Man and woman in Minnan

Mark Yong · Post by **Mark Yong** » Sun May 01, 2005 8:02 pm

Re-visiting a pair of seemingly obvious (and obviously discussed-to-death topic): Man and woman

My theory:
Ta-po (man) : Baidu of 丈夫
Cha-bo (woman) : Baidu of 少婦

My reason for suggesting ta-po as 丈夫 is because the word 傅 is pronounced both as "hu" and "por" in Penang Hokkien (wendu vs. baidu?) - I know a friend with the surname 傅, and it is Romanised as "Por". Could the same thing apply for 夫?

Am I stretching the Hanzi/Minnan baidu a bit too far with this?

1234567890 · Post by **1234567890** » Mon May 02, 2005 12:50 pm

anyway, 丈夫子 or 少婦子 does not seem logical.

hong · Post by **hong** » Tue May 03, 2005 12:50 pm

I think you should know that chiangchiu don't have poo but some vowels .Also it is ca not ta in every chiangchiu sect

Mark Yong · Post by **Mark Yong** » Tue May 03, 2005 3:00 pm

Guess that means there is no official Hanzi for "ta po" and "ca bo", then...

Sim · Post by **Sim** » Tue May 03, 2005 3:13 pm

Hi Mark,

>> "ta po" and "ca bo"

From memory, I think Henning says something about these in his book. At the moment it's on loan to a friend, so I can't check up on short notice. Will let you know when I have had a chance to have a look.

BTW, I pronounce them "ta pO" and "ca bO".

Sim.

Mark Yong · Post by **Mark Yong** » Tue May 03, 2005 3:37 pm

Sim wrote: BTW, I pronounce them "ta pO" and "ca bO".

Thanks, Sim. You unknowingly answered a question that has been lingering in my mind for a while: What the phonetic spelling convention is for differentiating between, say, "pO" (as in the English "pore") and "po" (as in the English "pole").

Time for me to start working on my phonetic conventions!

Cheers,
Mark