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S. L. Wong (phonetic symbols)


Wong Shik Ling (also known as S. L. Wong) published a scheme of phonetic symbols for Cantonese based on the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA) in the book A Chinese Syllabary Pronounced according to the Dialect of Canton. The scheme has been widely used in Chinese dictionaries published in Hong Kong. The scheme, known as S. L. Wong system (黃錫凌式), is a broad phonemic transcription system based on IPA and its analysis of Cantonese phonemes is grounded in the theories of Y. R. Chao.

Other than the phonemic transcription system, Wong also derived a romanisation scheme published in the same book. See S. L. Wong (romanisation).

Before devising the system, Wong studied many phonetic transcription and romanisation systems, including Eitel's and other earlier schemes, for Cantonese. He found that many of them were not accurate enough for use. He researched Cantonese and published his results in the book in 1938.

The system, with minor variations, has been adopted by some other Hong Kong Chinese dictionaries including 中文字典, Chinese Dictionary by 喬蜆農 (Kiu Yin Nung), 中華新字典, Chung Hwa New Dictionary and 商務新字典, Commercial Press New Dictionary. Hong Kong Education and Manpower Bureau formulates Cantonese Pinyin romanisations based on the system.

In Chinese phonological studies, other systems more phonetic in character are collectively referred to as the narrow transcription (i.e., phonetic transcription) even though they are not necessarily exact phonetic transcription systems. It should be noted that the various narrow transcriptions by different scholars are not identical due to the scholars’ differing analyses of the Cantonese phonemes (for example, the /ts/ phoneme might be analyzed as /tʃ/).


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