Beowulf and Hokkien customs

[Chau H. Wu]

Dear All:

A couple of comments in the old postings caught my eye, which are copied below:

Aurelio wrote (Apr. 14, 2003):

>Right now I'm struggling with the old Anglo-Saxon in the Beowulf.

SaxonLeorf replied (Oct. 26, 2005):

>The story of Beowulf with the customs were very similar [to] the living of old time in the southern Hokkian. Some old Hokkian words can find in this epic.

I have also read Beowulf (in the mordern English version - I'm ashamed to say). I came across a couple of Anglo-Saxon customs that are familiar to Hokkiens, which seems to me to be worthy of a new thread.

The first custom I would like to share with you is: Counting years by the number of winters. I believe SaxonLeorf came across this too.

Quoting Beowulf by line numbers (Modern English version translated by Burton Raffel):

(1) Lines 1885-1886:

"...until winter had followed winter
And age had stolen his strength,..."

This is the same way as we say about "year after year" in Taiwan:
"Chit8 tang koe3 liau2 koh4 chit8 tang" (Passing one winter after another = year in year out)

(2) Lines 2114-2115:

"....wise with many
Winters,..."

Line 2009:

"...fifty winters"

This is the same as Taiwanese expression. For "3 years ago" we say: "Sann tang cheng5" (= "sann ni5 cheng5"). "Japan ruled Taiwan for 50 years" is "Jit-pun koan2 Tai-oan u7 50 tang."

It turns out that using winters for counting years is a typical ancient Germanic custom. In Beowulf, "years" and "winters" are used interchangeably.

Do Hokkiens in SEA also use this kind of expression? I'll appreciate your comments.

Warmest regards,
Heruler

[niuc]

Hi Heruler

It's interesting to note similarities between "seemingly unrelated" languages.

In my dialect, usually we use ni5 年 but there are times when we also use 冬 tang1 for "year". Besides your examples, we also use it in:
讀第幾冬的 thak8-te7-kui2-tang1_e0? -> which year/level (in school)?
(in this context we use tang1 - sometimes ni5 - for year and 冊 che4 for semester, but usually apply for primary school only).

[Chau H. Wu]

Hi Nunc:

Thanks for your interesting additions.

Here are a few more phrase-constructs using "winter" to mean "year" that are common in Taiwan:

(1) "Sann-chap goa7 tang" = Thirty-some years.
(2) "Sann tang goa" = Three years plus.
(3) "Tang poann3" = A year and half.
(4) "Phainn2 ni5-tang" = A bad year. "Ho2 ni5-tang" = A good year.

I welcome any other additions you may think of.

Best wishes,
Heruler

[Chau H. Wu]

Addendum:

I have found one more mention of "winters" for the sense of "years" in Beowulf.

This is about Beowulf's father Edgetho in Lines 263-264:

"...His name was Edgetho,
His life lasted many winters;..."

The following is a quote from "The Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology" edited by C.T. Onions (published by Oxford University Press, 1966), under the entry for "winter":

"...used typically for year (as in general Germ[anic] use)."

Heruler

[Elsol]

coincidence?

[Heruler]

Hi Elsol,

Our first reaction to such a similarity is usually "coincidence". But if we look deeper, we will find too many coincidences to be accounted for. I would like to point out the following:

When a word in Old/Middle English starts with "win-", its corresponding Taiwanese (Hokkien) word (with the same meaning) will be either "tang/thang" or "tan/than".

(1) OE winter (=winter) : Tw tang 冬

(2) Middle English windoge (=window) : Tw thang 窗

(3) OE windan (=move in a certain direction) : Tw tang7 動

(4) OE wind (=wind) : Tw thang 通 (as in 通風 thang hong)
(Notice that in the han-ji 風 there is a "thang5" 虫 radical, so 風 might have been pronounced somewhat like "thang5"???)

(5) OE winnan (=work, gain, win) : Tw than3 (賺 as in than3-chinn5 賺錢)

Even a closely sounded word in Old English "wyrm"/Old Frisian "wirm" (=worm) has its Taiwanese (Hokkien) corresponding word thang5 蟲 following the same pattern of sound correspondence.

So, it is not so easy to dismiss as coincidence.

Heruler

[Elsol]

ow ok i get it..the wind is really dun match I think...wind is Hong right? and yesh the Han zi got a worm inside it...but still the worm got nothing to do with its pronounciation..

[Chau H. Wu]

I agree! The han-ji for "wind" does not give us a clue about its pronunciation, nor its meaning. The poor school children who struggle to learn han-ji have to memorize 3 things: (1) what the han-ji mean; (2) how the han-ji is pronounced; and (3) how to write it (the strokes). The han-ji for "wind" (hong) has a radical for "worm" from which you cannot get any clue about its meaning or pronunciation.

Heruler

[niuc]

Although "wind" may be not a convincing match, nonetheless I'm amazed to see the similar linguistic pattern! May be this kind of similarities can be found in other languages also. After all we all are related!