THE STRATIFICATION OF ENGLISH LOANWORDS IN CANTONESE

The Cantonese and English languages began their contact relationship 300 years ago when British traders arrived in Guangzhou to buy a variety of goods from Chinese merchants. As a result of this long history of intimate contact in the Cantonese-speaking region of South China, Cantonese has borrowed hundreds of English words through the process of phonetic transliteration. This paper examines the impact that the phonetic adaptation of English loanwords has had on the structure and development of the Cantonese syllabary. Although Cantonese and English are typologically distinct languages, nonetheless, this study on the stratification of English loanwords reveals how their phonological systems seem to fit hand in glove.