Hokkiens Also Originally Not Chinese???

[Kobo-Daishi]

Dear Niuc,

The Carstairs Douglas Dictionary, “Chinese-English Dictionary of the Vernacular or Spoken Language of Amoy” is available at the http://www.cheng-tsui.com/ site’s on-line bookstore.

I saw it offered in one of their previous print catalogs but not in their most recent one.

Here is their blurb about the dictionary.

Chinese-English Dictionary of the Vernacular or Spoken Language of Amoy

Price: $89.50
Author: Carstairs Douglas; Supplement by Thomas Barclay
Unit: Hdcr
Prepared in 1873 by a Presbyterian missionary and updated in 1923, this dictionary remains the premier reference work in English to the Amoy language, then as now spoken by millions both in China and in the diaspora. In his supplement, Barclay pays tribute to the “incalculable benefit” of the original work. Both dictionary and supplement are entirely in Douglas’s own romanization system, though the supplement includes Chinese initial characters. Definitions are detailed and clear, and five appendices on aspects of the Amoy language and its dialects are included.SMC, 1991; 7 x 9.25, 888pp.

Do a keyword search for Amoy at their site. It says the dictionary is available but you should e-mail or phone them to make sure that it is.

I might get a copy myself since Aurelio recommends it so highly.

Kobo-Daishi, PLLA.

[Niuc]

Dear Aurelio & Kobo-Daishi,

Thanks a lot!

[Aurelio]

Hi:

Luckily I kept the pricetag on the book: The shop's name was "Vista Culture Square" and I think that is in Metro Paragon (right hand side of the main entrance) rather than in Takashimaya. The detail information is:


(1)
Xiamen Fangyan Cidian (Li Rong et al.)
ISBN 7-5343-1995-1
$23.20

(2)
Rev. C. Douglas (Suppl. by Rev. T. Barclay):
Dictionary of the Vernacular or Spoken Language of Amoy
(Xia-Ying DaCidian)
ISBN 957-9482-32-2
$92.40

From what Kobo-Daishi writes the price does not seem to have changed too much. Both dictionaries have their merits. The 1873 one is more comprehensive, it uses the Missionary Romanization System and has a lot of variant pronunciations (Hokkien-dialects) and all the literary pronunciations as well. It's a pity that only the supplement has characters (but most words appear in both sections). The Xiamen Fangyan Cidian is all characters and uses the international phonetic alphabet for romanisation. It does have sample sentences in Hanzi for a lot of words, too (one of the rare opportunities to see Hokkien written). The explanations are in Madarin. Both dictionaries are what I'd call "entire word"-dictionaries, none of this "character dictionary - I'll only tell you how to pronounce this character but I won't tell what the special fangyan words mean"-nonsense I have seen for Cantonese. If you can, get them both!

Some years ago I read an onlie Taipei Times article on a new giant Hokkien Dictionary prepared in Taiwan (Hokkien - Mandarin, pronunciation in Bopomofo). Maybe you want to search their online archives on that.

Best regards,
Aurelio

[Niuc]

Dear Aurelio

Cin cia* tou sia ly 真正多謝您 (Really thanks you a lot).

Thanks to you for the detailed information, I've gotten those two dictionaries at that bookstore, basically at the same price. The bookstore (Vista Culture Square) is also named 'Yuan Jing 遠景'. Both are really good & interesting. I'm really grateful to get them.

The shopkeeper told me that the big one was the last one available in the shop. Due to very low demand, they didn't stock that one. I felt quite lucky to get it but at the same time saddened of the fact that almost nobody in Singapore had interest in these books.

It's really difficult to find books on Hokkien language in Singapore. At Yuan Jing (Vista) I only found those two. At Kinokuniya Takashimaya those two were not even available, I only found the "Elementary Hokkien" and a Taiwanese book introducing Hokkien. I think the "Elementary Hokkien" is quite good for beginners; it's Hokkien-Mandarin-English-Malay-Japanese, not bad. There are quite a few books/dictionaries on Cantonese, even Shanghainese & Hakka, yet almost none for Hokkien/Minnan. It's a pity that among Southern Chinese in South East Asia, Hokkiens are the most ignorant regarding preserving their own culture/language.

Hopefully in Taiwan as a start, there'll be more Hokkien youngsters interested in gaining back their own heritage (language/culture) and develop it for greater benefits, without being trapped into chauvinism. Other places hopefully will follow. I hope it's not an empty daydream


Thanks a lot & Best Regards,
Niuc

[:-)]

"It's a pity that among Southern Chinese in South East Asia, Hokkiens are the most ignorant regarding preserving their own culture/language. "


Niuc,

I don't know if preserving culture/language has anything to do with ignorance, however, from a sociological point of view looking hindsight into colonial history of South East Asia, I found that Hokkiens followed by Hakkas are so ready to abandon their traditional Chinese heritages compared to other groups such as Cantonese-Guangdong-ren.

Looking hindsight, in the cases of Indonesia, Malaysia, and the Philippines, the Cantonese as a group in general show the most cultural resistance to assimilating which includes converting to Christianity-Catholicism or Islam, poltical activism, intermarriage with local people...

