Wong Shik-Ling (also known as S. L. Wong) published a romanisation scheme accompanying a set of phonetic symbols for Cantonese based on International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA) in the book A Chinese Syllabary Pronounced according to the Dialect of Canton.
Chinese phonology traditionally stresses on finals because it is related to rhymes in the composition of poems, proses and articles.
The ten basic vowel phoneme symbols [a], [ɐ], [ei], [ɛ], [i], [ou], [ɔ], [œ], [u] and [y] in the scheme mean following: For detail explanation of the phonetic system, see S. L. Wong (phonetic symbols)#Vowels.
Some vowel phonemes can followed by vowel phonemes -i, -u or -ue to form 8 falling diphthong finals: For detail explanation of the phonetic system, see S. L. Wong (phonetic symbols)#Falling diphthong finals.
Tones play an important role to distinguish meanings in Cantonese.