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Conversion |
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The basis of this research was a Cantonese character dictionary. The dictionary has an index to each character based on Yale Cantonese Romanization. Each character also has Mandarin pronunciation included with its entry. By looking up every character with a specific Cantonese romanization, every Mandarin pronunciation for that sound was recorded. By keeping track of the number of times a specific Mandarin sound was listed for a Cantonese romanization the relative frequencies was also derived.
Chik, Hon Man and Ng, Lam Sim Yuk. Chinese-English Dictionary. Hong Kong: New Asia- Yale-in-China Chinese Language Center, 1996.
Information on the tone conversions came primarily from Jerry Norman's Chinese. However, to match the Cantonese tone with the tone categories that Norman discusses, it required referencing the character dictionary.
Norman, Jerry. Chinese. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1988.
Additionally, much of the background information concerning Chinese sounds and tones were treated in a Chinese Linguistics course taught by Dr. Dana Bougerie . Dr. Bougerie is a professor of Chinese at Brigham Young University-Provo.
Other works referenced include:
Kwan, Choi Wah. The Right Word in Cantonese. Hong Kong: The Commercial Press, 1996.
Huang, Po-Fei. Speak Cantonese: Book Two. New Haven: Far Eastern Publications, 1982.
Manser, Martin, et. al. Concise English-Chinese Chinese-English Dictionary. New York: Oxford University Press, 1999.