Penang Hokkien

[Andrew Yong]

I dislike the word 的 because there is some evidence to show that it was invented to represent the mutated Beijing pronunciation of 之, and that the two words are originally one and the same.

The problem with 其 is that it is not widely used. I don't know whether it is correct to use or not. In written Mandarin it means 他的, so using it to mean 的 looks strange. My personal preference is 個 because it is used in other dialects like Hakka and Shanghainese. It covers both e5's and you can treat le5 and ge5 as spoken variants of 個.

[hong]

see Prof Ang web site on e,he,ge
http://www.tlls.org.tw discussion page 4 out of 27 pages now.

[Andrew Yong]

I typed a longer reply but it got lost when I was trying to post

Basically he says current usage is 個 for ko3/kO2 and 嘎 for e5, etc. He says the latter also used in Hakka and Shanghainese. Cantonese uses two separate characters.

I don't like all these phonetically inspired characters, 嘎, 嘅, etc but ko3 and e5 seem to different for both to be the same character, though he doesn't say anything about it. He deals with 的, but not with 其. I suspect the Revd Dr Douglas was looking for a character in the 5th tone that had vaguely the same meaning as 個.

Strangely elsewhere on the site he says we should use 儂 for lang5 (person) to distinguish between jin5 and lang5, and that it is the actual character of lang5. In my dictionary it is listed as [nong2], Shanghainese for 'you'.

[Niuc]

In 我的 'gua2 e5' (my), the word before 的 'e5' retains its tone. While in 一個 'cit8 e5' (one), the word before 個 'e5' shifts its tone. Is this because they are different 'e5'?

個 is 'ko3' in 一個月 'cit8 ko3 ge8' (one month), 兩個月 'nng7 ko3 ge8 (two months), 個人 'ko3 jin5' (individual), etc. But I think that using 個 as 'e5' is quite ok, better than 嘎, 嘅. I have no idea whether 儂 is the original character for 'lang5', but personally I think that 人 is the character for both 'lang5' and 'jin5'.

Meanwhile, using 的 (literary pronunciation 'tik4') to indicate possesive form 'e5' seems ok, until we know its original character. I don't know whether 之 (l.p. 'ci1') has something to do with this 'e5' but it's interesting to know that in Japanese Hiragana "e" looks like 之.

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[kaiah]

Hi, everybody,
I know Prof. Ang often uses the word "个"(simplified "個") for "e5" in his writtings, but not "嘎". I cannot see the hanji "e5" in his website but see a blank space. Hakka language also use the same word "个" or 表音字 "介" for their "的/個".

Both "e5" for "的" or "e5" for "個" are the same way in our usage whether original tone or sandhi tone. In our usage, "我" before "我的"(gua2 e5) and "一" before "一個"(cit8 e5) both shift their tones.
e.g. (in tone pitch)
gua53 + e24 => gua44 e24
cit4 + e24=> cit1 e24

Fuzhou language just uses "其" for "的", refer to the articles(pdf file):
福州方言的“其”和“過”
http://211.151.91.78/cjfdsearch/pdfdown ... TUSETQTRTS
福州方言的結構助詞及其相關的句法結構
http://211.151.91.78/cjfdsearch/pdfdown ... TQTSTQTQTX

article about Hokkien "e5":
閩南方言的結構助詞
http://211.151.91.78/cjfdsearch/pdfdown ... TQTSTQTQTW
P.S.
Download "Adobe Reader" from this website to read pdf files:
http://www.adobe.com/products/acrobat/readstep2.html
and "Asian font packs" to read Chinese simplified:
http://www.adobe.com/products/acrobat/a ... tpack.html

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[Niuc]

Hi Kaiah,

Thanks a lot for the pdf file about 'e5'.

It's interesting to know that in your accent (and other accents except 同安Tang-ua*, according to Mr. Limkianhui in http://chinese.pku.edu.cn/bbs/thread.ph ... &showgood= ), 我 'gua2' in 我的 'gua2 e5' shifts its tone.

How about 國家 'kok8 ka1' in 國家的 'kok8 ka1 e5'? Does 'ka1' shift its tone? In mine, it doesn't.
How about 紅的 'ang5 e5'? I say 'ang5-e0', 'e5' neutralized.

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[kaiah]

Hi, Niuc,
My usage is the same with you. In my usage, I feel it seems like that words before "e5" always retain their tones except gua2/guan2(I/we), li2/lin2(you), i1/in1(he or she/they), lan2(we including the person you are talking with).
"e5" neutralized:
紅的/紅色的(ang5-e0/ang5-sik4-e0, red), 老的(lau7-e0, old), 細漢的(se3-han3-e0, young and small), 大腹肚的(tua7-pak4-to'2-e0, pregnant)...

[Niuc]

Thank you Kaiah

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[hong]

Dear Kaiah,
Thanks for the link in other topic.Can you email Prof.Ang about the hanzi you gave in his ge,he,e?Why it is blank?
I cannot remember which article in your link from Li RuLng on this -northern language use de but sourth use ge???Do create a link for it in here for other viewers.Thanks.

[Sim]

Hi Niuc,

I was just reading some old threads, trying to find old information for Yisheng, and re-read this old one...

>> In Indonesian we call guava as "jambu batu" or "jambu biji".

I left Malaysia too young to be really sure of Penang usage for the difference between the two types of jambu, but for me as a child, the guava was plain old "jambu" (the default type of jambu, as it were), and the other type (very soft and fleshy and watery, comes in two colours, a light green or a light pink) was called "jambu ayer".

>> The word 放屎 'pang3 sai2' is a common word in Hokkien.

Yes, indeed it is. In a family context, it's quite normal to say: "Sim ti to-loh?" (Where's Sim). "i ti pang-sai" (He's having a sh*t). In fact, I think my younger brother (who grew up from the age of 7 in Australia) to this day speaks like this in English (e.g. "Do you mind waiting for a while, I need to go and have a sh*t"). I have to ask him if that's an indication of the more informal "down-to-earth" nature of Australian society - not so prudish as British or American English speaking society (i.e. whether his close friends also speak like that in a family context) or whether it's something he inherited from our Hokkien background.

>> Nonetheless there are indeed a lot of vulgar words, mainly
>> sexual terms used in scolding

I've just been to a 5-day Asian Film Festival here in Amsterdam, with films from Taiwan, Singapore, Malaysia, Thailand, Indonesia, Philippines, and India (enjoyed it a lot!). Some of the Malaysian and Singaporean films portrayed (of course) Chinese society in Malaysia and Singapore, and some of them were *very* modern - showing alienated youth, angry and frustrated people etc. In these films, the most common swear words were "ci1-b$i1" (female genitals) and "chao2 ci1-b$i1" (stinking ~) and "li2 (e) mah4 chao2 ci1-b$i1 (your mother ~ ~).

[ I REALLY hope I haven't offended anyone on this forum with the last paragraph (otherwise some Moderator please feel free to delete). I realise that these terms are extremely vulgar, but I just hope we can discuss the topic "scientifically" (i.e. from a socio-linguistic point of view).

For readers who may not know these terms (Aurelio?) $ = a. I don't use the usual English "*" as a way of softening swear words, as in "sh*t", because it's used as a symbol for nasalization . ]

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