Project:Jyut

The ABC Cantonese-English Dictionary

By Robert S. BAUER.

Copyright © 2017 Wenlin Institute, Inc. SPC, All Rights Reserved

For print editions of dictionaries in the ABC Dictionary Series, please see UH Press, and wenlin.com/abc.

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Please note: in the Wenlin Dictionaries Wiki, entries from this dictionary are all presented in the namespace Jyut, which stands for jyut6 jyu5​ (粵語) ‘Cantonese’. Headwords are in Cantonese and glosses are in English.

List entries alphabetically: A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z

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INTRODUCTION TO
《ABC CANTONESE-ENGLISH DICTIONARY
ABC粵語英語詞典》

Robert S. BAUER 包睿舜

“而家講廣東話係咪犯法先？”

ji4 gaa1 gong2 gwong2 dung1 waa6/2 hai6 mai6 faan6 faat3 sin1

‘IS SPEAKING IN CANTONESE AGAINST THE LAW NOW?’
as said by the taxidriver to the policeman in the dystopian Hong Kong movie “Ten Years”

What are the Special Features of ABC Cantonese-English Dictionary?

The scope of this dictionary’s lexical entries reflects the broad range of the Hong Kong Cantonese lexicon by including many different kinds of words, nouns, verbs, stative verbs, coverbs, modal particles (or discourse markers), fixed expressions, idiomatic expressions, English loanwords, triad jargon, vulgar (taboo) words, etc. Among the special features associated with this dictionary’s lexical entries are the following nine items:

(1) Head words. The head words of lexical entries are listed alphabetically according to their Jyut Ping romanized Cantonese pronunciations. Since the tones of words can change depending on how they are used in various contexts, the romanization has indicated the original tone of the morphosyllable (this is a general cover term that includes monosyllabic free and bound morphemes and semantically-unanalyzable syllables) followed by its so-called “changed tone” (變音 bin3 jam1); e.g. in the case of 相 soeng3/2 ‘photo, photograph’ its original tone is 3 (mid level) but changes to tone 2 (high rising) when the syllable carries this particular meaning. For the reader who is not familiar with the Jyutping romanization system a table at the end of this introduction presents the initial consonants, rimes, and tones with their corresponding IPA symbols.

(2) Written forms. The corresponding written forms of the head words are represented with standard Chinese characters, colloquial characters, and in some cases English letters. As will be explained below in the section on Written Cantonese, there are some colloquial Cantonese words and English loanwords that lack Chinese characters to write them with; the solution has been to write them either with their original English spelling but pronounced with Cantonese syllables or with English letters in a kind of ad hoc romanization of their pronunciations.

(3) Parts of speech. The parts of speech or syntactic categories to which the head words belong, such as noun, verb, stative verb, fixed expression, etc., are so indicated; in the case of nouns, their classifiers have also been included.

(4) Cross-referencing. The head words have been extensively crossreferenced to alert the reader to semantically-related lexical items, such as synonyms.

(5) Variant pronunciations and written forms. Some Cantonese words can have two or more variant pronunciations, and because written Cantonese has not been standardized, a word can have two or more written forms, and so all of these variant forms have been included in the entry and indicated as such.

(6) Notes on usage and social status of words. To help explain the usage, register, social status, and meanings of head words, some entries have included concise notes, such as literal, figurative, colloquial, slang, specialist jargon (e.g., student, financial, triad, etc.), humorous, derogatory, impolite, offensive, obscene, vulgar, obsolete, old-fashioned, etc.

(7) Explanatory material on cultural, historal, and political associations of head words. Explanatory information on the cultural, historical, and political aspects of some head words has been included where this information is deemed particularly revealing, appropriate, and helpful for the reader’s better understanding of the word’s meaning and usage.

(8) English definition. The precise equivalent English definition of the Cantonese head word is stated.

(9) Example sentence. For many lexical entries at least one example sentence has been included in order to demonstrate how the head words are used in Cantonese. In addition, there are two Chinese-character indices: the first one has listed all the individual Chinese characters that occur in the dictionary in the alphabetical order of their romanized Cantonese pronunciations; and the second one has sorted all the Chinese characters according to their 214 traditional Kangxi radicals 康熙部首 and stroke counts. An index of characters arranged by their Mandarin pinyin forms with corresponding Cantonese romanizations may be included in a later edition of the dictionary.

Why Do We Need a Cantonese-English Dictionary?

In recent years my own personal experience of visiting Hong Kong bookstores and inquiring if a Cantonese-English dictionary were available for sale has invariably elicited the same answer from the store clerks, viz., they had no such dictionary. Some years ago I had gone over to the Hong Kong Government Publications Office and bought a copy of Sidney Lau’s A Practical Cantonese-English Dictionary (Hong Kong Government Printer) which was published in 1977 (it has never been revised, and the same first edition still seems to be available on the Sidney Lau website). I consult this stalwart among such dictionaries almost every day; and, as useful as it has been to me, it has some limitations despite its length of 1000 pages: most of its lexical entries are given over to the standard Chinese lexicon with a good portion of the colloquial vocabulary omitted; and, of course, it is now 40 years old, so is also quite out of date. For some time I have felt the obvious need for a full-scale, warts-and-all Cantonese-English dictionary, so a big part of my motivation in compiling this ABC Cantonese-English Dictionary has been to try to fill in the gap that currently exists for students of the Cantonese language. To the best of my knowledge, this is the first comprehensive dictionary of its kind to be published in the past 40 years; it has attempted to document the Hong Kong Cantonese lexicon by including about 15,000 lexical entries which are uniquely Cantonese, i.e., those words and expressions that also occur in standard Chinese with identical meanings and collocations have been excluded, unless they are originally Cantonese and later had made their way into standard Chinese.

In terms of published reference works, such as dictionaries, grammars, glossaries, descriptive analyses, etc., it is my subjective impression that Cantonese has been the most intensively and voluminously documented regional Chinese variety after standard Chinese (Mandarin, Putonghua). However, as mentioned above, up till now if anyone were looking for a Cantonese-English dictionary they would do well to be able to find Sidney Lau’s A Practical Cantonese-English Dictionary. In my own experience of using this dictionary the main problem I have found with it is that much of the colloquial Cantonese lexicon is lacking. As it is now 40 years old, it also does not reflect the many changes that have occurred in the lexicon over these past several decades.

This ABC Cantonese-English Dictionary is intended to satisfy the practical, concrete needs that at least two groups of people have for a Cantonese-English dictionary: first, English-speaking students who are learning Cantonese as an additional language; and second, Cantonese-speakers who want to know the English equivalents of Cantonese words. Unquestionably, Putonghua/Mandarin is China’s unifying national language and its lingua franca, still we must recognize that Cantonese is the predominant Chinese speech variety spoken by the 7 million residents of Hong Kong, one of the world’s leading financial and commercial centers, as well as millions of other people in China and around the world. Cantonese simply cannot be ignored; as China’s second major language, it merits our interest, commands our respect, and deserves our serious attention.

What is the Motivation for Writing ABC Cantonese-English Dictionary?

In addition, however, I should make clear that my writing of this dictionary has been motivated by another, relatively abstract issue and so will explain it here. Over the last few years, questions have been raised about what the future holds for the Hong Kong Cantonese language due to Hong Kong’s increasing use of Putonghua, not only as the principal medium of instruction in the majority of schools, but also as the major language in the broadcast media, entertainment and tourism industries, business, etc. Will Putonghua eventually replace Cantonese as the Hong Kong community’s primary Chinese language? I can quite understand that, given how well Cantonese currently fares, this possibility may seem remote, even far-fetched, and so unlikely. According to data released by the 2016 By-Census in early 2017, Cantonese predominates as the usual, daily language spoken by 89% of Hong Kong’s ethnic Chinese population of about 7 million; if persons speaking Cantonese as another linguistic variety are also included, then the figure rises to 95%. Nonetheless, some people, myself included, do feel a genuine concern about the future of Cantonese in Hong Kong: In 2015 when I saw printed on the cover of a local Hong Kong magazine the provocative question, The Death of Cantonese? (Tam and Cummins 2015), that did raise my eyebrows and enticed me to read the article. At any rate, in the meantime, this dictionary should go some way to help document the Hong Kong Cantonese lexicon, what many of its words and expressions mean in English, and how their pronunciations are transcribed in the Jyut Ping romanization system.

At the turn of this century in observing how widespread has been the use of Hong Kong Cantonese in both its spoken and written forms at that time, I (Bauer 2000:37) had felt quite optimistic about its status; here I quote what I wrote back then as follows:

“. . . Cantonese has achieved in Hong Kong a unique and very special status in comparison to any other Chinese dialects wherever they are spoken. I would go so far as to say that Cantonese is now enjoying its Golden Age in Hong Kong. Where else in China, or the world for that matter, can one witness Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream performed in Cantonese; read a newspaper article, novel, or adult comic book written in Cantonese; watch a movie in which the dialogue has been originally recorded in Cantonese; attend a university lecture delivered in Cantonese; listen to a radio play or international news program broadcast in Cantonese; or hear legislative councilors [somewhat comparable to elected representatives in a parliament] and the Chief Executive [who is the head of Hong Kong’s government] vigorously debate proposed laws in Cantonese? The answer is obvious, and most Cantonese speakers take all these things for granted because they perceive no threat to the language and feel there is nothing to get excited about. Their attitude reflects the healthy state of the language, but it also makes me wonder that if we now live in the Golden Age of Cantonese, how much longer can it continue?”

