Gwohngdongwaa pengyam

Alphabet

A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P (q) S T U W Y

Shengmus (Consonants aided by International Phonetic Alphabets. In order to see proper display of IPA, you must download a Unicode font)

• B [p] unaspirated
• C [ts'] aspirated
• D [t] un...
• F [f]
• G [k] un...
• H [h]
• J [ts] un...
• K [k'] asp...
• L [l]
• M [m]
• N [n]
• P [p'] asp...
• S [s]
• T [t'] asp...
• W [w]
• Y [j]

• C is [ts'] as "tz" in Politzer.
• J [tz] is the unaspirated form of C.
• q is a glottal stop, Arabic "hamsa", as it appears in Cantonese interjection lâq, which is interchangeable with lâg.

Yunmus

Vowels:

• long: aa(ah) eh(ee) i oh(oo) u oe ue
• short: a e o
• diphthongs1: aay(ai) ooy(oi) uy aaw(au) iw ay ey oy aw ow
• diphthongs2: single vowels and diphthongs1 preceded by semi-vowel w, such as way as in gwây (expensive)

Yunmus aided by International Phonetic Symbols

long

• aa [a] ("a" alone or followed by "g", "b", "d", "ng", "m", "n", "i", "u")
• eh [ɛ] open-mid front unrounded
• i [i]
• oh [ɔ]-mid back rounded
• u [u]
• oe [ɶ] open-mid front rounded
• ue [y]

short

• a [ɠ]-mid back unrounded
• e [e] close-mid front unrounded
• o [o] close-mid back rounded

diphthongs

• aay(ai) [ai]
• ooy(oi) [ɔy]
• uy [uy]
• aaw(au) [au]
• iu [iw]
• ay [ɠj]
• ey [ej]
• oy [øy] (ø is mid-close front rounded)
• aw [ɠu]
• ow [ow]

Short vowels are those in short yunmus, and long vowels in long yunmus. All short vowels are pronounced with tighter, smaller enclosure of lips than are their long counterparts.

Orthography

• Ru:
  • aap aat aak
• Ping/shang/qu:
  • aam aan aang
  • ehk ehng
  • ip it im in
  • oht ohk ohn ohng
  • ut un
  • oet
  • uet uen

Short yunmus followed by consonants:

• Ru:
  • ap at ak
• P/S/Q:
  • am an ang
  • ek eng
  • ot ok on ong

Tones

Diacritic mark is usually displayed above the FIRST letter in a bi-letter vowel like "aa" and "oe":

1. Yin1Ping2 or high Yin1Ru4 (Yam1Peng4 also high Yam1Yap6): aa1, äa (umlaut)
2. Yin1Shang3(Yam1Soeng5): aa2, ãa (tilde)
3. Yin1Qu4 or low Yin1Ru4 (Yam1Hoy3 also low Yam1Yap6): aa3, âa (circumflex)
4. Yang2Ping2(Yoeng4Peng4): aa4, aa (plain)
5. Yang2Shang3(Yoeng4Soeng5): aa5, áa (acute)
6. Yang2Qu4(Yoeng4Hoy3): aa6, àa (grave)

6 tones represented by numerical scales of pitch, "1" being the lowest, "6" the highest"

• First: "Jäw" tone, scale= 66
• Second: "Hãw" tone, scale= 35
• Third: "Dîm" tone, scale= 44
• Fourth: "Hoh" tone, scale= 11
• Fifth: "Mów", scale=24
• Sixth: "Dòw", scale=22

Either the tone numbers 1-6 or the diacritic marks may be used

• note: a shortcut for memorizing all 6 of them is a couplet:

Jaw1 Haw2 Dim3, Hoh4 Mow2 Dow6

Zhou1 Kou3 Dian4, He2 Mu3 Du4 (Mandarin)

(周口店, 河姆渡)

Zhoukoudian is an archeological site near Beijing containing a 500,000 year old Homo Erectus habitat; Hemudu is a Zhejiang archeological site of Neolithic human activities.

Referenced By