Cantonese Romanization System Research Paper Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1750 words

Cantonese Romanization System - Research Paper Example From the essay it is clear this is a form of Romanizing Cantonese proper nouns that is widely used by the Hong Kong government departments and non-governmental organizations in Hong Kong. This use of this method by the government has a long history dating back to the days of British rule and it has undergone a lot of metamorphosis through the two world wars. There are no strict guidelines laid on the method since it just established itself and since then it became a common practice. Due to the un-standardized nature of the method, this system got its critics to a point that other systems are recommended in teaching institutions for its place. As the research declares there are several drawbacks associated with Hong Kong government Romanization system. Firstly, Hong Kong government Romanization system not fully standardized as a system and thus posses a great challenge in spelling since many of the phonemes are similar to more than one letter combination or the other way round. Secondly, In Hong Kong government Romanization system, all tones and distinctions between unaspirated and aspirated stops are omitted and this leads to a great problem in spelling. Lastly, there is existence of inconsistencies throughout Hong Kong government Romanization system as a result of loss of distinctions historically. That is, a distinction between alveolar and palatal sounds making most consonants undistinguished in present-day speech, lacks tone marks, lacks diacritics and different spellings sometimes used for the similar phonemes.