Although the Cantonese language still seems to be doing relatively well in Hong Kong after its return to China’s sovereignty in 1997, some recent survey findings on the use of languages in Hong Kong clearly indicate that in the eyes of some people the Cantonese language is becoming endangered. According to findings from a telephonesurvey conducted by Bacon-Shone, Bolton, and Luke (2015:7), Cantonese continues to function as “the key language for oral communication in many settings in Hong Kong”. In addition, this survey reported that the Hong Kong government has been making good progress in promoting trilingualism, i.e., fluency in Cantonese, Putonghua, and English, especially among younger people who claim they have some degree of proficiency in all three of Hong Kong’s principal languages. At the same time, however, there were some Hongkongers who stated they felt some unease regarding the state of Cantonese. People who participated in this telephone survey were presented with the question, How seriously endangered is Cantonese at present? While 23.1% answered with Not at all, we should note that a combined total of 77% of the respondents said they thought Cantonese was seriously endangered to some degree: viz., either A Little at 31.8%, Moderately 30.1%, A Lot 11.7%, and Critically 3.4% (Bacon-Shone, Bolton, and Luke 2015:27).

The use of Putonghua as the medium of instruction in schools has been steadily increasing, and so it can be regarded as the direct cause for the fall in the numbers of schoolchildren who have been learning to read and write the Chinese characters with Cantonese pronunciation. At the time of this writing, about 70% of Hong Kong’s primary schools and 40% of its secondary schools are using Putonghua as their medium of instruction. Some people are not at all happy about this development: a few years ago one member of the Putonghua as Medium of Instruction Student Concern Group bluntly stated, “It’s ridiculous that we cannot use our mother tongue to learn in our own place” (Yau and Yung 2014:C5).

It comes as no surprise to me to read that some people are calling for laws to be enacted that would protect and preserve Cantonese:

“Although there is no determined campaign to eliminate Cantonese, Hong Kong gives little encouragement for children to study Cantonese when Putonghua is seen as one of the main languages of business today The city’s laws provide scant protection for Cantonese . . . Cantonese is an important part of the intangible cultural heritage of Hong Kong and vital for the preservation of its cultural identity. Hopefully, the [Hong Kong government’s cultural heritage] survey will identify Cantonese as worthy of protection, not just as a vehicle for communication of other elements such as Cantonese opera, local festivals and rituals, but as an element in its own right.” From Both city and nation must preserve Cantonese language, Letter of the Law by Steven Gallagher, associate dean of law at Chinese University of Hong Kong, South China Morning Post, April 24, 2014, Page C2.

In a few years’ time when people look back at the current era in which Putonghua has replaced Cantonese as the medium of instruction in most schools, I can imagine they will sadly say it was this shift that marked the beginning of the inevitable decline in the status of Cantonese in Hong Kong. We can also see this as another step towards the community’s further mainlandization, against which resentment has been intensifying among some Hongkongers; the localist movement’s support of Hong Kong Cantonese as one of its issues can only make the language more politicized. At some point down the road, I predict that speaking Cantonese will be regarded as a politically-sensitive act or even illegal. Indeed, just such a development has already been anticipated: In the Hong Kong movie “十年 Ten Years” which was released in 2015 and vividly imagined a future dystopian Hong Kong in the year 2025, there is the unforgettable scene in which the taxi-driver character who speaks only Cantonese says to the policeman who is giving him a ticket for speaking Cantonese in a Putonghua-only zone: “而家講廣東話係咪犯法先？ ji4 gaa1 gong2 gwong2 dung1 waa6/2 hai6 mai6 faan6 faat3 sin1 ‘Is speaking in Cantonese against the law now?’.

After having spent more than 40 years learning and researching the Cantonese language, I feel the responsibility to do what I can to support and promote it; my mission has been to record the contemporary pronunciation and written form of the Hong Kong Cantonese language and to translate its vocabulary into English before it declines or even disappears.

What is the Special Connection Between Cantonese and Hong Kong?

Since the 1950s, following the establishment of the People’s Republic of China in 1949, Cantonese in Guangzhou, Guangdong’s provincial capital and the regional home of the language, began to fall into a steep decline due to the adoption and then heavy-handed promotion of Putonghua/Mandarin as the national language and the medium of instruction in the schools and broadcast media. As a direct result, the center of Cantonese language and culture shifted away from Guangzhou to Hong Kong which has been called – and quite rightly so – the Cantonese-speaking capital of the world (Bolton 2011:64). According to the Hong Kong 2016 By-Census (Hong Kong Census and Statistics Department 2017), Cantonese is the usual, daily language that is spoken by 88.9% of Hong Kong’s population aged five years and older; if we include those people who speak it as another variety, then the percentage rises to 94.6% of the territory’s inhabitants who number just over 7 million. Without a doubt, today Hong Kong’s predominant speech variety is the Cantonese language. Although it is not Hong Kong’s de jure official language, nonetheless, based on its widespread use by government officials, the broadcast media, and ordinary Hongkongers, Cantonese can be considered Hong Kong’s de facto official spoken language. In 2015 the world-wide total population of Cantonese speakers, including those speaking socalled dialects of 粵語Jyut6 jyu5 (or Yueyu, the name of the major Chinese dialect family to which Cantonese belongs), is 62.2 million, as calculated by SIL’s Ethnologue (Lewis et al. 2015).

What Makes Hong Kong Cantonese Special?

Bradley (1992) was the first scholar to recognize that the Chinese language is not one vast monolithic language, but through its geographical dispersal has developed into a number of distinct varieties that are now written and spoken across East and Southeast Asia; the term he quite appropriately applied to Chinese was pluricentric, i.e., it is not just one but a whole series of languages that have evolved with multiple standards. To some extent this state of affairs resembles global English, or more appropriately World Englishes that are called American, Australian, British, Canadian, Hong Kong, Indian, New Zealand, Singaporean, South African, etc. Each of these has its own particular standard within the community where it is spoken and is distinguished by possessing its own unique features. By the same token, it needs to be asserted that today there is not just one kind of “proper” or standard Chinese language, but recognizably-different varieties are being spoken and written in Hong Kong, Macao, Malaysia, Singapore, Taiwan, Thailand, as well as mainland China. Indeed, one may presume that the recognition of this fact was the primary motivation for the publication in 2010 of the《全球华语词典》Quánqiú Huáyu Cídian [dictionary of global Chinese language] which classified a wide range of lexical items as belonging to the Chinese varieties spoken and written in these very nations and territories (Li 2010). Occupying a prominent position among these various Chinese varieties is Hong Kong Cantonese.

In its Hong Kong environment the Cantonese language has evolved into a dynamic and independent Chinese variety with its own uniquely and distinctively defining features. At the outset we should make one thing crystal clear: the Cantonese language is not simply the standard Chinese characters cloaked in Cantonese pronunciation. Innumerable differences between their sound systems, vocabularies, and grammars, have made the spoken forms of Cantonese and Putonghua, or Mandarin, the national language of mainland China, to be two mutually unintelligible Chinese speech varieties.

At least five features of the Hong Kong Cantonese language have combined together to bestow upon it a special – even unique – status as follows:

(1) Distinctive lexical items and localized Chinese characters.

(2) Phonetic features that are associated with the colloquial Cantonese pronunciation, and non-standard phonetic variations in initial consonants, rimes, and tones which have been widely observed, identified as so-called 懶音 laan5 jam1 ‘lazy pronunciations’, and formally investigated in sociolinguistic studies (in 2007 the Hong Kong government’s advisory Standing Committee on Language Education and Research or SCOLAR conducted the community-wide campaign entitled “Say ‘No” to ‘laan5 jam1’” in order to help Cantonese speakers, especially students, “correct” their non-standard pronunciations).

(3) English loanwords (over 700 have been documented) that have been borrowed into the Cantonese lexicon primarily through phonetic transliteration as the direct result of the intimate contact that began between the two languages back in the late 17th century and still continues today.

(4) The two traditions of Cantonese lexicography and Cantonese romanization which were first combined together by 19th-century Western missionaries. Today we may have more dictionaries that document the lexicon of Putonghua and modern standard written Chinese than for Cantonese, nonetheless, over the past two decades the publication of several Hong Kong Cantonese dictionaries have codified the written form of the Hong Kong Cantonese lexicon and transcribed its pronunciation accurately in various systems of romanization which historically was alien to the Chinese language.

(5) The extraordinary and particularly noteworthy development, conventionalization, and widespread use throughout the speech community of the written form of Cantonese speech across many domains, such as Hong Kong’s mainstream newspapers, personal letters, government posters, comic books, novels, textbooks for teaching Cantonese, supermarket receipts, etc.. Plainly stated, the written form of Hong Kong’s Cantonese language is unprecedented among all regional Chinese varieties being spoken today within China and across Southeast Asia; the Hong Kong Cantonese language uniquely stands out by having developed its own independent, distinctively-separate written form that is in competition with modern standard written Chinese. The conventions that underlie Hong Kong’s written Cantonese language are presented and analyzed in a section that follows below.

What is the Cantonese Language?

To answer this question let us first consider the names by which the Cantonese language is known among its speakers, viz., 廣東話 gwong2 dung1 waa6/2 ‘speech of Guangdong (province)’, 廣州話 gwong2 zau1 waa6/2 ‘Guangzhou speech’, 香港話 hoeng1 gong2 waa6/2 ‘Hong Kong speech’, 唐話 tong4 waa6/2 ‘Tang language, i.e. language of the Tang dynasty (618 – 907 C.E.), which Cantonese speakers have traditionally looked upon as the high point in the history of the Chinese civilization, 白話 baak6 waa6/2 ‘plain language (literally, white speech)’, 粵語 jyut6 jyu5 ‘Yue language’ (Bauer and Benedict 1997:xxxi). While Cantonese has been in a steady decline in Guangzhou, the capital city of Guangdong province, as a direct result of the heavy-handed promotion of Putonghua, nonetheless, it still thrives in Hong Kong; it is the view of this writer that the most appropriate name for Cantonese is 香港粵語 hoeng1 gong2 jyut6 jyu5 ‘Hong Kong Cantonese language’.

There are a number of special linguistic features, including phonological, morphological, lexical, syntactic, and social, which give Cantonese its unique identity and so distinguish it from other Chinese varieties of southern China.

