Sidney Lau romanisation is a system of romanisation for Cantonese that was developed in the 1970s by Sidney Lau for Cantonese textbooks, glossaries, and dictionary.
Innovation Lau's romanisation indicates tonality with superscript numbers, so no diacritics are required. He uses an English style of writing the vowels, as had some romanizations before him. His system was a plain attempt at simplification which proved popular with western learners of Cantonese as a second language and was initially the system of romanisation adopted by the University of Hong Kong. However, the university now employs the Jyutping system for its Cantonese courses.
Initials bpmfdtnlgknghgwkwwjchsy
Finals In his system, Lau treats /ɵ/ and /o/ as allophones of one phoneme represented with "u", while they are often respectively regarded as allophones of /œ:/ and /u:/ in other systems. Coda∅Vowelaaaiaauaamaanaangaapaataak aiauamanangapatakeei eng eki iuiminingipitikohoio onong otokooooi oon oot ui unung utukeuh eung eukue uen uet ∅ m ng
Tones Tone symbol Tone description ExampleRomanizationWordMeaning 1° or N° high flatpoemelder sister1high fallingfinal particle expressing the idea of addition or regret. 2 or N* mid risinghistorytaxi3mid flattry4low fallingsi4time5low risingcity6low flatis 1° indicates the high flat tone. If ° appears after any other tones, it signifies a changed tone and that the word is to be pronounced as 1°, but 1° is not the original/normal tone of the word. Similar to °, if * appears after any tones apart from tone 2, it indicates that the word is to be pronounced as tone 2, but tone 2 is not the original/normal tone of the word. When the asterisk and small circle are applied to a superscript number, they are not superscripted further. Note that this does not explain High Level Tone, but it is still used in the dictionary.
See also Comparison of Cantonese transcription systems
References
External links Explanation of Sidney Lau's Cantonese Romanization System Cantonese writing, with information on Sidney Lau romanisation