Hi,
I haven't posted for a while, but I'm still reading regularly.
The word in Penang Hokkien I use for "the middle" is tiong7-ng1 (with tone-sandhi). It just struck me that "ng-" is quite an unusual sound in the Zhangzhou form of Hokkien.
It's not as uncommon in Amoy Hokkien, where a word like "yellow", would be pronounced "ng5", but that is pronounced "ui*5" in Penang Hokkien. As far as I know, there are almost no words in Penang Hokkien with "ng-" as an initial sound. The only ones I can think of are:
... "ngEh8" ("to squeeze, to get caught in" (e.g. a door, or between a pair of pliers))
... "ngam1" ("to match")
Now, these two could perhaps be loans from another dialect ("ngam1" sounds a bit like Cantonese to me, with my limited knowledge).
However, a term like "tiong7-ng1" seems very unlikely to be borrowed. Are other people familiar with this term, and if so, what is the Hanzi for it?
Sim.
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"tiong-ng" (middle)
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Niuc
Re: "tiong-ng" (middle)
Hi Sim 
Nice to hear from you again
'tiong1 ng1' (sandhi: tiong7_ng1) is 中央 (zhong1yang1 in Mandarin Pinyin), a very common word for us.
It's true that 'ngam1' seems to be borrowed from Cantonese - we pronounce it as 'gam1'.
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Nice to hear from you again
'tiong1 ng1' (sandhi: tiong7_ng1) is 中央 (zhong1yang1 in Mandarin Pinyin), a very common word for us.
It's true that 'ngam1' seems to be borrowed from Cantonese - we pronounce it as 'gam1'.
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hong
Re: "tiong-ng" (middle)
In all my minnan dict I cannot find any word as gam =match but there is a word=kam withstand 堪 in daiwanway.I heard this word a lot like parents cannot withstand but have to scold their children .
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hong
Re: "tiong-ng" (middle)
I think I maybe wrong in englsih or to understand the correct use of above kam=boei kam ei 禁不起 is given in daiwanway dict.I am not sure the example I gave above about mother scolding children is correct.Maybe is 禁不住.
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hong
Re: "tiong-ng" (middle)
I think I shouldn't add the word but.It should be just the mother just don't want to scold her children even though he did something bad.Or a sentence like=I cannot withstand this kind of job .
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hong
Re: "tiong-ng" (middle)
Sim,
Don't forget many chuanchiu people in Penang ,Kedah and Taiping know they need to put thier name in passport as Ng=Huang surname .I think 50%put as uinn even though they are Chuanchiu.My sister's boyfriend from Kalantan put wee but he is chuanchiu from jinjiang.
Don't forget many chuanchiu people in Penang ,Kedah and Taiping know they need to put thier name in passport as Ng=Huang surname .I think 50%put as uinn even though they are Chuanchiu.My sister's boyfriend from Kalantan put wee but he is chuanchiu from jinjiang.
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Sim
Re: "tiong-ng" (middle)
Niuc:
Nice to be back. Yes, when writing the original note, I hesitated between "gam1" and "ngam1" (I seem to know both, but use the latter more).
[ According to the rules of the Tang-Min denasalization, one would indeed expect original Chinese "ngam" to be pronounced "gam" in Hokkien, in exactly the same way as Cantonese "ngO" (=English "I") is pronounced "gua" in Hokkien. So, it all fits with the theory that "gam" is the "proper" Hokkien pronunciation, and "ngam" is just a borrowed pronunciation of the same word. ]
Thanks for the hanzi for the "ng" of "tiong-ng".
Now that you give the Mandarin pronunciation of 央 as "yang", I would venture to suggest that that the pronunciation of this word as "ng" in Hokkien is also a remnant of the final "-ng" which is still visible in Mandarin. This helps to clear up the mystery considerably.
So, this leaves only two questions outstanding about initial "ng-" in Hokkien.