Among its special phonological traits are the syllable endings –m, -p, -t, and – k that have been retained from the Ancient Chinese language (but have become lost in Putonghua). While the doubling of the original four-tone categories of Ancient Chinese to eight is found not only in Yue but also in some other Chinese dialects, one distinctive, definitive characteristic of many (but not all) Yue dialects (Norman 1988:217–18) has been the split of the 陰人 jam1 jap6 tone category (carried by syllables with stop endings –p, -t, -k) into two subcategories of 上陰入 soeng6 jam1 jap6 ‘High-stopped Tone, or Upper Yin Ru’ and下陰入 haa6 jam1 jap6 ‘Mid-stopped Tone, or Lower Yin Ru’; this development has been conditioned by vowel length for the standard reading pronunciations of the standard Chinese characters (with only a very few exceptions); that is, syllables with short vowels co-occur with the High– stopped 1, while syllables with long vowels co-occur with the Mid-stopped tone 3 (下 陰入 haa6 jam1 jap6). Other phonological features include the co-occurrence of colloquial morphosyllables with sonorant initials (m-, n-, ng-, l-) with high register tones, and the use of the changed tone or 變音 bin3 jam1 on syllables to derive additional words with different meanings.

Morphological features include the occurrence of modal particles at the ends of utterances; e.g., 吖嘛 aa1 maa3, 啊 aa3, 噃 bo3, 𠺢嘛 gaa1 maa3, 㗎 gaa3, 啩 gwaa3, 喇 laa3, 囉 lo1, 嚕 lu3, 嘛 maa3, 咩 me1, 喎 wo3, 喎 wo5, 啫 ze1, 唧 zek1, 之嘛 zi1 maa3, etc. Also known as discourse markers and sentence-final particles, these morphosyllables carry no semantic content in isolation but convey the speakers’ feelings and attitudes towards their utterances, such as certainty, disbelief, disdain, dismay, doubt, exasperation, impatience, indisputableness, intimacy, irritation, surprise, etc. The series of aspect markers which also lack semantic content on their own and that are suffixed to verbs include 𡁵 gan2, 𠹺 maai4, 晒 saai3, 咗 zo2, 住 zyu6, etc.

As will be further explained below, colloquial Cantonese speech includes a number of vocabulary items that are regarded as giving the language its distinctively Cantonese identity; interestingly and curiously enough, these words cannot be etymologically related to their semantic equivalents in standard Chinese; and, as we can see in the following examples, some of them are written with nonstandard, dialectal characters: e.g., 骲 beu6 ‘to jostle with the hips’, 𨳍 cat6 ‘penis (vulgar)’, 揼 dam3 ‘to droop, hang down’, 揼 dap6 ‘to beat, pound’, 掟 deng3 ‘to throw (at a target)’, 曱甴 gaat6 zaat6/2 ‘cockroach’, 𨅝 jaang3 ‘to kick off’, 𡲢 ke1 ‘shit’, 佢 keoi5 ‘he, she, it’, 𡃈 kwaak3 ‘loop, circle’, 嚟 lai4 ‘to come’, 冇 mou5 ‘not to have; no’, 腍 nam4 ‘soft, tender’, 啱 ngaam1 ‘to be all right, good’, 䠋 pe5 ‘to stagger’, 氹 tam5 ‘puddle’ (Cheung and Bauer 2002).

What is the Origin of the Cantonese Language?

During the Qin dynasty (206-221 BCE) Han Chinese soldiers were dispatched to South China to conquer the region called 粵 jyut6 by subjugating its aboriginal inhabitants who were referred to by the Chinese as 百越 or 百粵 baak3 jyut6 ‘hundred Yue’ [tribes]; one important consequence was that the Old Chinese language brought to the South by these soldiers and other immigrants came into contact with the indigenous peoples’ non-Sinitic languages which are believed to have belonged to such language families as Austro-Asiatic, Tai-Kadai, and Miao-Yao (Yue-Hashimoto 1991b). Today these language families are still represented among South China’s non-Han ethnolinguistic groups who are called 少數民族 siu2 sou3 man4 zuk6 ‘minority nationalities’, as they continue to inhabit this region; the largest group is the 壯 zong1 ‘Zhuang’ who speak varieties of northern Tai over in neighboring Guangxi (Holm 2013). We can assume that the early contacts among peoples speaking Qin-Chinese and the non-Sinitic aboriginal languages led to their intermarriage, and thus created the conditions for the formation of pidgins and creoles which developed into Norman’s hypothesized Old Southern Chinese, the ancestor of South China’s three main Chinese topolects of Yue, Kejia, and Min (Norman 1988:210-214). According to Norman (1988:210), “[i]n areas which for geographic or topographic reasons were more exposed to Northern influence, these archaic Southern Chinese dialects freely incorporated [linguistic] elements from each new wave of Northern immigration, while in other more remote and mountainous regions (like Fújiàn), they guarded their archaic aspect more faithfully.”

That these early contacts with non-Sinitic indigenous languages influenced the development of Chinese varieties in South China, such as Cantonese, is based on the identification of lexical substrata linked to Tai-Kadai, Miao-Yao, and other language families (Bauer 1987, 1996; Li 1994a, 1994b; Yuan 1983; Yue-Hashimoto 1991). In this regard, one particularly interesting and salient morphosyllable that we can cite from the Cantonese basic lexicon is 呢 ni1, as in the two words 呢個 ni1 go3 ‘this’ and 呢度 ni1 dou6 ‘here’ which are obviously not etymologically related to their semantic equivalents of 這個 zhège ‘this’ and 這裡 zhèli ‘here’ in standard Chinese; indeed, we cannot find any semantically-equivalent morphosyllable in the standard Chinese written language to which Cantonese ni1 could be etymologically related. From my own comparative study of numerous phonosemantically-similar items that are widespread throughout the languages of the Tai-Kai family, as well as other families distributed across Southeast Asia, including Austronesian, Tibeto-Burman, and Mon-Khmer (Bauer 1999:35-38), I have concluded that Cantonese ni1 must have descended from a very old lexical root that occurred in some ancient indigenous non-Sinitic language that is now no longer spoken.

What is the Cantonese Lexicon?

With regard to the Cantonese lexicon, we distinguish between two forms of its words, viz., the phonetic shapes with which they occur in the spoken language, on the one hand, and the written forms with which they are transcribed in Cantonese writing, on the other. Furthermore, spoken words and Chinese characters belong to two different, separate, albeit related systems. Although one might think that it should go without saying, I believe I had better say it here anyway: the Chinese characters do not equal the Cantonese language (or even the standard spoken Chinese language, or any other Chinese speech variety). This is because the scope of the spoken language is not only far broader than the set of Chinese characters for writing it, but also because speech is dynamic by constantly changing and evolving. However, even more importantly as we will see in the analysis and discussion of written Cantonese that follows, is the inescapable fact that the Chinese characters on their own are simply inadequate for unambiguously transcribing Cantonese speech in its fully expressed form. The Cantonese language includes a number of indigenous morphosyllables which cannot be linked to their etymological (or original) Chinese characters. How can these so-called “unwritable” Cantonese morphosyllables be written? As will be explained in more detail in sections that follow below, there have been essentially four solutions for writing such lexical items:

(1) borrowing standard characters for their similar or homophonous pronunciations;

(2) creating new Cantonese characters;

(3) using individual letters of the English alphabet or combinations of them for their homophonous or similar pronunciations as a kind of ad hoc romanization;

(4) using the “empty-box” 囗 as a kind of place-holder of last resort.

It is a given in linguistics that spoken language is primary, but written language is secondary. While young children learn to speak the language they hear being spoken around them without really needing direct instruction on pronunciation, lexicon, and syntax (although caregivers may still give them some help with these), they do need to go to school to learn from their teachers how to read and write the language(s) they speak.

In etymology, i.e., the study of the origins of words, there is the saying, Every word has a history of its own. We could paraphrase this by saying simply, Every word has its own story. In the course of writing this Cantonese-English dictionary I have learned first-hand just how true this is; in the case of some words their stories have turned out to be long and convoluted but almost always quite interesting.

As one way to learn more about the Cantonese lexicon I have tried to make it a daily habit of reading the Apple Daily newspaper, as many of its articles are written in colloquial Cantonese and Hong Kong Chinese. As examples of such items of local Hong Kong Chinese vocabulary that appear in this newspaper, we may cite 衝紅公仔 cung1 hung4 gung1 zai2 ‘(for a pedestrian) to walk against the red light at a pedestrian crossing’, 行街紙 haang4 gaai1 zi2 ‘colloquial term for a document issued by the Hong Kong Immigration Department to a person who has applied to the Hong Kong government not to be returned to their country of origin due to fear of persecution; this document allows the person to more about Hong Kong freely but not to engage in employment or travel outside Hong Kong’, 石壆 sek6 bok3 ‘concrete curb, as alongside a road; ledge, as on the side of a building’, 劏房 tong1 fong4/2 ‘subdivided flat’.

In addition, a matter of much interest to me is this newspaper’s practice of quoting verbatim what Cantonese-speakers have said, that is, the speaker’s words are transcribed in written Cantonese (by the same token, if a Putonghua-speaker is quoted, then their speech is so reproduced). As a result of reading Apple Daily, it has been my experience that almost every week I encounter a word or expression that is either new to me or is being used in a different context, and so I feel compelled to learn more about it; if it turns out to be a Cantonese or Hong Kong Chinese word or expression, then I have felt the need to create a lexical entry for it in this dictionary.

