[ [1] 船 The Dictionary pronunciation is 食川切 zhuen.
69. Words beginning with a vowel, belong to the thirty-first or thirty-third initials (y, y,) according as they are high or low in tone. In giving the romanized form, a more extended subdivision of the vowels must of necessity be adopted. In the present work, the initial vowel is italicized, when its word belongs to the lower series.
- 遠來死 ’yön lé ’sí, very far off.
- 寃枉 yön ’wong, falsely accuse.
Those words in the dialect that begin with n, m, v, while in northern mandarin they have only a vowel as their initial, are placed in the Dictionary system under those consonants, and they are all in the lower tones.
- 原是 ’niön ’zz, well then it is—
- 千山萬水 t’síen san van‘ ’ss, a long distance
- 一百萬 ih páh man‘, a million.
Words in the upper series beginning with a vowel, which in northern mandarin take the sound ng before them, never have it in the Shánghái dialect, nor in the Dictionary system. E.g.[1] ] 愛 ngái‘, 惡 ngóh,[2] ] are pronounced é‘ and oh.
- 愛伊樣物事 é‘ í yáng‘ meh zz‘, love that thing.
In the lower tones the initial ng is always preserved.
- 勿碍啥 veh ngé‘ sá‘, no matter.
- 一眼勿硬 ih ’ngan veh ngáng‘, not in the least hard.
- 咬牙切齒 ’ngaú ngá t’sih ’t’sz, grind teeth with rage.
- 我勿餓 ’ngú veh ngú‘ I am not hungry.
[ [1] 安 m. ngan, s. ön, 恩 ngun, s. un, 哀 ngái, s. é, 暗 ngán‘, s. én‘. The true sound as heard in the provinces where mandarin is spoken, is a guttural to which the English alphabet has no equivalent. NG is employed for want of a better symbol.