Cantonese phonology
Standard Cantonese pronunciation originates from Guangzhou, also known as Canton, the capital of Guangdong Province.
Yue dialects spoken in other parts of Guangdong and Guangxi provinces, such as Taishanese, exhibit more significant divergences.
[1][failed verification] The average Cantonese syllable represents 6 unique Chinese characters.
Some like /kʷeŋ˥/ (扃), /ɛː˨/ and /ei˨/ (欸) are no longer common; some like /kʷek˥/ and /kʷʰek˥/ (隙), or /kʷaːŋ˧˥/ and /kɐŋ˧˥/ (梗), have traditionally had two equally correct pronunciations but its speakers are starting to pronounce them in only one particular way (and this usually happens because the unused pronunciation is almost unique to that word alone), making the unused sounds effectively disappear from the language; some like /kʷʰɔːk˧/ (擴), /pʰuːi˥/ (胚), /tsɵi˥/ (錐), /kaː˥/ (痂), have alternative nonstandard pronunciations which have become mainstream (as /kʷʰɔːŋ˧/, /puːi˥/, /jɵi˥/ and /kʰɛː˥/ respectively), again making some of the sounds disappear from the everyday use of the language; and yet others like /faːk˧/ (謋), /fɐŋ˩/ (揈), /tɐp˥/ (耷) have become popularly (but erroneously) believed to be made-up/borrowed words to represent sounds in modern vernacular Cantonese when they have in fact been retaining those sounds before these vernacular usages became popular.
This /ɛt/ final does not fit into general Cantonese phonology, though the final with the longer vowel -et /ɛːt/ has appeared in vernacular Cantonese before this, e.g. pet6 /pʰɛːt˨/ 坺, the measure word for gooey or sticky substances like mud, poop, glue, chewing gum.
Coronal affricates and sibilants /t͡s/, /t͡sʰ/, /s/'s position is alveolar and articulatory findings indicate they are palatalized before close front vowels /iː/ and /yː/.
As the traditionally transcribed near-close finals ([ɪŋ], [ɪk], [ʊŋ], [ʊk]) have been found to be pronounced in the mid region on acoustic findings,[5] sources like Bauer & Benedict (1997:46–47) prefer to analyze them as close-mid ([eŋ], [ek], [oŋ], [ok]) which results in eleven vowel phonemes.
[6] Some sources prefer to keep the near-close finals ([ɪŋ], [ɪk], [ʊŋ], [ʊk]) as traditionally transcribed and analyze the long-short pairs [ɛː, e], [ɔː, o], [œː, ɵ], [iː, ɪ] and [uː, ʊ] as allophones of the same phonemes, resulting in an eight vowel system instead.
Like other Yue dialects, Cantonese preserves an analog to the voicing distinction of Middle Chinese in the manner shown in the chart below.
It also has two changed tones, which add the diminutive-like meaning "that familiar example" to a standard word.
In addition, modified tones are used in compounds, reduplications (擒擒青 /kɐm˩ kɐm˩ tʃʰɛːŋ˥/→/kɐm˩ kɐm˩꜔꜒ tʃʰɛːŋ˥/ "in a hurry") and direct address to family members (妹妹 /muːy˨ muːy˨/→/muːy˨꜖ muːy˨꜔꜒/ "sister").
One shift that affected Cantonese in the past was the lost distinction between alveolar and alveolo-palatal (sometimes termed as postalveolar) sibilants which occurred during the late 19th and early 20th centuries.
For instance: Even though the aforementioned references observed the distinction, most of them also noted that the depalatalization phenomenon was already occurring at the time.
Examples include the surname 石 (/sɛːk˨/), which is often romanized as Shek, and the names of places like Sha Tin (沙田; /saː˥ tʰiːn˩/).
Cantonese had lost its medials sometime ago in its history, reducing the ability for speakers to distinguish its sibilant initials.
Many modern-day younger Hong Kong speakers do not distinguish between phoneme pairs like /n/ vs. /l/ and /ŋ/ vs. null initial[2] and merge one sound into another.
[18] Although that is often considered substandard and denounced as "lazy sounds/pronunciation" (懶音), it is becoming more common and is influencing other Cantonese-speaking regions (see Hong Kong Cantonese).
