Cantonese Cyrillic (Ғоңдұңва Сәйлейї Зимоў)

Cantonese Cyrillic is a way to write Cantonese with the Cyrillic alphabet devised by Dijacz. He is a native Cantonese speaker from Hong Kong, who has been exposed to a variety of languages spoken in the former Soviet Union. In particular, this alphabet draws most of its letters from the Kazakh Cyrillic alphabet (some of which albeit used differently), and is heavily influenced by the Dungan Cyrillic alphabet in terms of grouping of individual morphemes in a Sinitic language. (Dungan is a northern Mandarin dialect, now spoken by groups in ex-Soviet Central Asian states.)In addition, the Mongolian Cyrillic alphabet also influenced the use of letters such as ⟨з⟩ and ⟨ж⟩ in terms of voicing and devoicing.

This alphabet, building upon the Dungan Cyrillic alphabet, explores the use of an alphabetical system for Sinitic languages, especially the concept of combining and splitting certain morphemes, as well as punctuation and capitalization. The Cyrillic script was chosen due to its larger variety of non-accented letters compared to the Latin alphabet, therefore making typing it relatively easier on a Kazakh keyboard. Finally, Jyutping, the Latin-based phonetic transliteration scheme for Cantonese, was also used as inspiration for certain aspects, particularly the word-final consonants.

Notable features

Type of writing system: alphabet
Direction of writing: left to right in horizontal lines.
Used to write: Cantonese (primarily the Hong Kong and Macau varieties)

Cantonese Cyrillic alphabet

Download an alphabet chart for Cantonese Cyrillic (Excel)

Notes

The letter names provided are for reference (and frankly ad-hoc), and knowledge of them is not necessary to use this alphabet.
Vowels ⟨ә⟩, ⟨е⟩ when pronounced [e], ⟨ё⟩, ⟨ұ⟩ and ⟨ы⟩ must be followed by consonants.
"ёй" is pronounced [ɵy] instead of [ɵi] due to vowel harmony.
⟨й⟩ and ⟨ў⟩ are only pronounced [i] and [u] respectively after a vowel.
⟨ъ⟩ is only used to denote the nasal syllabic consonant(s); for instance, 五 /m̩˩˨/ or /ŋ˩˨/ or /n̩˩˨/ ng5 are spelt as мъ, ңъ, нъ respectively. For some speakers, the three pronunciations have coalesced into just /m̩˩˨/, that is, мъ.
⟨ь⟩ is only used in the digraphs ье and ью, where it represents [jɛː] or [jyː] respectively after a consonant. For example, 食嘢 (sik6 je5, "eat something") is written as сыкье.
Word-initial ⟨е⟩ represents [ɛː] rather than [jɛː], which would be spelt "йе" instead.
⟨я⟩ represents [jɐ] rather than [jaː] (i.e. a shorthand for "йә"), as the former sound is more common. [jaː] should be spelt "йа" instead.
⟨ю⟩ attains the value of [iːu] after a same-morpheme consonant (i.e. a shorthand of иў); elsewhere, it is a shorthand of "йү".
Tones are not indicated, same as in colloquial Dungan writing. Usage of diacritical tone markers would be antithetical to the employing of the Cyrillic script in the first place.
The letters ⟨ж⟩, ⟨ч⟩ and ⟨ш⟩ are optional depending on the speaker's dialect. In Dijacz's dialect, palatalized ⟨з⟩, ⟨ц⟩ and ⟨с⟩ are pronounced [t͡ɕ], [t͡ɕʰ] and [ɕ] respectively, hence the separate letters; but other speakers, especially those in Mainland China, may realize them as [t͡sʲ], [t͡sʲʰ], [sʲ] instead.
Word-initially, ⟨ң⟩ may be dropped if the speaker realizes the initial consonant as a glottal stop rather than [ŋ]. For instance, 澳洲 (ou3 zau1, "Australia") may be spelt as either "Ңоўзәў" or "Оўзәў" depending on realization.
At the end of a morpheme (i.e. after a vowel that is not part of a separate morpheme), ⟨п⟩, ⟨т⟩ and ⟨к⟩ are de-aspirated.
⟨и⟩ may optionally be switched for the Ukrainian ⟨і⟩, in closer alignment with the usage of ⟨ї⟩. Likewise, the pairing of ⟨х⟩ and ⟨г⟩ may be switched for ⟨г⟩ and ⟨ґ⟩ as [x] is not used in Cantonese (unlike Mandarin), but this leaves ⟨х⟩ unused and presents the need to access another special character from the perspective of the Kazakh keyboard.
[kʰʷ] and [kʷ] (Jyutping: kw, gw) should be spelled ⟨қ⟩ and ⟨ғ⟩ rather than using the digraphs ⟨ку⟩ and ⟨гу⟩, which are used in Dungan Cyrillic. These letters do not represent [ʁ] or [q], as their counterparts in Kazakh do.
The apostrophe is typically used before "ге" or "ди", possessive particles, as well as count nouns. For example, но’ге чойцан ("my property"), кёй’га це ("his car"), Еди'ди пәңяў ("Eddie's friends").
Common English loanwords should generally be spelt phonetically, i.e. according to Cantonese phonetic principles. For instance, the sentence 「聽日提我book房同埋call車吖!」 ("Remind me tomorrow to book a room and call a cab!") would be written «Тыңят тәйңо бұкфоң тұңмай коце ә!», with "бұк" and "ко" being the approximate Cantonese pronunciations of English "book" and "call" respectively. Such loanwords are also typically the only places where real consonant clusters may be found, such as "training" being spelt "чрейның".