1) Can you think of any other Hokkien words beginning with "ng-" ? (Excluding "yellow", which is really a syllabic (_final_) nasal, the leftover of a word _ending_ with "-ng". [ As proven by all the other kui*1/kng1 ('bright'), sui*1/sng1 ('sour') words, which are all also final "-ng"s. ]
2) Are you familiar with this other word "ngEh8"? (I hope it's not a low-class or vulgar word!).
Hong:
Yes, even if some people get Ng and Uinn mixed up where they shouldn't in the case of the surname, Penang Hokkien doesn't have (many) "regular" words with "ng-" (see above).
Cheers,
Sim.
[%sig%]
Nice to be back
. Yes, when writing the original note, I hesitated between "gam1" and "ngam1" (I seem to know both, but use the latter more).[ According to the rules of the Tang-Min denasalization, one would indeed expect original Chinese "ngam" to be pronounced "gam" in Hokkien, in exactly the same way as Cantonese "ngO" (=English "I") is pronounced "gua" in Hokkien. So, it all fits with the theory that "gam" is the "proper" Hokkien pronunciation, and "ngam" is just a borrowed pronunciation of the same word. ]
Thanks for the hanzi for the "ng" of "tiong-ng".
Now that you give the Mandarin pronunciation of 央 as "yang", I would venture to suggest that that the pronunciation of this word as "ng" in Hokkien is also a remnant of the final "-ng" which is still visible in Mandarin. This helps to clear up the mystery considerably.
So, this leaves only two questions outstanding about initial "ng-" in Hokkien.
1) Can you think of any other Hokkien words beginning with "ng-" ? (Excluding "yellow", which is really a syllabic (_final_) nasal, the leftover of a word _ending_ with "-ng". [ As proven by all the other kui*1/kng1 ('bright'), sui*1/sng1 ('sour') words, which are all also final "-ng"s. ]
2) Are you familiar with this other word "ngEh8"? (I hope it's not a low-class or vulgar word!).
Hong:
Yes, even if some people get Ng and Uinn mixed up where they shouldn't in the case of the surname, Penang Hokkien doesn't have (many) "regular" words with "ng-" (see above).
Cheers,
Sim.
[%sig%]
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hong
Re: "tiong-ng" (middle)
sim.
I don't think your theory about gam is correct.Minnan should just say ha 合fit ,match.As for the pronuncition for that cantonese unusual hanzi which don't appear in any Tang,song poetry. Minnan people shouldn't be concerned about it.Just like wu language hanzi which didn't concern minnan people at all if normal literature from North don't use it.
I don't think you can define Penang hokkien just like no one can define what is taiwanese minnan.There are people in Penang say tsid teo and some tid teo(playing) in chuanchiu as mentioned by Wei research in Penang. How can you be sure every Penang say in this way but no others.if each chuanchiu association give away minnan manual book in each chuanchiu sect like JinJiang,NanAn,HuiAn.Minnan people in Penang will start learning their own correct minnan language.
I don't think your theory about gam is correct.Minnan should just say ha 合fit ,match.As for the pronuncition for that cantonese unusual hanzi which don't appear in any Tang,song poetry. Minnan people shouldn't be concerned about it.Just like wu language hanzi which didn't concern minnan people at all if normal literature from North don't use it.
I don't think you can define Penang hokkien just like no one can define what is taiwanese minnan.There are people in Penang say tsid teo and some tid teo(playing) in chuanchiu as mentioned by Wei research in Penang. How can you be sure every Penang say in this way but no others.if each chuanchiu association give away minnan manual book in each chuanchiu sect like JinJiang,NanAn,HuiAn.Minnan people in Penang will start learning their own correct minnan language.
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hong
Re: "tiong-ng" (middle)
I think I have to correct my mistake about m gam which appears in daiwanway dict=sentimentally attached,will not let go.It is not the same hanzi as above kam.
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Sim
Re: "tiong-ng" (middle)
>> I don't think you can define Penang hokkien just like
>> no one can define what is taiwanese minnan.
I'm not trying to _define_ Penang Hokkien. I use the term "Penang Hokkien" to cover 1) the way I speak, 2) the way I generally remember people in Penang speaking and 3) "1" and "2" vs. the very different way people in the South of the Malay Peninsula, (large parts of) Taiwan, and Amoy speak. The former (="Penang Hokkien") seems to be (in VERY broad terms) similar to what they call the "Zhangzhou (Chiang Chiu / Ciangciu / Changche)" variant.