In the Philippines there is the provincial island called Cebu where at least million residents can trace their roots to Fujian. There is a possibility that Hokkien &/or other Fujian dialects are going strong on Cebu, however, on the island of Luzon it appears that most of the Hokkiens "made" it a "policy" to assimilate and speak Tagolog. It is my understanding that "Chinese culture" in the Philippines is most visible via their small Cantonese community dispite Hokkien having the most dominant Chinese presence. The Chinese demographic pattern of assimilation on Luzon appears to be a microcosm for the rest of SE Asia which I find quite interesting on a regional scale.

The question is why is one group of Chinese such as Hokkien is more likely to assimilate/abandon their Chinese cultures at a more rapid pace than other groups such as Cantonese.

Over the short life of my present career, I've helped first, second, third generation overseas Cantonese from SouthEast Asia who are fluent in Cantonese as well as Tagalog, Bahasa, Burmese, Vietnamese but not English. I've also helped Malaysian-born Cantonese who can't utter a word of Malaysian. On the flip side of the coin, I've also helped Hokkiens from SouthEast Asia but I discovered that many only speak English and Bahasa, Tagalog, Burmese, or Vietnamese but no Hokkien.

So to answer my question as to why Cantonese are most likely not to assimilate locally compared to Hokkiens in SE Asia, I'm witnessing that the overseas Cantonese communities are a highly mobil/trans-migratory community which means many Cantonese are moving within international communities eventually hoping to find a permenant home mainly in North America (Austrailia, England, or France) where one can still maintain a quality of life similar to what one is used to before and not assimilate into mainstream culture. (BTW, Los Angeles is one of their most popular destinations). There is also the obvious reason that in order to maintain business guanxi with HongKong when it "was" a laissez-faire economy, Cantonese fluency still is a "financial asset" as a language with international "currency" when analyzing the value of a group's community purchasing power (contrary to popular/political belief of the pro-Mandarin speaking camp). To me, retaining Cantonese fluency & culture as a result of a successful Hong Kong entertainment industry is not a strong enough arguement for language preservation.

This Cantonese international trans-migrancy culture, I believe, differs from that of Hokkien community who who expected to settle in SE Asia permanently as their final destination. Interesting, once these overseas Cantonese settle in the United States, chances are their children will follow the pattern of assimilation into mainstream society just like the Hokkiens in SE Asia because where else is there left to settle once you've arrived in North America?

I don't believe maintaining Chinese languages/cultural retention has anything to do with chauvanism. In my humble opinion, its preservation has more to do with maintaining international guanxi among overseas Chinese communities.

Unlike the catylistic conditions which inspired other Chinese groups to move into SE Asia, the Cantonese left Guangdong under different circumstances mainly as a result of a Civil Wars. The Cantonese of SE Asia know first hand what it means to be held prisoner in the Killing Fields of Kampuchea where the mainstream media fails to report that half of all Cambodians murdered by Pol Pot where ethnic Guangdong-ren (approx. 1 million). The Cantonese know first hand without warning that they must drop all their wordly possessions in an event of a political crisis such as in the case of Vietnam where nearly all of Boat People fleeing Saigon were ethnic-Guangdong-ren whom many were pilliaged & raped by pirates before becoming food for sharks. Even the Guangdong-ren of North America had their share of historical turmoil in which one never knew when one was subjected to harassment and be deported. Given the international hostilities against the Cantonese-Guangdong-ren people compared to other Chinese groups in general, one understands why retaining "Cantonese" as an international "lingua franca" was so important for the Guangdong-ren. The international Cantonese-Guangdong-ren community was constantly surviving & existing in a state of political flux.

Personally, for me, maintaining Chinese languages & culture is about discovery & unlocking secrets to my past.

[Lim Eng Di]

Just to clarify:

Smiley Face writes: "The Cantonese of SE Asia know first hand what it means to be held prisoner in the Killing Fields of Kampuchea where the mainstream media fails to report that half of all Cambodians murdered by Pol Pot where ethnic Guangdong-ren (approx. 1 million)".

If you mean in the general sense of Guangdong-ren meaning people from the province of Guangdong this statement is correct. But more likely, most Ethnic Chinese who were killed under the Pol Pot Regime were not Cantonese speakers but rather Teochius. The vast majority were Teochiu. To this day Teochius are the majority of the Chinese population in Cambodia. Cantonese make up a very small minority of the Chinese population. Vietnam however was and is populated by more Cantonese than Teochius.

Thanks

[:-)]

L.E.D.

Some people can not differentiate the difference between Guangdong-ren vs. Cantonese as the former includes the latter while "Cantonese" does not represent all of Guangdong. I'm glad that you are one that can see the difference and that is how I presented my arguement so extra clarification was not necessary on your part to support my position on comparing Cantonese to Hokkiens with regards to assimilation.