Sample text

Янян сәңїпыңдәң, хәй жүнїм тұңмай күнлей сөң ятлёт пыңдәң. Кёйдей яў лейсың тұңмай лөңсәм, їце йыңдоң ї хыңдәй ғанхәй’ге зыңсән сөңдёйдой.

Transliteration (traditional characters)

人人生而平等，喺尊嚴同埋權利上一律平等。佢哋有理性同埋良心，而且應當以兄弟關係嘅精神相對待。

Transliteration (Jyutping)

jan4 jan4 sang1 ji4 ping4 dang2 hai2 zyun1 jim4 tung4 maai4 kyun4 lei6 soeng6 jat1 leot6 ping4 dang2 keoi5 dei6 jau5 lei5 sing3 tung4 maai4 loeng4 sam1 ji4 ce2 jing1 dong1 ji5 hing1 dai6 gwaan1 hai6 ge3 zing1 san4 soeng1 deoi3 doi6

Transcription (IPA)

[jɐn˩ jɐn˩ sɐŋ˥ jiː˩ pʰɪŋ˩ dɐŋ˧˥ hɐi˧˥ t͡sʲyːn˥ jiːm˩ tʊŋ˩ maːi˩ kyːn˩ lei˨ sœːŋ˨ jɐt˥ lɵt˨ pʰɪŋ˩ dɐŋ˧˥ kʰɵy˩˨ dei˨ jɐu˩˨ lei˩˨ sɪŋ˧ tʊŋ˩ maːi˩ lœːŋ˩ sɐm˥ jiː˩ t͡sʰɛ˧˥ jɪŋ˥ dɔːŋ˥ jiː˩˨ hɪŋ˥ dɐi˨ kʷaːn˥ hɐi˨ kɛː˧ t͡sɪŋ˥ sɐn˩ sœːŋ˥ dɵy˧ dɔːi˨]

Translation

All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights. They are endowed with reason and conscience and should act towards one another in a spirit of brotherhood.
(Article 1 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights)

Further information

If you have any questions about the script, or ideas for improvement, or even just want to chat using Cantonese Cyrillic, feel free to tweet me @ Dijacz on Twitter/X, or leave a message on my Wiktionary talk page, where I also go by Dijacz.

Constructed scripts by Dijacz

Cantonese Cyrillic, Chukchi Latin Alphabet

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