The Cantonese lexicon can be found transcribed in some fairly mundane places, e.g., my bilingual supermarket receipt which the cashier hands over to me after I have paid for my groceries; a recent one listed the following Cantonese items: 椰菜 仔 je4 coi3 zai2 ‘Brussels sprouts’, 美國西芹 mei5 gwok3 sai1 kan4 ‘American celery’, 無核青提子 mou4 wat6 cing1 tai4 zi2 ‘seedless green grapes’, 無核提子乾 mou4 wat6 tai4 zi2 gon1 ‘seedless raisins’, 薯仔 syu4 zai2 ‘potatoes’, 甜豆 tim4 dau6 ‘sweet bean’; standard Chinese items included: 菠蘿 bo1 lo4 ‘pineapple’, 茄子 ke4 zi2 ‘eggplant’; there were also several English loanwords, viz., 比爾芝士 bei2 ji5 zi1 si6/2 ‘brie cheese’, 青奇異果 cing1 kei4 ji6 gwo2 ‘green kiwi’, 長啤梨 coeng4 be1 lei4/2 ‘conference pear’, 馬來西亞車厘茄 maa5 loi4 sai1 aa3 ce1 lei4 ke4/2 ‘Malaysian cherry tomatoes’.

How Can the Cantonese Lexicon be Analyzed?

Broadly speaking, in terms of the origins and distributions of words in the spoken language and their corresponding written forms, we can analyze the Hong Kong Cantonese lexicon as comprising a series of three main layers or strata as follows:

(1) The Hong Kong Chinese Standard and Literary Layer includes many lexical items that overlap with those in modern standard written Chinese language of mainland China; however, while some items have identical meanings in modern standard Chinese, their collocations differ when they are used in Hong Kong Cantonese; in addition, there are some distinctively Hong Kong lexical items that do not occur in standard Chinese, or if they do so, they have quite different meanings in Cantonese.

(2) The Colloquial Cantonese Layer includes uniquely Cantonese words that are etymologically unrelated to their semantic equivalents in modern standard written Chinese; some of them are written with so-called “dialect” characters and some with standard Chinese characters that have been borrowed solely for their homophonous (or near homophonous) pronunciations; in some cases colloquial words are written with standard Chinese characters that have been borrowed solely for their meanings but are read with the semantically-equivalent colloquial syllables; there are even a few colloquial words that are written with English letters in a kind of ad hoc Cantonese romanization of last resort, as there does not seem to be any characters with which to write them.

(3) The English Loanwords Layer comprises lexical items that have been borrowed from the English language with which Cantonese has been in intimate, unbroken historical contact for over the past 300 years; as a result of this contact, no other Chinese dialect has been more influenced by a European language than Cantonese. These loanwords which number over 700 are being written in several different ways: (1) phonetically transliterated using Chinese characters with suitable Cantonese pronunciations; (2) semantically translated using standard Chinese characters with appropriate meanings; (3) the combination of phonetic transliteration with semantic translation; (4) represented in a kind of ad hoc romanization with individual English letters pronounced with Cantonese syllables; and (5) transcribed with their original English spellings which are pronounced with Cantonese syllables. Examples of these various written forms of English loanwords are presented and discussed below.

As already stated above, those Cantonese words and expressions that also occur in standard Chinese with essentially identical meanings and collocations have not been included in this dictionary, unless they have been identified as being originally Cantonese and at some later stage were adopted into the standard Chinese vocabulary.

As for just how Cantonese words (and other morphosyllables) are written with Chinese characters and letters of the English alphabet, our closer inspection reveals that the lexicon is relatively more complex than the general outline just sketched above. The following section on written Cantonese provides a more in-depth systematic analysis of the processes and principles on which the written forms of Cantonese words are based.

What is Written Cantonese?

As has already been pointed out above, among China’s regional linguistic varieties Cantonese is extraordinary by having developed its own highly conventionalized written form, viz., not only is Cantonese a spoken language, but it is also a written one as well (Bauer 1988). The Chinese phrase《我手寫我口》ngo5 sau2 se2 ngo5 hau2 ‘my hand writes my mouth’, that is, I write the way I speak, was first advocated by the Qing dynasty poet, 黃遵憲 Huang Zunxian, and then it later became a slogan of the May 4th Movement which called for 白話文 baak6 waa6/2 man4 ‘colloquial spoken language’ to replace the old style 文言文 man4 jin4 man4 ‘classical Chinese’ as the language of modern Chinese literature. Indeed, this sentence I write the way I speak expresses precisely what Cantonese speakers are doing – writing down pretty much verbatim with Chinese characters in combination with letters of the English alphabet the vocabulary and grammar of their Cantonese speech. This is quite unusual in the context of Cantonese lexicography, as it is necessary to draw attention to the fact that written form of Cantonese has never undergone the formal process of standardization; nonetheless, the compilation and publication of numerous Cantonese dictionaries, grammars, glossaries, stories, and other forms of documentation have promoted its development and allowed it to accumulate over time relatively consistent conventions which writers have generally adopted and adhered to in producing their texts so that they are intelligible to their Cantonese-speaking readers. What makes written Cantonese especially remarkable and noteworthy is that its conventions are not explicitly taught in Hong Kong schools, nonetheless, Cantonese-speaking schoolchildren have still been able to pick them up informally and so learn to read and write Cantonese through their contact with and exposure to its texts that pervade the domains in which written language is used (of course, being able to learn to read Cantonese texts requires that the learner speak Cantonese, so that speaking and reading Cantonese go hand in hand to reinforce each other). As mentioned above, because Cantonese and Putonghua are mutually unintelligible, the written Cantonese language can be almost unintelligible to literate Mandarin-speakers from Beijing or Taipei.

In regard to the study of the historical development of written Cantonese in Guangdong and Hong Kong, Snow (2004) still remains the most comprehensive and authoritative reference. According to Snow (2004:77-99), the origins of written Cantonese can be traced back to a wide range of written materials: (1) transcribed vernacular Chinese texts that were associated with Buddhism and intended for singing and chanting; (2)木魚書 muk6 jyu4 syu1 ‘wooden fish books’ which contained different types of folk songs and popular songs; (3) manuscripts of 木魚歌 muk6 jyu4 go1 ‘wooden fish songs’ with popular stories from history, Buddhist scriptures, popular plays, folk tales, etc.; (4) Southern songs 南音 naam4 jam1 from the early 1800’s; (5) 粵謳 jyut6 au1 ‘Cantonese Love Songs’; (6) Cantonese textbooks of various types for Cantonese speakers; (7) 粵劇 jyut6 kek6 ‘Cantonese operas’; (8) popular works of fiction; (9) political articles published in newspapers in Guangzhou and Hong Kong in the early 1900’s. In the late 1940s leftists and communists who were involved in the Hong Kong Dialect Literature Movement and 廣東方言文藝研 究組 gwong2 dung1 fong1 jin4 man4 ngai6 jan4 gau3 zou2 ‘Guangdong Dialect Arts Research Group’ wrote literary works in colloquial Cantonese. Genres associated with this movement included novels, poetry, plays, anthologies, short stories, and theoretical essays (Snow 2004:106-107). These writers claimed that writing in Cantonese had certain advantages, e.g. it helped to spread education and writing skills, produced literature in the areas where dialects were spoken, and appealed to the masses who felt it was more “intimate” than standard written Chinese. However, the Hong Kong Dialect Literature Movement was not popular and abruptly shut down when the Chinese communist government was established in 1949. After 1949 in Hong Kong under the British colonial government which regarded the Cantonese language as a potentially useful barrier to communication between Hong Kong and the mainland written Cantonese continued its development and to flourish; but in contrast in Guangzhou writing in Cantonese faded out (Snow 2004:121). Linguistic developments in Hong Kong in the 1950’s included the emergence of so-called 三及 第 saam1 kap6 dai6/2 (or saam1 gap6 dai6/2) which was a satirical style of writing that brought together features of classical Chinese, Cantonese, and standard Chinese. In addition, the小報 siu2 bou3 ‘mosquito press’ were cheap, four-page newspapers written for entertainment with gossip about movie stars and opera performers.

Why do Cantonese speakers write in Cantonese? Cheung and Bauer (2002:4) have answered this question as follows:

“. . . writing in Cantonese is perceived by writers and readers as conveying the writer’s message with a greater degree of informality, directness, intimacy, friendliness, casualness, freedom, modernity, and authenticity than writing it in standard Chinese, which is the formal language the Hong Kong Cantonese speaker learns to read and write in school, but its spoken counterpart s/he does not ordinarily use when speaking with coworkers, friends, and family members.”

As for the process of transforming Cantonese speech into its corresponding written form, we must recognize there is a mismatch between the inventory of Cantonese morphosyllables that occur in speech and the standard Chinese characters. By this I mean we cannot link up each and every Cantonese morphosyllable in the spoken language with its etymologically-related standard Chinese character because we simply do not know what some of these characters are (despite the best efforts of scholars who concentrate on 本字考 bun2 zi6 haau2 ‘investigation into the original Chinese character’). This mismatch or disjunct has everything to do with the very early formation and historically-complex evolution through language contact of the Cantonese language with various Sinitic and non-Sinitic languages. Furthermore, because there are more Cantonese morphosyllables in the Cantonese syllabary than there are standard Chinese characters with suitable pronunciations (whether or not etymologically related) for writing the morphosyllables, writing Cantonese words has been made that much more difficult.

In regard to the Hong Kong community’s attitudes toward written Cantonese, they can at best be described as ambivalent, accepting to some extent but not necessarily approving. Some decades ago when I was conducting research for my Ph.D. dissertation on Hong Kong Cantonese phonetic variation and change, I had an unforgettable experience, as I still remember it to this day: as part of my research work to collect texts of tape-recorded Cantonese speech, I requested the participants in my study to read aloud various kinds of research instruments, one of which was a story that was written out in Cantonese and included some Chinese characters whose pronunciations were related to the phonological variables I was investigating. When I gave this story to one of my subjects and asked him to read it aloud, he looked at the story with some surprise and then said to me as if I should know, “Cantonese is not a written language.” In hindsight I think his point was that written Cantonese is not the proper standard Chinese language, it is not taught in school, and that in comparison to modern standard written Chinese in which important documents are transcribed, any text of written Cantonese is not to be taken seriously. And he was and would still be quite correct in saying this. Nonetheless, we cannot ignore the fact that the spoken Cantonese language does indeed have its written counterpart, even though it has never undergone the formal process of standardization, and no one actually learns how to read it in school.