Even as a small minority in Cambodia, Cantonese are no more or no less victims of Pol Pot as those whose ancestry hail from Chaozhou, Guangdong. Both groups share the same atrocities and horrors so my statement about "Guangdong-ren" being victims of the Khmer Rouge still holds correct as "Guangdong-ren" is a more an inclusive term. Some people don't realize that when Vietnam was purging (ethnic-cleansing) it's Cantonese community in the South, many Cantonese instead of taking to the sea went an alternative route and sought refuge in Cambodia by mistake only to discover it was another death trap.

Personally, I'm not in a contest to see which community has more or less people or which group had more sacrafices. I'm trying to report situations as I interpret history and try to integrate it into the knowledge share. Yes, Cantonese are still a minority in Cambodia but that does not mean they're arent there at all and originally, I wasn't making a case for "size does matter". You will find in Place d' Italie, Paris a significant community of Cantonese who escaped Pol Pot which supports my position that the Cantonese-speaking community is a highly trans-migratory group and because of this trans-migration they retain their Cantonese language to a higher degree compared to other Chinese groups in order to maintain the guanxi which connects them to other established Cantonese-speaking communities around the world.

According to a report I've reviewed a long while back, the Cantonese community in Paris claim that only 10% of the Cantonese survived Pol Pot's ethnic cleansing for it was the Cantonese community which most symbolized everything the Khmer Rouge wanted to eliminate from society, the merchant class. (I have not seen a report consisting what percentage of the Chaozhou people survived under Pol Pot). So if we evaluate the destruction of the Chinese community by percentages in Cambodia during the Khmer Rouge, a 90% decimation of a specific target group (ie Cantonese) speaks just as significant as the group (Chaozhou) which lost more lives. Who is to say who suffered more? Again, numbers of lost lives was not the point I was trying to make however, it was their experience of sufferage which I wanted to put forth to support my position.

Have it ever occured to you that the Teochius of the Mekong River & Delta in Cambodia & Vietnam speak Cantonese just as well as the native Cantonese-speakers?

[Andrew Yong]

If the e in e sai is hui4, how do you write e hiao (know how to)?


andrew

[Niuc]

Andrew Yong,

'ei hiau' is 會曉 (hui4xiao3 in Mandarin).

[Niuc]

Hi Smiley Face ,

Thanks for sharing your view & experience. It's really interesting.

I share your opinion that many Hokkiens in South East Asia have, to various degrees, absorbed local cultures. Hokkiens were the earliest Chinese migrating to SE-Asia, they absorbed local culture and also enriched local culture. E.g.: Malay language contains a lot of words derived from Hokkien and colloquial Hokkien in SE-Asia has many words loaned from/through Malay. There are also people called 'Peranakan', mixed Chinese (mainly Hokkiens) & Malay with combined culture: Malay speaking, Chinese custom/religion, mixed culinary, etc.

Hokkiens whose ancestors came later (end of 19th century & afterward) usually still preserve most of their original culture and still speak Hokkien. Ancestors of Hokkien people in Eastern Sumatra (including my family) came to SE-Asia about 90-120 years ago. We are among the most Chinese of Indonesian Chinese. I heard that many Hokkiens in Manila & nearby still can speak Hokkien, although may be they primarily speak Tagalog. Many of Hokkiens in Malaysia still can speak Hokkien but their youngsters are abandoning it for Mandarin. In Singapore it's even worse.

Unlike Cantonese that have Hongkong media to promote it, Hokkien has none until recently i.e. Taiwanese media that not yet as vibrant as Hongkong's. The media do play important role. In Malaysia, most Chinese can speak Cantonese because of overwhelming Hongkong programs in Malaysian tv stations. Many Malaysian Hokkiens especially youngsters think that Cantonese is better & more trendy than Hokkien. In Indonesia, Cantonese is not that trendy because Hongkong tv programs are dubbed into Indonesian. In Singapore, no 'dialect' tv serials allowed and Mandarin is wiping other Chinese languages out.

As pointed out by Aurelio http://www.chineselanguage.org/forum/re ... =571&t=571 , most Hokkiens don't regard their language as a proper language. They have been being brainwashed for a long time, either by themselves or others (governments, media, etc). Unlike Cantonese that have pride in their own language and resistance against pressure from Mandarin & other languages, Hokkiens usually believe that Mandarin is better and adopt other languages for practical sake. May be they are too materialistic and have no strong attachment to their ancestral heritage. They are also easily deceived by political propaganda that Mandarin is the mother tongue of all Chinese, or that Cantonese is more trendy, etc. May be they just don't care.

I am not against Mandarin or Cantonese or any other languages. I benefit a lot from Mandarin and I like it too. I also like English and benefit even more from it. I believe that multilingualism is a very good thing. Yet I won't abandon my ancestral language because it's part of myself. As you said, it's not about chauvinism, but about discovery. I fully support Mandarin as the lingua franca among Chinese. Knowing Mandarin (& other Chinese languages) should be a help in preserving Hokkien (or Cantonese, etc), not a reason to abandon it. Even knowing English can be a help since most information in internet is in English and it allows Hokkiens that don't know Mandarin to learn Hokkien, e.g. through this forum .