March 29, 2011

Cantonese

Cantonese is spoken by over 40 million people in southern China in the Guangdong (including Hong Kong) and Guangxi Provinces, as well as in Britain, Canada, Australia, and USA and many other parts of the world. There are 19 consonants, 11 vowels, 11 diphthongs, and 9 tones in Cantonese.
Cantonese has16 oral consonants
/p, ph, t, th, k, kh, kw, kwh, ts, tsh, f, s, h, w, j, l/

and 3 nasal consonants /m, n, ŋ/.
There are 11 vowels in Cantonese: 7 long vowels /i, y, ɛ, œ, а, ɔ, u/ and 4 short vowels /ɪ, ɵ, ʊ, ɐ/. Of the short vowels, /ɪ, ɵ, ʊ/ are allophones of /i, œ, u/ respectively.

There are 11 diphthongs /аi, ei, ɐi, ui, ɔi, аu, ɐu, iu, ou, ɵy, eu/.

The syllable structure of Cantonese is (C)V(C) and there are six possible syllable structures in Cantonese: V, C, CV, VC, CVV, and CVC. Only two syllables have a single consonant as a syllable: namely /m/ and /ŋ/.

Cantonese uses tones to differentiate lexical meaning. There are six contrastive tones (high level, high rise, mid level, low fall, low rise, and low level) plus three entering tones for syllables that end with /–p/, /–t/ or /–k/.

Cantonese uses syllable-timed rhythm.

Source: So, L. K. H. (2007). Cantonese speech acquisition In S. McLeod (Ed.), The international guide to speech acquisition (pp. 313-326). Clifton Park, NY: Thomson Delmar Learning.
With advice from Dr Carol Kit Sum To.