As for Cantonese words in the spoken language, they exist independently of how they are written. Yes, we are quite interested in knowing how the words are written with Chinese characters and English letters, but that is not necessarily the most important aspect of a word. In the case of Cantonese, there are many words that have two or more written forms, and we may not be able to determine which one is “better” or “correct” or “original” or “proper”. Which Chinese character should be used to write a Cantonese word? This question one often sees raised on the Internet is usually framed as: what is the “correct” and “origina” Chinese character that should be used to write a particular colloquial Cantonese word? The questioner may have paraphrased its meaning and even romanized it in order to represent its pronunciation.

From the point of view of the lexicographer, that the word has a written form certainly makes it more convenient to work with that word and keep track of it. Fortunately, in the case of Cantonese, we are not limited to transcribing its words with Chinese characters; we can also write them down with Cantonese romanization, and very often a particular word’s romanized form is more accurate in representing its pronunciation and so more useful to us than the Chinese characters with which it is written, since characters can have multiple pronunciations and different meanings associated with them.

In analyzing the written form of Cantonese, we should keep in mind that the conventions of written Cantonese cannot produce a fully accurate transcription of the spoken language but only an approximate representation of it. As matters currently stand, we will discover in the following discussion that the Chinese characters are not fully adequate for writing the Cantonese language. Writers have been doing the best they can with the ad hoc conventions they have at hand, yet they still face many gaps in the tools that are available to them. To enhance and improve the writing system, Cantonese writers have even taken to supplementing the Chinese characters with letters of the English alphabet to romanize the pronunciations of some “unwritable” Cantonese morphosyllables, as mentioned above.

Close examination of Cantonese texts reveals that five processes operate in written Cantonese: viz., traditional usage of the Chinese characters, as well as their phoneticization, indigenization, semanticization, and alphabetization (as the result of intimate contact with English over the past 300 years). In addition, 10 basic principles have been identified as underlying written Cantonese, and these help us better understand how the five processes operate. Finally, there are two main problems of variation in how lexical items are written in Cantonese which need to be resolved in order to advance its standardization. The conventions of written Cantonese and issues associated with the transcription of Cantonese speech in this dictionary are presented and explained in some detail in the following section.

Five Processes Operate in Written Cantonese

1. Traditional usage of the Chinese characters

The Chinese characters are read with their usual, regular standard Cantonese pronunciations and meanings; that is, they are used in written Cantonese according to their traditional phonetic-semantic etymological development just as in modern standard Chinese. The meanings and usages of many lexical items that are written with standard Chinese characters are essentially identical in both Chinese varieties.

2. Phoneticization of the Chinese characters

The Chinese characters are read only for their pronunciations but not their meanings. Some colloquial Cantonese words do not have etymologically-related Chinese characters as their written forms; so in order to write these words, written Cantonese resorts to borrowing some standard Chinese characters solely for their homophonous (or nearly homophonous) Cantonese pronunciations, but the meanings of these standard Chinese characters when used in this way are completely ignored. This is to say that colloquial Cantonese words that would otherwise be unwritable are written with standard Chinese characters which have the same or similar pronunciations as the colloquial words; when Cantonese-speaking readers encounter such written items, they know they should ignore the standard characters’ usual meanings and just read them for their pronunciations.

3. Indigenization of the Chinese characters

Cantonese characters have been created in order to write colloquial words. As noted above with the 2nd process, there are a number of words in the colloquial Cantonese language which do not have etymologically-related Chinese characters as their written forms. So Cantonese-speaking writers have adopted another solution for traditional principles of character formation, i.e. typically through the combination of semantic (radical) and phonetic (sound) character components. In addition, some ancient Chinese characters that are rarely if ever used in modern standard Chinese have been retained and revived to write Cantonese words.

4. Semanticization of the Chinese characters

In contrast to the 2nd process described above, we find the opposite process by which some standard Chinese characters are read only for their meanings with colloquial Cantonese morphosyllables that are etymologically-unrelated but semantically-equivalent, and the etymologically-derived pronunciations of the standard Chinese characters are ignored.

5. Alphabetization

This is actually a more specific kind of phoneticization as described above for the 2nd process. Some individual English letters whose syllabic pronunciations are perceived as being similar to Cantonese morphosyllables are borrowed into written Cantonese to transcribe these morphosyllables. Over the past 300 years Cantonese has borrowed hundreds of English words; older loanwords are typically written with Chinese characters, but some relatively more recent lexical borrowings still retain their original English spellings in written Cantonese, but they are pronounced with Cantonese morphosyllables that approximate the pronunciations of the original English words.

Ten Basic Principles Underlie Written Cantonese

On closer examination and more specific analysis, we find that at least 10 basic principles underlie written Cantonese and demonstrate how these five processes function. Taken together these two approaches to the analysis of written Cantonese can help us better understand its present state and ongoing developments.

1st Principle: Traditional usage of the Chinese characters

Standard Chinese and Cantonese share many vocabulary items in common; written Cantonese uses the same standard Chinese characters and their meanings to transcribe these identical lexical items which generally have the same usages and collocations in both varieties. Both written Cantonese and modern standard Chinese share the same lexical items with the same meanings and usages:

八月 baat3 jyut6 ‘August’

隨時隨地 ceoi4 si4 ceoi4 dei6 ‘at all times and places’

飛機 fei1 gei1 ‘airplane’

女人 neoi5 jan4/2 ‘woman’

銀行 ngan4 hong4 ‘bank (financial institution)’

星期一 sing1 kei4 jat1 ‘Monday’

2nd Principle: Phoneticization (1)

Standard Chinese characters are borrowed solely for their pronunciations and their meanings are completely ignored to transcribe homophonous but etymologically and semantically-unrelated Cantonese morphosyllables. This principle is one of six traditional principles of character formation, or 六書 luk syu1, namely, 假借 gaa2 ze3 ‘character loan’ (literally, ‘false borrowing’).

呢度 ni1 dou6 ‘here’ = standard Chinese 這裏 ze3 leoi5; cf. standard Chinese 呢 ne1 ‘heavy woolen cloth’ + 度 dou6 ‘degree; pass’.

唔 m4 ‘no; not’ = standard Chinese 不 bat1; cf. standard Chinese 唔 ng4 ‘exclamation particle’.

邊 bin1 ‘where; which; who’ = standard Chinese 哪 na3; 誰 seoi4; cf. standard Chinese 邊 bin1 ‘side’.

使 sai2 ‘to spend; to need (negative context)’ = standard Chinese 花 faa1; 需要 seoi1 jiu3; cf. standard Chinese 使 si2, sai2 ‘to send, use, cause’.

3rd Principle: Phoneticization (2)

Chinese characters are borrowed for their pronunciations (their meanings are ignored) to transliterate words borrowed from English. English loanwords are typically represented in written Cantonese via phonetic transliteration: standard (and non-standard) Chinese characters are borrowed solely for their pronunciations to approximate pronunciations of loanwords, but original meanings of Chinese characters are ignored in this context (just as in case of second principle for indigenous Cantonese words).

English loanwords are phonetically transliterated with standard and nonstandard Chinese characters:

巴士 ba1 si6/2 ‘bus’ ⇐ bus

波士 bo1 si6/2 ‘boss’ ⇐ boss

的士 dik1 si6/2 ‘taxi’ ⇐ taxi

科文 fo1 man4/2 ‘foreman’ ⇐ foreman

士多 si6 do1 ‘store’ ⇐ store

天拿水 tin1 naa4/2 seoi2 ‘(paint) thinner’ ⇐ thinner

貼士 tip3/1 si6/2 ‘tips’ ⇐ tips

威吔 wai1 jaa2 ‘wire’ ⇐ wire

4th Principle: Indigenization (1)

Cantonese characters have been specially created by Cantonese writers to transcribe indigenous Cantonese morphosyllables which are etymologically unrelated to their semantic and functional equivalents in modern standard Chinese. This kind of character creation typically follows the traditional principles of character formation involving the combination of semantic (radical) and phonetic (sound) components of Chinese characters. Many Cantonese characters are created by adding the so-called “mouth” radical #30 口 hau2 ‘mouth’, to existing standard Chinese characters as demonstrated by the following examples:

哋 dei2 (1) ‘suffix for reduplicated stative verbs’, 紅紅哋 hung4 hung4/2 dei2 ‘somewhat red’; (2) dei6 ‘plural marker for pronouns and 人 jan4’, 我哋 ngo5 dei6 ‘we, us’, 你哋 nei5 dei6 ‘you (plural)’, 佢哋 keoi5 dei6 ‘they, them’, 人哋 jan4 dei6 ‘people (in general)’; cf. standard Chinese 們 mun4

啲 di1 (1) ‘plural marker for nouns’, 啲學生 di1 hok6 saang1 ‘the students’, cf. standard Chinese 些 se1; (2) ‘marker of comparative degree’, 好啲 hou2 di1 ‘better’, cf. standard Chinese 點 dim2 嘢 je5 ‘thing’, cf. standard Chinese 東西 dung1 sai1

Cantonese characters have been created to transcribe Cantonese lexical items (including English loanwords):

𠵱 ji1 in 𠵱家 ji1 gaa1 ‘now’, cf. standard Chinese 現在 jin6 zoi6

佢 keoi5 ‘he, she, it’, cf. standard Chinese 他 taa1

𠹭 ko1 ‘call’ ⇐ English call

𡃁 leng1 ‘young man, teenager; young triad member’

𨋢 lip1 ‘elevator, lift’ ⇐ British English lift)

