Malaysian Hokkien

[Eng Wai]

Both sai and hua are used in my social circle but hua is more dominant, maybe 70-30.

Eng Wai

[hong]

I listen to chiangchiu radio and find that the host pronounces chuanchiu as chuann chiu.The chuann is like we say chuann lio7/jio (pee).It is a baidu ,nothing wrong but chuanchiu people avoid it because it doesn't sound nice.Teochew people also read like that

[hong]

sorry,I wanted to type teochew also say chuann chiu. like chiangchiu people

[hong]

I found Prof.machongqi's article saying chuanchiu for name and chuann is only for water in chiangchiu langauge.It is just that host and some other chiangchiu people has no respect for chuanchiu people's choice .

[Guest]

Sim,
What you said is a reverse,taiwan people(Amoy Minnan chiangchiu type ) only said sai and must people don't know what is the meaning of huann. prof .Ang has to remind this word to them when speaking to singapore minnan
No,I haven't heard any penang people saying sai for driving.All say huann.

Hong,

Thanks for your input. Very very curious. Of course, I left Penang when I was 14, so I certainly cannot claim to know how Penang people speak. This needs some investigation, so I'll ring around and ask my Penang relatives what they say.

Regards,
Sim.

[hong]

In chuanchiu language sai is avoided as much as possible because it sounded like dung.This is why they avoided calling their place as chuann chiu.
I did hear a person from Kedah saying sai gu chia for farmer.
Anyway ,the hanzi for sai is like mandarin word without the first hanzi.Huann is also used for in charge of business/family,etc.

[Andrew Yong]

We use both sai2 and huann7 in Penang. I think huann7 is more common, but both are widely used.

[Eng Wai]

What is the "nn" in "huann"? Is it equivalent to n-ending sound? All my life I only hear and use "hua", as like the hua(3) in mandarin.

Eng Wai

[Guest]

What is the "nn" in "huann"? Is it equivalent to n-ending sound? All my life I only hear and use "hua", as like the hua(3) in mandarin.

Hi Eng Wai,

This is one of the conventions in writing Hokkien. The "-nn" means nasalization. It is also written "-*". Or, in some books written in peh-oe-ji, also as a superscript-n.

All 3 ("-nn", "-*", "superscript-n") mean the same thing: the vowel has a sort of "n" sound. It's the difference between "kua1" (melon) vs. "kuann1/kua*1" (liver or judge), "ka2" (to churn or grind) vs. "kann2/ka*2" (to dare), etc. [Here I'm writing a Hokkien 2-tone. It sounds roughly like the Mandarin 4-tone.]

You can tell that this nasalization "-nn/-*" is different from a "proper" "-n" because of words like "tan2" (to wait) vs. "tann2/ta*2" (courage); or "kuan2" (to govern or to pay heed to) vs. "kuann2/kua*2" (to "shoo" away). [Again, these are Hokkien 2-tone, like Mandarin 4-tone.]

In Malaysia, there is an informal convention for writing Chinese dialect dishes (e.g. char koay teow, bee hoon thng, etc) and names (your name, and my name, for example) etc in Roman letters. In this convention, you sometimes see a nasalization written as an "n" BEFORE the vowel, so that wok (chinese frying pan) would be written "tnia". It works ok generally, but fails if the word begins with a vowel, like Penang Hokkien "yellow". In a good orthography, you can write this as "uinn" or "ui*", but in the informal Malaysian convention, you would have to write "nui", which would then not be distinguishable from a word which really begins with an "n".

Hope this helps.
Sim.

[Guest]

Just to add a bit more info...

So, Hokkien words can have:
1. Just a plain vowel (no "-n" following, and no nasalization): -V.
2. A vowel with nasalization: -Vnn/-V*.
3. A vowel, followed by a proper "-n": -Vn.

If you say "drive" the same way that I know the word, then it definitely has a nasalization, i.e. is neither "huan" nor "hua", but "hua*".

Hope you can hear this difference.

Sim.