Macau Government Cantonese Romanization

The Macau Government Cantonese Romanization refers to the mostly consistent system for romanizing Cantonese as employed by the Government of Macau and other non-governmental organizations based in Macau. The system has been employed by the Macau Government since the Portuguese colonial period and continues to be used after the 1999 handover of the territory. Similarly to its counterpart romanization system in Hong Kong, the method is not completely standardized and thus is not taught in schools, but rather employed by government agencies to accurately display the correct pronunciation of Cantonese in public signage and official usage.[1]

The Macau Government romanization of Cantonese uses a similar convention to that of the Hong Kong Government's but is based on Portuguese pronunciation rather than English, given the colonial history of Macau.[2] Therefore, the two governmental standards have differing orthographies for the same Cantonese pronunciation; for instance, the place name known as 石排灣 in Chinese is romanized as Seac Pai Van in Macau but as Shek Pai Wan in Hong Kong.

Usage

For most of Macau's colonial history, the Portuguese government lacked a consistent way of romanizing Cantonese into Portuguese but adopted a de facto standard for transliterating proper names such as geographical locations and surnames. The 1985 publication of the Silabário Codificado de Romanização do Cantonense created a phonetic table and tonal chart of Cantonese based on Portuguese phonology and afterwards became the basis for Cantonese to Portuguese romanization. Prior to this adoption, individuals who studied or conducted business frequently in nearby British Hong Kong would have a tendency to adopt an English-based Hong Kong transliteration for romanizing Cantonese.[3]

Orthography

While the system is not officially standardized, the Macau Government romanization system more or less follows consistent patterns and uses the Portuguese alphabet as its basis. This results in the substitution of letters found in other Cantonese romanization methods for their closest Portuguese equivalents, such as the letter 'v' for 'w' (/w/). As with the system used by the Hong Kong Government, all tones and distinctions between long and short vowels are omitted.[4]

Consanants

Initials

IPA	Macau government	Jyutping	Yale Cantonese	Hong Kong government
pʰ	p	p	p	p
p	p	b	b	p
tʰ	t	t	t	t
t	t	d	d	t
kʰ	k	k	k	k
k	k	g	g	k
kʰw	ku	kw	kw	kw
kw	ku	gw	gw	kw
m	m	m	m	m
n	n	n	n	n
ŋ	ng	ng	ng	ng
l	l	l	l	l
f	f	f	f	f
s	s	s	s	s, sh
h	h	h	h	h
j	i	j	y	y
w	v, w*	w	w	w
tsʰ	ch	c	ch	ch, ts
ts	ch	z	j	ch, ts

Finals

IPA	Macau government	Jyutping	Yale Cantonese	Hong Kong government
-p	-p	-p	-p	-p
-t	-t	-t	-t	-t
-k	-c, -k*	-k	-k	-k
-m	-m	-m	-m	-m
-n	-n	-n	-n	-n
-ŋ	-ng	-ng	-ng	-ng

Note: *Denotes non-governmental standard but may be used as an alternative

Vowels, diphthongs, and syllabic consonants

IPA	Macau government	Jyutping	Yale Cantonese	Hong Kong government
aː	a, ah	aa	aa	a, ah
ɐ	e	a	a	a, o, u
ɛː/e	e	e	e	e
iː	i	i	i	i, ze, ee
o	o, e	o	o	o
uː	u	u	u	u, oo
œː	eu	oe	eu	eu, eo
ɵ	eu	eo	eu	u
yː	iu	yu	yu	yu, u, ue
aːj	ai	aai	aai	ai
ɐj	ai	ai	ai	ai
aːw	ao	aau	aau	au
ɐw	ao	au	au	au
ej	ei	ei	ei	ei, ee, ay, ai, i
iːw	io	iu	iu	iu
ɔːj	oi	oi	oi	oi, oy
uːj	ui	ui	ui	ui
ɵj	oi	eoi	eui	ui
ow	ou	ou	ou	o
m̩	m	m	m
ŋ̩	ng	ng	ng	ng

References

1. Cheng, Siu-Pong and Tang, Sze-Wing. The Routledge Encyclopedia of the Chinese Language: Cantonese Romanization (London: Routledge, 2016), p.42.
2. Cheng, Siu-Pong and Tang, Sze-Wing. The Routledge Encyclopedia of the Chinese Language: Cantonese Romanization (London: Routledge, 2016), p.48.
3. Cheng, 2014 港澳兩地的政府粵語拼音 (Hong Kong and Macau Differences in Official Cantonese Transliteration) (in Chinese), p. 27
4. Cheng, Siu-Pong and Tang, Sze-Wing. The Routledge Encyclopedia of the Chinese Language: Cantonese Romanization (London: Routledge, 2016), p.49.