chrisp Posted May 15, 2012 at 03:15 PM Report Share Posted May 15, 2012 at 03:15 PM My dictionary tells me that the pronunciation of 丫 in 南丫島 (Lamma Island) is "aa1", yet I've seen it romanised in a couple of sources as "nga1" when used in the Cantonese name for Lamma Island - Naam4 Nga1 Dou2. This confuses me because I can't see any evidence that the character 丫 is ever pronounced "nga1" on its own - is it some form of regional variant or more traditional/older form? Or some mutation that occurs in certain circumstances? I can't believe it's a typo as two different sources have it romanised with an initial "ng". I know the initial "ng" is often dropped in Cantonese but my dictionary gives forms with initial "ng" in tact. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hofmann Posted May 15, 2012 at 06:51 PM Report Share Posted May 15, 2012 at 06:51 PM 丫 has always started with a glottal stop from Middle Chinese to Cantonese. ngaa1 is probably a hypercorrection. After people started dropping velar nasal initials, some people started adding it in weird places. Kind of like non-rhotic English speakers adding intervocalic r's. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Michaelyus Posted May 15, 2012 at 07:15 PM Report Share Posted May 15, 2012 at 07:15 PM I'd say the hypercorrection is probably 'primed' by having the nasal before it in those compounds. The general instability of the ng- and null initials is at the preliminary stages of leading to a little bit of a literary/colloquial situation (as 愛 is undergoing, with singing being a de facto 'literary' register) or even allophonic. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
chrisp Posted May 24, 2012 at 06:54 PM Author Report Share Posted May 24, 2012 at 06:54 PM Interestingly, I've just seen that my Chinese-English Dictionary, published by The Chinese University Press, gives the pronunciation of 丫 as ngaa1, and not aa1. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mcgau Posted June 7, 2012 at 06:29 PM Report Share Posted June 7, 2012 at 06:29 PM The problem may lie in the sound "ng-" , which is getting diminished in modern Cantonese, notably in Hong Kong. Besides 丫 mentioned by Chrisp, 牛, 我, 亚 and a lot more seem to bear the same meaning regardless of having ng- vowel or not. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hofmann Posted June 9, 2012 at 07:01 AM Report Share Posted June 9, 2012 at 07:01 AM That is because they can be distinguished by their tone. The glottal stop initial is voiceless, which evolved to have 陰 tones. The velar nasal initial is a voiced sound, which evolved to have 陽 tones. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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