冇 mou5 ‘not have’, cf. standard Chinese 沒有 mut6 jau5

啱 ngaam1 ‘right; correct; suitable’

咗 zo2 ‘marker of completed action’, cf. standard Chinese 了 liu5

5th Principle: Indigenization (2)

Modern standard Chinese and Cantonese share the same etymologically related morphosyllables which have the same (or ultimately related) meanings in both varieties, but Hong Kong Cantonese writers may write them with variant, nonstandard characters. The number of such variant graphs is not large. This use of variant, nonstandard characters is shown in the following examples:

衭 fu3 ‘trousers, pants’ = standard Chinese 褲子,裤子 ku4 zi

梘 gaan2 ‘soap; alkali’ = standard Chinese 碱 jian3

韮 in 韮菜 gau2 coi3 ‘Chinese chives’ = standard Chinese 韭 jiu3

杧菓 mong1 gwo2 ‘mango’ = standard Chinese 芒果 mang1 gwo3

餂, 𧵳 sit6 ‘to lose (money), suffer a loss’ = standard Chinese 蝕, 蚀 shi2

贃 zaan6 ‘to earn, make (money)’ = standard Chinese 賺, 赚 zhuan4

6th Principle: Indigenization (3a)

Written Cantonese uses some standard characters whose meanings are similar or identical in standard Chinese, but in written Cantonese these characters have developed quite different meanings, usages, and collocations as indicated by the following examples:

係 hai6 ‘to be’ = standard Chinese 是 shi4 ‘to be’ (= Cantonese si6; 係 xi4 ‘to be’)

飲 jam2 ‘to drink’ = standard Chinese 喝 he1 ‘to drink’ (= Cantonese hot3; 飲 yin3 ‘to drink’)

衫 saam1 ‘clothing; dress; shirt’ = standard Chinese 衣服 yi1 fu2 (= Cantonese ji1 fuk6; 衫 shan1 ‘upper garment’)

食 sik6 ‘to eat’ = standard Chinese 吃 chi1 (= Cantonese hek3; 食 shi2 ‘to eat’)

6th Principle: Indigenization (3b)

Old characters from the classical Chinese language have been revived in written Cantonese, but such old characters are rarely or never used in modern standard written Chinese. The meanings of some old characters have changed in Hong Kong Chinese.

畀 bei3/2 ‘to give’ = standard Chinese 給 gei3 (畀 ‘to give’ from Zhou Dynasty 900-700 BCE; Karlgren 1957:141)

入禀 jap6 ban2 ‘to bring lawsuit to a court’ = standard Chinese 提起訴訟 ti2 qi3 su4 song4 (in standard Chinese 禀 ban2 ‘to report to a superior’)

7th Principle: Indigenization (4)

Modern standard Chinese characters are read (i.e. pronounced) with semantically-equivalent but etymologically-unrelated colloquial Cantonese morphosyllables which replace the standard Cantonese readings of these standard characters. This phenomenon is the so-called 訓讀 fan3 duk6 (xun4 du2) ‘reading the Chinese character for its meaning and not its pronunciation’; in Japanese this is called kundoku or kun-yo(mi) ‘reading Chinese characters with Japanese sounds’. Some examples of standard characters being read with semantically-equivalent but etymologically-unrelated colloquial syllables are as follows:

孖 maa1 ‘twin, pair, double’, as in 孖仔 maa1 zai2 ‘twin boys’, 孖女 maa1 neoi5/2 ‘twin girls’ = standard Chinese 孖 zi1 ‘twins, two children born from the same pregnancy of the same mother’.

歪 me2 ‘slanting, askew, aslant, awry, crooked, not straight’ = standard Chinese waai1.

仰 ngong5, 打仰瞓 daa2 ngong5 fan3 ‘to sleep lying on one’s back’ = standard Chinese joeng5

Standard characters can also be read with English loanword syllables as indicated below:

泊 paak3 ‘to park’; loan from English park as in 泊車 paak3 ce1 ‘to park a car’ (= standard Chinese 泊 bok6 ‘to anchor, moor (a boat); to anchor alongside shore; (for a boat) to be at anchor’).

阿蛇 aa3 soe4 ‘address term for policemen and teachers; policeman, teacher’; soe4 is loan from English sir; (= standard Chinese 蛇 se4 ‘snake’).

Romanization and Alphabeticization in Written Cantonese

Some colloquial Cantonese morphosyllables cannot be etymologically traced back to their original Chinese characters, so they lack Chinese characters as their written forms. Because there is a mismatch between the Cantonese syllabary with its large inventory of colloquial morphosyllables and the literary syllables associated with the standard Chinese characters as their reading pronunciations, there are not enough standard characters with suitable pronunciations that can be borrowed (reused or recycled) to write the etymologically-unrelated, colloquial morphosyllables. So how can such “unwritable” morphosyllables be transcribed? The solution has been to devise a kind of informal romanization for them.

8th Principle: Ad hoc Romanization (1)

For some indigenous, colloquial Cantonese morphosyllables that lack Chinese characters as their written forms writers have devised ad hoc romanizations to transcribe their pronunciations (but the tones are not indicated).

CHOK (= cok3) ‘to pull with force; to jerk on (sth.); (for a vehicle) to jolt, lurch, suddenly move forward but then suddenly stop; to shake or jerk something up and down; to probe or tease someone so as to get the person to reveal something; (for a person) to look cool or sexy’

HEA (= he3)‘to be idle, indolent, lazy, laid-back, doing nothing; to hang around, lounge around; to idle away one's time’

JER (= zoe1) ‘young boy’s or man’s penis’

8th Principle: Alphabeticization (1)

Every letter of the English alphabet has its own Cantonese pronunciation with one or two Cantonese syllables. Cantonese writers borrow letters of the English alphabet according to their English pronunciations to transcribe indigenous, (nearly) homophonous Cantonese morphosyllables (or just their initial consonants) because they lack suitable Chinese characters with which to write them.

D di1 ‘plural marker’, as in 呢 D ni1 di1 ‘these’; marker of comparative degree’, as in 好D hou2 di1 ‘better’ (also written as 啲 di1)

E家 ji1 gaa1 ‘now’ (also written as 依, 𠵱 ji1)

J zei1, as in 打J daa2 zei1 ‘to jerk off (i.e. masturbate)’, 戒J gaai3 zei1 ‘to cease the habit of jerking off’, J咗 zei1 zo2 ‘to have jerked off’, J zei1 = romanization of initial consonant of 朘 zoe1 ‘penis’

K ke1 ‘shit’ as in 吔K </m>jaak3 ke1 ‘eat shit’ (also written as 𡲢 ke1)

English letters are also borrowed to represent tabooed morphosyllables which the reader may recognize, and so either pronounce them as such, or instead pronounce the English letters as a kind of euphemism. English letters can function as euphemisms for tabooed Cantonese morphosyllables:

Q kiu1 replaces 𨶙 lan2 ‘cock (vulgar term for male sex organ); damn’ as in 麻Q煩 maa4 kiu1 faan4 for 麻𨶙煩 maa4 lan2 faan4 ‘damn troublesome’;

X written in place of 𨳒 diu2 as in X你老母 instead of 𨳒你老母 diu2 nei5 lou5 mou5/2 ‘fuck your mother!’.

9th Principle: Alphabeticization (2)

Letters of the English alphabet are combined together with standard and nonstandard Chinese characters to transcribe the Cantonese syllables that are used in the phonetic transliteration or representation of some English loanwords.

B bi1, bi4, as in BB女 bi4 bi1 neoi5/2 ‘baby girl’, BB仔 bi4 bi1 zai2 ‘baby boy’, ⇐ BB bi4 bi1 ⇐Baby.

K kei1, as in K士 kei1 si6/2 ‘case, as in this is a case for the police’, ⇐ Case.

M em1 in M到 em1 dou3 ‘to menstruate’, M ⇐ Menstruate, Menstruation; M記 em1 gei3 ‘McDonald’s’, M ⇐ McDonald’s; 維他命 M wai4 taa1 ming6 em1, M ⇐ Money.

T ti1, as in T恤 (or T裇) ti1 seot1 ‘T-shirt’, ⇐ Tee-shirt.

10th Principle: Alphabeticization (3)

Written Cantonese transcribes English loanwords with their regular English orthography, but Cantonese-speaking readers know to transform such loanwords by reading them with Cantonese morphosyllables that approximate the original pronunciations of the English loanwords.

CALL ko1 ‘call’ ⇐ call

DOWNLOAD taang1 lou1 ‘download’ ⇐ download

FACE fei1 si2 ‘face (respect)’ ⇐ face

MAN men1 ‘manly’ ⇐ man, as in 你好似MAN咗好多！ nei5 hou2 ci5 men1 zo2 hou2 do1 ‘You seem to have become much more manly!’ (as said by a young woman in admiration of her handsome boyfriend)

OK ou1 kei1 ‘OK, all right’ ⇐ OK, okay

PROJECTOR pou3 zek1 taa2 ‘projector’ ⇐ projector

SIR in 阿SIR aa3 soe4 ‘address term for police officer or teacher; police officer, teacher’; SIR ⇐ sir

VAN wen1, as in 貨VAN fo3 wen1 ‘van for hauling goods’, 綠VAN luk6 wen1 ‘green minibus’; VAN wen1 ⇐ van (also written as 𨋍 wen1, but VAN is much more common as the Cantonese character 𨋍 does not display in Internet search engines)

WARM wom1 ‘warm’ ⇐ warm

What are the Problems of Variation in Written Cantonese that Still Need to be Resolved?