I think of this as primarily the distinction between "-ui*" (Penang Hokkien) and "-ng" (Amoy Hokkien), but there are lots of other differences as well, of course.
But indeed, strictly speaking you are right. There is no such thing as "Penang Hokkien". Just as there is no such thing as "Cantonese" or the "Mandarin of Northern China" or "Beijing Mandarin". If you study all Cantonese speakers, some will say something one way, and others will say it another. Same applies for Mandarin, and even within Beijing, there will be class (and possibly suburb) differences in pronunciation.
This however does not invalidate the use of such terms to indicate broad similarities in varieties. For example, Beijing and the areas surrounding it make a distinction between the retroflex consonants "zh, ch, sh" and the non-retroflex ones "z, c, s" - a distinction which even other varieties of Northern (native-speaker) Mandarin do not make. All the varieties in the North of the Malay Peninsula and Northern Sumatra share more things with one another (all more Zhangzhou-like), and these contrast, "as a group", with all the varieties spoken in the South of the Malay Peninsula (all more Amoy-like).
In cases where I distinctly remember a particular pronunciation as being "my own personal usage" or "only said like that in my family", I indicate that as such. In other cases, I use the term "Penang Hokkien" rather than the more accurate but lengthy "my memory of one of the usages in the Penang of my childhood, generally similar to Northern Malayan, Northern Indonesian and Zhangzhou usage".
>> gam which appears in daiwanway dict=sentimentally
>> attached,will not let go.
Very interesting to hear this. I can imagine that "sentimentally attached" could evolve in meaning to become "suitable", "matching" (or vice versa). Which of the ones on http://daiwanway.dynip.com/cgi/dict.pl?p=gam is it?
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>> no one can define what is taiwanese minnan.
I'm not trying to _define_ Penang Hokkien. I use the term "Penang Hokkien" to cover 1) the way I speak, 2) the way I generally remember people in Penang speaking and 3) "1" and "2" vs. the very different way people in the South of the Malay Peninsula, (large parts of) Taiwan, and Amoy speak. The former (="Penang Hokkien") seems to be (in VERY broad terms) similar to what they call the "Zhangzhou (Chiang Chiu / Ciangciu / Changche)" variant.
I think of this as primarily the distinction between "-ui*" (Penang Hokkien) and "-ng" (Amoy Hokkien), but there are lots of other differences as well, of course.
But indeed, strictly speaking you are right. There is no such thing as "Penang Hokkien". Just as there is no such thing as "Cantonese" or the "Mandarin of Northern China" or "Beijing Mandarin". If you study all Cantonese speakers, some will say something one way, and others will say it another. Same applies for Mandarin, and even within Beijing, there will be class (and possibly suburb) differences in pronunciation.
This however does not invalidate the use of such terms to indicate broad similarities in varieties. For example, Beijing and the areas surrounding it make a distinction between the retroflex consonants "zh, ch, sh" and the non-retroflex ones "z, c, s" - a distinction which even other varieties of Northern (native-speaker) Mandarin do not make. All the varieties in the North of the Malay Peninsula and Northern Sumatra share more things with one another (all more Zhangzhou-like), and these contrast, "as a group", with all the varieties spoken in the South of the Malay Peninsula (all more Amoy-like).
In cases where I distinctly remember a particular pronunciation as being "my own personal usage" or "only said like that in my family", I indicate that as such. In other cases, I use the term "Penang Hokkien" rather than the more accurate but lengthy "my memory of one of the usages in the Penang of my childhood, generally similar to Northern Malayan, Northern Indonesian and Zhangzhou usage".
>> gam which appears in daiwanway dict=sentimentally
>> attached,will not let go.
Very interesting to hear this. I can imagine that "sentimentally attached" could evolve in meaning to become "suitable", "matching" (or vice versa). Which of the ones on http://daiwanway.dynip.com/cgi/dict.pl?p=gam is it?
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