This space is a temporary holding area for my drafts for relatively drastic revisions to some articles.

Emigre magazine (partial rewrite)

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Originally intended to be a journal for graphic design, Emigre also served as a medium for typographical experimentation and to showcase Emigre’s typefaces. Many issues of Emigre contain articles of design criticism or theoretical discussions about graphic design. Some issues do not contain any meaningful amount of editorial content, but the letters section may still contain critical or theoretical discussions.

The magazine has changed formats a few times: originally published quarterly in a large format with pages roughly in the US ledger size; its size was halved to roughly US letter size in issue 33; halving its size again, it was turned into a multimedia kit (booklet plus CD/DVD) starting with issue 60; and finally, it became a book, co-published by Princeton Architectural Press, in issue 64.

Changes in Emigre magazine’s format
Issue# Frequency Format Page size (approx.) Primary content Notes
mm Inches
1–32 quarterly magazine 285 × 425 11" × 17"
33–59 213 × 276 8.5" × 11"
60–61 multimedia 133 × 209 5.5" × 8.5" music CD Booklet contains 1–2 short articles
62 short film (DVD)
63 music CD
64 semi-annual book design criticism ISBN 1-56898-409-X
65 ISBN 1-56898-433-2
66 ISBN 1-56898-437-5
67 ISBN 1-56898-467-7
68 ISBN 1-56898-486-3
69 ISBN 1-56898-592-4

Hong Kong English (partial rewrite)

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Accent of spoken English

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Main article: phonemic differentiation.

The accent of Hong Kong English speakers is influenced by the phonetics of Cantonese in various degrees depending on the fluency of the speaker. It is also influenced by English English. The influences from Cantonese can generally be categorized as

  • lack of non-nasal voiced consonants in Cantonese,
  • lack of various other sounds in Cantonese,
  • structure of the Cantonese syllable, and
  • the current phonological drift in spoken Cantonese in Hong Kong.

Influences from English English

  • Like English English, Hong Kong English is also non-rhotic, which means 'r' is not pronounced except before a vowel.
  • 'wh' read as 'w', as in English English.
  • 'r' sound is often even entirely omitted, such as "course" becomes "caughts" or "calls"; the worst speakers may even say "causy" with the "sy" sound over-emphasized.

Lack of non-nasal voiced consonants

Influences from the lack of non-nasal voiced consonants often causes the following pronunciation errors:

Lack of various other sounds

  • beginning 'r' read as 'w' sound. (the word 'read' is a good example.)
  • 'r' in other positions may be read as 'w' or 'l' . (eg. 'error' as E-WA, the famous 'flied lice' and 'frame', respectively.)
  • 'r' and 'l' in positions other than the beginning are also often confused. (Breakfast becomes BLEG-FUSS for some, 'bleach' and 'breach' both become 'beach')
  • beginning 'v' read as 'w' sound. (eg. 'Vector' and 'Aston Villa')
  • other 'v' becomes 'w' or 'f' mostly with a consensus yet no obvious pattern. (eg. 'f' in 'favour', second 'v' in 'Volvo' and either 'f' or 'w' in 'develop' depending on the speaker.)
  • Merging of certain 'a' and 'e' sounds, which becomes the schwa sound most of the time. eg. 'bad' and 'bed', 'mass' and 'mess'.

Influences from the structure of the Cantonese syllable

  • producing the 'w', 'h' or 'l' sounds in words like Greenwich, Bonham, Beckham, Salisbury. This is reflected in the transliteration of the words, for example, Beckham is transliterated as 碧咸.
  • some letters are spoken with phonemes used in Cantonese, such as 'e' as 'YEE', 'f' becomes 'E-fu', 'h' becomes 'IG-chyu', 'l' becomes 'E-lo', 'q' becomes 'KIW', 'r' becomes 'AA-lo', 'w' becomes 'DUB-bee-you', 'x' becomes 'IG-si', 'z' becomes 'yee-ZED'.
  • Differences or omission in ending sounds. (as the ending consonants are always voiceless and unreleased (glotallized) in Cantonese with the exception of 'm', 'n' and 'ng', similar to Basel German)
  • Omission of entire syllables in longer words. ('Difference' become DIFF-ENS, 'temperature' becomes TEM-PI-CHUR.)