Hong Kong’s written Cantonese language has never been formally standardized, and this is why there is much variation in the way it is written. In Hong Kong there is no body of Cantonese-language experts who have been officially appointed by the government and explicitly entrusted with the task of looking after the Cantonese language by standardizing its pronunciation and written form. While grammars, glossaries, dictionaries, and various other kinds of studies of Hong Kong Cantonese have been published over the years and have certainly contributed to the development of its ad hoc de facto standard, nonetheless, these works have been produced by self-motivated individuals who have been working on their own with or without funding support.

Due to the lack of formal standardization of written Cantonese, there are at least three major outstanding problems that still need to be resolved in order to make the writing of Cantonese more accurate and less ambiguous. These three problems that need resolution can be stated as follows:

1. Two or more graphs are used to transcribe the same morphosyllable:

a. The morphosyllable bei2 ‘to give’ can be found written in at least the following four ways:

「被」bei6/2

「比」bei2

「俾」bei2

「畀」bei3/2

b. The morphosyllable di1 ‘plural marker for nouns; marker of comparative degree’ can be found written in at least the following four ways:

「的」dik1 ⇒ di1

「啲」di1

「尐」di1

「D」di1

c. The word ngaa6 zaa6 ‘to bar the way, obstruct’ can be found written in at least the following three ways:

「岈嵖」

「掗膪」

「𧧝𧨊」

2. One Chinese character can carry two or more pronunciations, each of which represents a different morphosyllable and meaning:

a. The character「𠹌」carries at least the following four pronunciations and associated meanings:

(1) lan2 ‘vulgar term for penis’;

(2) lang1 in 溜𠹌 liu1 lang1 ‘uncommon, rare, highly specialized and unusual’;

(3) lang3 in 半𠹌𠼰 bun3 lang3 kang3 ‘half-way’;

(4) nang3 in 𠹌埋一齊 nang3 maai4 jat1 cai4 ‘join together’

b. The character「揼」carries at least the following five pronunciations and associated meanings:

1. dam1 ‘to delay’;

2. dam2 ‘to beat, pound’;

3. dam3 ‘to hang down, let fall’;

4. dam4 as in 圓揼𡇙 jyun4 dam4 doe4 ‘ to be round and full (as the moon)’;

5. dap6 ‘to beat, thump; tofall; to soak’

3. The Empty Box as Last Resort: Some Morphosyllables Lack Characters as Their Written Forms and so are Written with the Empty Box as 囗:

The Cantonese lexicon includes a number of colloquial morphosyllables with which no Chinese characters can be etymologically associated. As a kind of last resort, the socalled “empty box” 囗 has typically functioned as a place-holder to indicate that no etymological (or original) character has been identified to write the morphosyllables. The Cantonese dictionary by Rao, Ouyang, and Zhou (1997:363) listed a number of such Cantonese morphosyllables that lacked Chinese characters as their written forms. However, for some morphosyllables colloquial Cantonese characters may have been created or borrowed to write them but they may not be widely known and used (we should note here that in the 2016 edition of this dictionary the authors either created or found a number of colloquial characters with which to write previously unwritable morphosyllables and have included them in the relevant lexical entries):

口 faak3 ‘to whisk’

口 gong6 ‘crab’s claw’ (= 弶, 蝄)

口 he3 ‘to hang out, idle away one’s time’

口 kwaang2 ‘stalk of a plant’ (= 䆲, 框 kwaang1/2)

口口 laau2 gaau6 ‘in a mess, topsy-turvy’ (= 嘮)

口口 lak1 kak1 ‘(for person) stammering; (for road) to be bumpy’ (= 𬧊揢)

口 lem2, lim2 ‘to lick’ (= 𬜐)

口 ngong5 ‘facing upwards; 打～瞓 ‘to sleep lying on one’s back’ (= 仰 joeng5 ⇒ ngong5)

口 soe4 ‘to slide down’ (= 𠿬, 𡄽)

口口聲 wiu1 wiu1 seng1 ‘sound of siren’

What are the Conclusions on Written Cantonese?

The development of written Cantonese is quite extraordinary for at least the following five reasons (although there may be more):

1. Written Cantonese has developed spontaneously and naturally in response to the needs and interests of Cantonese speakers. In Hong Kong written Cantonese coexists and even thrives as a parallel system in competition with modern standard written Chinese. Although texts of written Cantonese may be generally regarded as less serious than those written in standard Chinese, yet the tradition of writing in Cantonese continues to develop in Hong Kong and persists as a pervasive phenomenon.

2. No officially-appointed body of language experts has ever been formally assigned the task of developing and promoting a standard set of conventions for transcribing Cantonese speech; the conventions of written Cantonese have been evolving informally, sporadically, and inconsistently as Cantonese writers have had to improvise ad hoc solutions to the problems inherent with dialect writing.

3. Written Cantonese has still not been formally standardized, it has no officially recognized status in the community, and it is not taught in the schools. Nonetheless, despite all these negative factors that would seem to undermine its existence, schoolchildren and adults have managed to learn it, although informally and haphazardly, and so they know how to read it.

4. Many colloquial Cantonese words (including some English loanwords) are etymologically unrelated to their semantic and functional equivalents in modern standard Chinese, and these words have required Cantonese writers to use their ingenuity to devise special graphs in order to write them.

5. Although Hong Kong’s written Cantonese has often been severely condemned and criticized by education authorities, academic experts, and community leaders for undermining (and even corrupting the purity of) the modern standard written Chinese language, yet paradoxically, written Cantonese continues to thrive in this community.

What are the Cantonese Phonetic Variations Called 懶懶 Laan5 Jam1 ‘Lazy Pronunciations’?

This dictionary has transcribed the conservative, standard pronunciation of Cantonese lexical items; however, as users of the dictionary who have learned to speak Cantonese are likely aware, the pronunciations we hear uttered by many Cantonese speakers with whom we come into contact in the course of our daily lives typically differ from the standard forms. For example, where the standard language indicates that words and Chinese characters are pronounced with initial consonant /n-/ (alveolar nasal), many Cantonese speakers are pronouncing those lexical items with /l-/ (lateral approximant). This means that if readers were to try to look up in the dictionary a word that they assume begins with l-, it may actually be the case that the word begins with n- in the standard language, and so they may also want to check that possibility. In order to help the reader recognize how variation has affected certain initial consonants, rimes, and tones in relation to the standard, the sounds that can vary have all been collected together and listed in Table 1 that follows below. As we observe from Table 1, all components of a syllable can vary, viz., the initial consonant, nuclear vowel, ending consonant, and tone. This table has listed the standard Cantonese pronunciations of words on the left and their variant pronunciations on the right. If readers keep in mind these variations that occur in relation to the standard Cantonese sound system, then their access to the dictionary’s lexical entries can be enhanced.

Table 1. Phonetic variations in the Hong Kong Cantonese sound system.

1. Labialized velar varies with delabialized velar:

gw- ⇒ g-/oC, kw- ⇒ k-/oC (C = either final consonant –ng or -k):

過 gwo3 ‘to go across’ ⇒ go3

光 gwong1 ‘bright’ ⇒ gong1

國 gwok3 ‘nation, country’ ⇒ gok3

狂 kwong4 ‘crazy; violent’ ⇒ kong4

2. Alveolar nasal varies with lateral approximant:

n- ⇒ l-

乸 naa2 ‘female suffix for animals’ ⇒ laa2

𨂾 naam3 ‘to step across’ ⇒ laam3

呢 ni1 ‘this’ ⇒ li1

𢆡 nin1 ‘female breast; milk’ ⇒ lin1

3. Voiceless velar stop varies with glottal fricative:

k- ⇒ h-

佢 keoi5 ‘he, she, it’ ⇒ heoi5

(only this one word)

4. Velar nasal varies with zero initial:

ng- ⇒ 0 (zero)

