RAS-1995 — Page 155

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The book is laid out as follows (from top to bottom). A word or phrase is given in Chinese. The Chinese is in most cases the colloquial Cantonese of the time. To the right of the Chinese characters is the Cantonese pronunciation using the spelling convention of Dr Williams' Tonic Dictionary of the Canton Dialect (1856),

Below the romanized Chinese is the translation of the Chinese into standard English, and to the left of the English is a rendering of the standard English pronunciation using a syllabary based on colloquial Cantonese in Chinese characters. How Pidgin English fits into this, I shall come to later.

We want to convey to you that the phonetic transcription into Chinese characters of the English is rigorous and very effective. It is clear that the author is an un-sung hero of phonetic analysis, and ahead of his time in his observation. His transcription is based on three levels of refinement.

First, where the standard Cantonese pronunciation of a Chinese syllable is close enough to the corresponding English syllable, the character is used. Where no suitable character is available, an ersatz syllable is created using the "mouth" radical and fan-qie method, according to the prevailing convention for reproducing colloquial Cantonese words which are not normally written down.

#1

Hit

年

Keens

#19

候

時令

be ling

Teason

have - Time

-

Year

Yutsal Genvention

夜晒上平看

鄭拿染純

HQ HH

Fig. 1. The lay-out of Tong Ting Shue's "Ying Ü Tsap Ts'un"

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