Influences from the current phonological drift in spoken Cantonese in Hong Kong

  • beginning 'n' and 'l' often confused (these two sounds are becoming allophones for younger speakers of Cantonese)
  • beginning 'j' and soft 'g' read as 'dz' (e.g., Gigi pronounced as "zhi-zhi").
  • ending 'ge' read as 'ch'.
  • 'th' read as 'd' (as in them) or 'f' (as in thick) sound. ('th' sound is not used in Cantonese)
  • ending 'l' (IPA: [ɫ]) often pronounced as 'w', as in Polish. This [w] is sometimes strengthened and becomes like /o/ (e.g., sale becomes SAY-o)
  • ending 't' pronounced as 'ts' (i.e. German 'z')
  • Exaggeration of ending 'd' sound of past-tense form of verbs.
  • multi-syllable words might sometimes be wrongly stressed, since Chinese is tonal and largely monosyllabic.
  • producing the "ces" sound in Leicester or Gloucester.
  • The same is true for some for 'g' becoming 'DZEE', 'j' becoming 'DZAY' and 'v' becoming 'WEE'. (The reasons were mentioned above.)
  • Merging or interchangeability of 's' and 'z' sound.
  • Difficulties in pronouncing certain syllables: 'salesman' become 'sellsman', 'round' becomes 'WAANG'. (Without the ending consonant pronounced and occasionally with an ending 'd'.)
  • Replacement of the contrast of voiceless / voiced consonants with aspirated / unaspirated if there is any contrast exists in Cantonese. [p] becomes [pʰ] and [b] becomes [p]; [t] becomes [tʰ] and [d] becomes [t]; [k] becomes [kʰ] and [g] becomes [k].
  • Merging voiceless / voiced consonants into voiceless if no contrast in aspirated / unaspirated in Cantonese. Both [f] and [v] become [f]; both [z] and [s] become [s]; both [tʃ] and [dʒ] become [tʃ] ; both [ʃ] and [ʒ] become [ʃ]; both [θ] and [ð] become [θ] ( difficulty in pronouncing [θ] too).

Archaisms

  • The letter “z” is generally pronounced as [jiˈsɛt̚], a corrupted version (due to various of the above-mentioned reasons) of a very archaic pronunciation /ɪˈzæd/; the correct pronunciations, /zɛd/ and /zi:/, are sometimes not understood

Such accents as mentioned above is especially significant in engineering field, that when people tried to talk with local technical supports, or listening to local lectures in Computing, they always have to tolerate with people speaking these sorts of "accents".

Pronunciation in English

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In Hong Kong, the pronunciation of words romanized under this system is somewhat anglicized, but does not correspond to normal English pronunciations. In other English-speaking areas, for example Canada, many of these romanized words are frequently mispronounced because they do not actually follow English phonetics.

Consonants

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Initials

Romanisation Corresponding Cantonese sound (Jyutping) Pronunciation in English (IPA) Example
Officially Incorrectly (per English)
p p /p/ — ([pʰ]) Sai Ying Pun
p b /p/ — usually [pʰ] Po Lam
t t /t/ Tuen Mun
t d /t/ — usually [tʰ] Tai O
k k Kai Tak
k g k Tai Kok Tsui
kʰw kw kw Kwai Chung
kw gw kw Kwun Tong
m m m Yau Ma Tei
n n n Nam Cheong
ŋ ng ng Ngau Tau Kok
l l l Lam Tin
f f f Fo Tan
s s s So Kon Po
sh Shau Kei Wan
h h h Heng Fa Chuen 杏花邨
j j y Yau Tong 油塘
w w w Wong Tai Sin 黃大仙
tsʰ c ch Heng Fa Chuen 杏花邨
ts Yau Yat Tsuen 又一村
ts z ch Chung On Estate 頌安邨
ts Tai Kok Tsui 大角嘴

Finals

IPA Jyutping Romanisation Example in Chinese
-p -p -p Ap Lei Chau 鴨脷洲
-t -t -t Yau Yat Tsuen 又一村
-k -k -k Shek O 石澳
-m -m -m Sham Shui Po 深水埗
-n -n -n Kwun Tong 觀塘
-ng -ng Kwun Tong 觀塘

Vowels, diphthongs, and syllabic consonants

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IPA Jyutping Romanisation Example in Chinese
ɑ aa a Yau Ma Tei 油麻地
ah Wah Fu Estate 華富邨
ɐ a a Tsz Wan Shan 慈雲山
o Hung Hom 紅磡
u Sham Chun River 深圳河
ɛ/e e e Che Kung Miu 車公廟
ɪ/i i i Tsing Yi 青衣
ze Sheung Sze Wan 相思灣
z Tsz Wan Shan 慈雲山
ee Tat Chee Avenue 達之路
ɔ o o Wo Che 禾輋
ʊ/u u u Kwun Tong 觀塘
oo Mei Foo 美孚
œ eo eu Sheung Wan 上環
eo Nam Cheong 南昌
oe u Shun Lee Estate 順利邨
y yu u Yu Chau Street 汝州街
ue Yung Shue Wan 榕樹灣
ɑɪ aai ai Chai Wan 柴灣
ɐɪ ai ai Mai Po 米埔
ɑʊ/ɑu aau au Shau Kei Wan 筲箕灣
ɐʊ/ɐu au au Sau Mau Ping 秀茂坪
ei ei Lei King Wan 鯉景灣
ee Lee On 利安
ay Kam Hay Court 錦禧苑
ai Shui Hau Sai Ngan Ma 水口四眼馬
ɪʊ iu iu Yiu Tung Estate 耀東邨
ɔɪ oi oi Choi Hung Estate 彩虹邨
oy Choy Yee Bridge 蔡意橋
ʊɪ/uɪ ui ui Pui O 貝澳
œy eoi ui Sham Shui Po 深水埗
ou o Tai Mo Shan 大帽山
u u Tung Chung 東涌
m m m m koi * 唔該
ŋ ng ng Ng Tung River 梧桐河