"standard" hokkien

[danteferry]

I am trying to tape my prayer texts in "standard" Hokkien. Which one is it? Is it the Hokkien spoken in Amoy, China? Is Swatow a different dialect altogether?

[%sig%]

[Andrew Yong]

"Standard" minnan is usually the Amoy standard.

[hong]

Since your country and all others in South East Asia are majority Chuanchiu,the text should be in chuanchiu but certainly not xia and zhang.This should be the case for all other dialects in any country.There is no reason for taiwanese to speak minnan closer to xiamen.

[Niuc]

E-mng dialect is considered "standard" because it's a "mixture" (in between) of Cuanciu and Ciangciu dialects. It's easier for Cuanciu and Ciangciu speakers to understand E-mng dialect than to each other.

[%sig%]

[hong]

Dear Niuc,
I certainly can't agree about any standard even for hakka,wu or cantonese dialect.Each one should just learn his native place dialect and consider that is the standard for himself .Taiwan minnan people have nothing to do with xiamen as mentioned by Prof Ang's article 漳泉在台灣的融合 in uijin.idv.tw.People do mind what kind of minnan we are and will definately ask can you speak that kind of minnan perfectly.In Filipina they have 1.5 m quanchiu and malaysia has 1.7 m quanchiu(zhang and xia cannot match that at all).Singapore has 90000 quanchiu but I have no idea how many zhang/xia?Please minus the figure to get the firgure for me .
Have you ordered Tongan Thesis by Prof Zhang yet?
I have an article by Chinfa lien on Bong which will be appeared in JCL of California.Do you want me to email you in Word format for free?

[hong]

sorry ,I should type 900000 九十萬。There is a malaysian scholar saying 五十千﹐300千 is a dialect saying but I think it is just an imitation from english language.In a few chinese fangyan it is allowed to omit the first figure( 一)for 萬五﹐千五 .

[Niuc]

Dear Hong

Yes, please send it to my email. Thanks a lot!

I fully agree that everyone should learn his/her own dialect. Nonetheless it's better for us to know the common features (phonology, diction, etc) across all Hokkien dialects. Wouldn't it be ridiculous if a Cuanciu speaker and a Ciangciu speaker should communicate in Mandarin or English instead of in "mixed Hokkien"?

For any language to be taught, especially to non native speakers, more or less it should be standardized. It would be good if the experts can include best features of every dialects into a standard dialect, e.g. to keep 'er' and 'ir'/'y' from Cuanciu, 'j' from Ciangciu, etc. Alternatively E-mng dialect can be the standard, de facto it has been.

Penang / Medan Hokkien usually say go`7 cap8 cheng1 for 50000. We always say go`7 ban7. For 1500 we never say cit8 ching1 go`5 but always ching1 go`5.

By search function I found the Tongan thesis mentioned here http://www.chineselanguage.org/forum/re ... reply_1710 but can't find the link.

[%sig%]

[hong]

Dear Niuc,
The 2 thesises by Zhang are not online for download.Most of the thesises for download are from less well known university and no thesis from TaiDa and Qinghua university are online.We have to pay the library for each thesis.All of them who agree to put it freely online are aged below 30.
It will be too hard to ask any chuanchiu and chiangchiu to learn xiamen as well even in mainland china.As long as three schools of minnan don't use their own nouns,verbs and proverbs when they speak between each other but just the sound,it is OK.

[Andrew Yong]

Niuc: Do you know if the use of "chap-chheng" instead of "ban" is observed in Hokkien or Taiwan as well, or is it only in Penang?

[Niuc]

Hong, thanks a lot for the article about "bong2". It's really good. Did you buy it? (since it's from Qinghua University) How to order Prof Zhang's theses and how much do they cost?

If everyone only learn his own dialect, how is he going to know which words are particular to his dialect? The common words, understood by every (or most) people, is a form of standardization.

Andrew, I have never heard the usage of cap8 ching1 instead of ban7 in dialects other than Penang/Medan. May be it's a Ciangciu feature. Let's ask people in http://chinese.pku.edu.cn/bbs/forum.php?fid=6 .

[%sig%]