呃 ngaak1 ‘to cheat, trick’ ⇒ aak1

啱 ngaam1 ‘all right, good’ ⇒ aam1

我哋 ngo5 dei6 ‘we’ ⇒ o5 dei6

外便 ngoi6 bin6 ‘outside’ ⇒ oi6 bin6

5. Zero initial varies with velar nasal initial:

0- ⇒ ng-

鈪 aak3/2 ‘bracelet’ ⇒ ngaak3/2

愛 oi3 ‘love’ ⇒ ngoi3

6. Velar nasal syllabic varies with bilabial nasal syllabic:

ng ⇒ m

五 ng5 ‘five’ ⇒ m5

吳 ng4 ‘surname’ ⇒ m4

7. Velar nasal ending varies with alveolar nasal ending:

-ng ⇒ -n

(1) -aang ⇒ -aan

橙 caang2 ‘orange (fruit)’ ⇒ caan2

(2) -ang ~ -an

燈 dang1 ‘lamp’ ⇒ dan1

(3) -ong ⇒ XCn

廣 gwong2 ‘broad’ ⇒ gong2

(4) -oeng ⇒ -oen

香 hoeng1 ‘fragrant’ ⇒ hoen1

(5) -eng ⇒ -en

聽 teng1 ‘listen’ ⇒ ten1

8. Velar stop ending varies with alveolar stop ending –t or weakens further to glottal stop -/:

(1) -aak ⇒ -aat / -aa/

百 baak3 ‘hundred’ ⇒ baat3 / baa/3

(2) -ak ⇒ -at / -a/

北 bak1 ‘north’ ⇒ bat1 / ba/5

(3) –ek ⇒ -et / -e/

石 sek6 ‘rock, stone’ ⇒ set6 / se/6

(4) -oek ⇒ -oet / -oe/

腳 goek3 ‘foot, leg’ ⇒ goet3 / goe/3

(5) –ok ⇒ -ot / -o/

角 gok3 ‘horn; corner’ ⇒ got3 / go/3

9. Rimes of certain high frequency words vary with other rimes:

(1) -i ⇒ -ei

呢個 ni1 go3 ‘this’ ⇒ lei1 go3

(2) ai ⇒ -ei

嚟 lai4 ‘to come’ ⇒ lei4

10. Certain tones vary with certain other tones:

(1) High Level 1 ˥55 ⇒ High Falling ˥˨52

山 saan1 ‘hill’ ⇒ saanp52

(2) High Rising 2 ˨˥ 25 ⇒ Mid-Low Rising 5 ˨˧23

椅 ji2 ‘chair’ ⇒ ji5

(3) Mid-Low Rising 5 ˨˧23 ⇒ High Rising 2 ˨˥25

耳 ji5 ‘ear’ ⇒ ji2

(4) Mid Level 3 ˧˧33 ⇒ Mid-Low Rising 5 ˨˧23

試 si3 ‘try’ ⇒ 考試 haau2 si5

From this list of phonetic variations, we observe that in some cases speakers reduce the amount of articulatory effort being used to produce certain sounds, either by losing a sound, e.g. the labialized velar initial stop loses its labialization to become the plain velar (gw- ⇒ g-), completely eliminating a sound, e.g. the velar nasal initial is dropped (ng- ⇒ 0), or changing a sound to some other one that requires less effort, e.g., the velar nasal syllabic varies with the bilabial nasal syllabic (ng ⇒ m), and variation between velar endings and alveolar endings (-ng ⇒ -n, -k ~ / -t). As for variation of some tones, the merger (and loss) of the contrast between the high rising Tone 2 (˨˥25) and mid-low rising Tone 5 (˨˧23) simplifies the tone system by eliminating one contrastive tone contour. Despite the extent of these phonetic variations and the loss of some phonological contrasts, nonetheless, it seems to be the case that speakers’ communication has not been negatively affected; is most likely the result of compensating contextual cues, as well as the speakers’ subconscious awareness of the variations.

Cantonese Romanization Jyut6 jyu5 Ping3 jam1 粵語拼音 with Corresponding IPA Symbols [enclosed in brackets]

1. Initial Consonants:

b = [p], p = [pH], d = [t], t = [tH], g = [k], k = [kH], gw = [kW], kw = [kHW], m = [m], n = [n], ng = [N], f = [f], s = [s], h = [h], dz = [ts, tV], c = [tsH, tVH], w = [w], l = [l], j = [j], O = [/].

2. Final Consonants:

m = [m], n = [n], ng = [N], p = [p|], t = [t|], k = [k|].

3. Vowels in Rimes:

i = [i:], ing = [eJN], ik = [eJk]

yu = [y:], yun = [y:n], yut = [y:t]

e = [E:], ei = [eJj], eu = [E:w], em = [E:m], en = [E:n], eng = [E:N], ek = [E:k]

oe = [K:], oem = [K:m], oeng = [K:N], oek = [K:k]

eoi = [Ph], eon = [Pn], eot [Pt]

ai = [Gj], au = [Gw], am = [Gm], an = [Gn], ang = [GN], ak = [Gk]

aa = [a:], aai = [a:j], aau = [a:w], aam = [a:m], aan = [a:n], aang = [a:N], aap = [a:p], aat = [a:t], aak = [a:k]

u = [u], ui = [u:j], un = [u:n], ung = [oN], ut = [u:t], uk = [ok]

o = [C:], oi = [C:j], ou = [ow], om = [C:m], on = [C:n], ong = [C:N], op = [C:p], ot = [C:t],

ok = [C:k].

4. Tones as Jyut Ping Numbers with Corresponding Tone Categories [followed by corresponding Chao tone letters and tone values]:

1 陰平 Jam1 Ping4 High Level = [˥˥55],

上陰入 Soeng5 Jam1 Jap6 High Stopped [˥5];

2 陰上 Jam1 Soeng5 High Rising = [˨˥25];

3 陰去 Jam1 Heoi3 Mid Level = [˧˧33],

下陰入 Haa6 Jam1 Jap6 Mid Stopped [˧˧33];

4 陽平 Joeng4 Ping4 Mid-low Falling = [˨˩21];

5 陽上 Joeng4 Soeng5 Mid-low Rising = [˨˧23];

6 陽去 Joeng4 Heoi3 Mid-low Level = [˨˨22],

陽入 Joeng4 Jap6 Mid-low Stopped [˨2], [˨˨22].

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ABBREVIATIONS

AB., abbr. ABBREVIATION

acct. account

ACR. ACRONYM

ADV. Adverb

Af. Africa, African

a.k.a. also known as

A.M. Aspect Marker

Am. America, American

amt. amount

anc. ancient

a.n.f. another name for

AP. Appellation (i.e. name of a per., title of a movie, book, etc.)

a.p.a. also pronounced as

approx. approximate, approximately

apt. apartment

Ar. Arabic

a.s.a. also said as

asp. aspect

a.s.w.a. also said and written as

assoc. association, associated

asst. assistant

A.T. Address Term

ATTR. Attributive

a.w.a. also written as

a.w.p.a. also written and pronounced as

b. born

beg. beginning

B.F. Bound Form

bldg. building (noun)

Br. Britain, British, Briton

btwn. between

Budd. Buddhist

bus. business

Can. Cantonese

CE Common Era

cent. century

cert. certain, certainly

Ch. China, Chinese

char. character, especially refers to Chinese character

cm. centimeter

CMP. Complement

co. company

coll. colloquial

com. common, commonly

comm. commerce, commercial

CONJ. Conjunction

conn. connotation

CONS. Construction

contr. contraction

corp. corporation

COV. Coverb

c.t.f. collective term for

cult. culture, cultural

decl. declarative

depr. deprecatory

dept. department

der. derive, derived

derog. derogatory

dimin. Diminutive

distr. district

distrib. distribute, distribution

div. division

D.O. Direct Object

e.g. for example

eleg. elegant

emph. emphasis, emphasize

Eng. England, English

esp. especially

estd. established

EUPH. Euphemism

Eur. Europe, European

ex. example

EXCL., excl. exclamation, exclamatory

exp. express, expresses, expression

EXPL. Expletive

ext. extended

f. form

F.E. Fixed Expression

fem. feminine

f.f. full form

fig. figurative, figuratively

fin. finance, financial, financially

fml. formal

for. foreign

Fr. France, French

ft. feet

fut. future

GD. Guangdong

GEN. Genitive

Ger. German

gm. gram

gnl. general

govt. government

GX. Guangxi

GZ. Guangzhou

Hin. Hindi

hist. historical, history

HK., HK Hong Kong

hum. humorous

ID. Idiom, Idiomatic saying

i.e. that is

imp. impolite

IMPV., impv. imperative

inanim. inanimate

in. inch

incl. include, includes, including

Ind. India, Indian

ind. indicate, indicates, indicating

infml. informal

info. information

infr. inferior

INF. Infix

inoff. inoffensive

inslt. insulting

INTJ. Interjection

intl., Intl. international, International

intm. intimate, intimacy

INTRG., intrg. Interrogative,

interrogative

introd. introduced, introduction

I.O. Indirect Object

It. Italy, Italian

jarg. jargon

Jp. Japan, Japanese

jnr. junior

Ko. Korea

k.a. known as

kph. kilometers per hour

K.T. Kinship Term

lg. language

lit. literal, literally

loan loan word

lt. light

M. Measure, Classifier

Man. Mandarin

mat. maternal

max. maximum

med. medical, medicine

mil. military

min. minimum

misc. miscellaneous

mkt. market

mm. millimeter

M.P. Modal Particle

mph. miles per hour

N. Noun

NA. Name

natl. national

neg. negative

NEG.M. Negative Marker

Nep. Nepal, Nepali

nonstd. nonstandard

N.T. New Territories

NUM., num. number

O. Object (of Verb)

obj. object

obs. obsolete

obsc. obscene

o.f. old-fashioned

ofcl. official

off. offensive, offensiveness

ON. Onomatopoeia

opp. opposite

org. organization

orig. origin, original, originally, originated

Pak. Pakistan, Pakistani

part. particle

pat. paternal

per. person

perm. permanent

Pers. Persian

p.h. public holiday

phon. phonetic

pl. plural

P.M. Plural Marker

pol. polite

pop. population

Por. Portugal, Portuguese

pos. positive

PR. Pronoun

PREF. Prefix

presum. presumably

prev. previous, previously

prfl. professional

priv. private

prob. probable, probably

prod. product, production, productive

pron. pronunciation

prov. province

PRV. Proverb

Put. Putonghua

P.W. Place Word

rel. relative, relatively

R.F. Reduplicated Form

reprod. reproduce, reproduction, reproductive

r.t. refers to

resp. respectful

s.a. said as

S.A. South Asia, South Asian

S.Am. South America

S.E.A. Southeast Asia,

Southeast Asian

sem. semantic

SENT., sent. Sentence, sentence

s.f. short(ened) form

s.f.f. short(ened) form for

Sing. Singapore

Sk. South Korea

Skt. Sanskrit

sl. slang

S.L. Sri Lanka, Sri Lankan

snr. senior

so. someone

S.P. Subordinating Particle

Sp. Spanish

sq. square

st. street

std. standard

std. Can. standard Cantonese

std. Ch. standard Chinese

sth. something

subdiv. subdivision

SUBJ., subj. Subject, subject

subord. Subordinate

subsp. subspecies

substd. substandard

SUF. Suffix

supr. superior

S.V. Stative Verb

s.w.a. said and written as

SYN. Synonym

temp. temporary

topo. topolect, topolectal

trad. tradition, traditional, traditionally

transl. translated, translation

translit. transliteration

Trk. Turkish

Tw. Taiwan

U.K. United Kingdom

uncom. uncommon

unfem. unfeminine

univ. university

unofcl. unofficial

unprod. unproductive

US United States

U.S.A. United States of America

usu. usual, usually

utt. utterance

V. Verb

var. variant

veg. vegetable

V.M. Verbal Measure

V.O. Verb Object

voc. vocative

V.P. Verb Phrase

vulg. vulgar

w.a. written as

w.p.a. written and pronounced as

wrtn. written

W.W.II World War II

yngr. younger