants). Speech sounds can be described as either voiceless (otherwise known as ''unvoiced'') or voiced.
The term, however, is used to refe ...
and
voiceless alveolar affricate
A voiceless alveolar affricate is a type of affricate consonant pronounced with the tip or blade of the tongue against the alveolar ridge (gum line) just behind the teeth. This refers to a class of sounds, not a single sound. There are several typ ...
will shift to
voiced
Voice or voicing is a term used in phonetics and phonology to characterize speech sounds (usually consonants). Speech sounds can be described as either voiceless (otherwise known as ''unvoiced'') or voiced.
The term, however, is used to refe ...
and
voiceless alveolo-palatal affricate
The voiceless alveolo-palatal sibilant affricate is a type of consonantal sound, used in some spoken languages. The symbols in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represent this sound are , , and , and the equivalent X-SAMPA symbols are t_ ...
when they meet with
close
Close may refer to:
Music
* ''Close'' (Kim Wilde album), 1988
* ''Close'' (Marvin Sapp album), 2017
* ''Close'' (Sean Bonniwell album), 1969
* "Close" (Sub Focus song), 2014
* "Close" (Nick Jonas song), 2016
* "Close" (Rae Sremmurd song), 201 ...
or
close-mid front vowel
A front vowel is a class of vowel sounds used in some spoken languages, its defining characteristic being that the highest point of the tongue is positioned approximately as far forward as possible in the mouth without creating a constriction th ...
s (''i, e'').
Finals
The
rhymes
A rhyme is a repetition of similar sounds (usually the exact same phonemes) in the final stressed syllables and any following syllables of two or more words. Most often, this kind of rhyming (''perfect rhyming'') is consciously used for a musica ...
used in the orthography are listed below:
The latin alphabet sets in the table represent the spelling of
syllable final in the system with its pronunciation in
IPA
IPA commonly refers to:
* International Phonetic Alphabet, a system of phonetic notation
** International Phonetic Association, the organization behind the alphabet
* India pale ale, a style of beer
* Isopropyl alcohol, a chemical compound
IPA ...
, followed by the example of Chinese word and its translation in Teochew romanization.
Nowadays, in most cities in Chaoshan,
alveolar
Alveolus (; pl. alveoli, adj. alveolar) is a general anatomical term for a concave cavity or pit.
Uses in anatomy and zoology
* Pulmonary alveolus, an air sac in the lungs
** Alveolar cell or pneumocyte
** Alveolar duct
** Alveolar macrophage
* M ...
codas (''-n/-t'') have largely shifted to
velar Velar may refer to:
* Velar consonant
Velar consonants are consonants articulated with the back part of the tongue (the dorsum) against the soft palate, the back part of the roof of the mouth (also known as the "velum").
Since the velar region ...
codas (''-ng/-k''); therefore, they are not found in the ''
Peng'im
( zh, s=潮州话拼音方案, t=潮州話拼音方案: ( Teochew) ( Swatow), : or , : or ) is a Teochew dialect romanization system as a part of Guangdong Romanization published by Guangdong Provincial Education Department in 1960. The ...
'' system which was developed later in the 1960s. However, these codas are still present among native speakers particularly in few border townships like
Fenghuang
''Fenghuang'' () are mythological birds featuring in traditions throughout the Sinosphere. ''Fenghuang'' are understood to reign over all other birds: males and females were originally termed ''feng'' and ''huang'' respectively, but a gender ...
(),
Sanrao (), and
Nan'ao
Nanao may refer to:
Places
*, Japan
**Nanao Line a rail line through Nanao, Ishikawa
** Nanao Station a station on the Nanao Line
*Nan'ao County (), Shantou, Guangdong
** Nan'ao Island (), forming most of Nan'ao County
* Nan'ao Subdistrict (), a ...
.
Tones
There are eight tones in Teochew and are indicated as below,
Both the first and the fourth tones are unmarked but can be differenced by their coda-endings; those with the first tone end with an open vowel which could be either simple or nasalised, or end in a
nasal consonant
In phonetics, a nasal, also called a nasal occlusive or nasal stop in contrast with an oral stop or nasalized consonant, is an occlusive consonant produced with a lowered velum, allowing air to escape freely through the nose. The vast majo ...
such as ''-m, -n, -ng'', while those with the fourth tone end with a
stop consonant
In phonetics, a plosive, also known as an occlusive or simply a stop, is a pulmonic consonant in which the vocal tract is blocked so that all airflow ceases.
The occlusion may be made with the tongue tip or blade (, ), tongue body (, ), lip ...
such as ''-p'', ''-t'', ''-k'', and ''-h''.
Teochew features
tone sandhi
Tone sandhi is a phonological change that occurs in tonal languages. It involves changes to the tones assigned to individual words or morphemes, based on the pronunciation of adjacent words or morphemes. This change typically simplifies a bidirec ...
where for any compound that contains more than one word (a
syllable
A syllable is a basic unit of organization within a sequence of speech sounds, such as within a word, typically defined by linguists as a ''nucleus'' (most often a vowel) with optional sounds before or after that nucleus (''margins'', which are ...
), sandhi rules apply to all words except the last one in each phrase. For example, in the Swatow dialect, would be pronounced as , where all words in the compound (linked by a hyphen) undergo tone sandhi except for the final word in each compound: and . The tones markings of each word do not actually change to indicate
tone sandhi
Tone sandhi is a phonological change that occurs in tonal languages. It involves changes to the tones assigned to individual words or morphemes, based on the pronunciation of adjacent words or morphemes. This change typically simplifies a bidirec ...
and are written with their original tone markings.
References
External links
Chinese Character to Teochew (Swatou Church Romanization) Transliterator
The use of Teochew puj(Teochew church romanisation) on 21th century social media.
A handbook of the Swatow vernacular by Lin Hsiung-cheng.
{{Min Chinese
Romanization of Chinese
Teochew dialect
Latin-script orthographies