Suat Mui Su Kun

[SimL]

雪梅思君
Suat Mui Su Kun

This song describes one year in the life of a widow by the name of Suat Mui (and her young child), with one verse devoted to each of the 12 months of the year, resulting in 12 verses. Perhaps it is quite well known to readers of this Forum.

There are quite a number of different versions on the internet. I found 2 major variants, and I've worked on both of them. The first variant has exactly 12 verses. The second variant has 14 verses: one extra verse is an introduction, and the other extra verse is for the "intercalary month" - 二月闰.

My first question is from the second variant.

In it, the phrase "亲象人" occurs twice.

A. 愿心想, 我子亲象人
guan sim siunn, gua kiann chin siang/siong/chiunn lang

B. 等几时, 才会亲象人
tan ki-si, ciah e chin siang/siong/chiunn lang


The two things I'd like to know are:

1) How does one pronounce 象 in this phrase?

On a wonderful website given to me by Aurelio, http://www.internationalscientific.org/, you can type in a Chinese character, and very often it will give the Hokkien (and sometimes Cantonese) pronunciation. I put in 象 and got "chiunn7" and "siong7" (actually "chhiuN7" and "siong7", because it gives pronunciations in a modified form of Church Romanization / Peh-Oe-Ji). Then a native speaker of Hokkien suggested that "siang" is also possible.

So, which one of "siang", "siong", or "chiunn" should I use in this phrase?


2) What does "亲象人" actually mean?

"A" would be: "With a contented heart, she thinks: 'my child <XXX>' ".

and

"B" would be: "Until when does she have to wait, before he can <XXX>?"


Thanks in advance,
Sim.

[ong]

kap 人類共款 .It can be chhin chhiunn or chan chhiunn.I think she wants her child to be normal .

[niuc]

Sim, I heard of this song and remember the story but not the lyric.

In 繁體 [正寫 cia*3-sia2] Traditional Form 象 chiu*7/siong7/siang7 is used for "elephant" & "image", 像 - same pronunciation - for "likeness" & "image". Both are just 象 in 簡體 [簡寫 kan2-sia2] Simplified Form. So 亲象 is 親像 chin1-chiu*7 means "like, alike"; a frequently used phrase in my dialect. Hong also says that it can be read as chan1-chiu*7.

親像人 can be read as:
1. chin1-chiu*7 lang5 to mean "be like human", which is not suitable for the context of the song & story. Hong's suggestion of "kap 人類共款" - IMHO - is equivalent to this.
2. chin1-chiu*7_lang0 (lang5 neutralized) to mean "be like other people" i.e. can be compared with other people in terms of wealth, power, etc. I think the mother was hoping that her child would be "somebody" 成人 cia*5-lang5 a person with status.

Btw although ki2 is the literary reading, I think 等幾時 should be tan2-kui2-si5 rather than tan2-ki2-si5.

[ong]

Yes,my example should be only for monkey who behave like human,etc.

[ong]

王建设 says the benzi for tshin tshiunn is the same with mandarin =相像 tshiunn1 tshiunn7 becomes tshin tshiunn.It is called 韵母异化 to avoid two words with the same vowel.That is why some people change it to tshan .
It is possible for 相 to have tshiunn as another baidu besides siunn .

[SimL]

The heroine of the story is "雪梅" and her surname is "秦", so her full name is "秦雪梅"

On a recording I've listened to, it is pronounced "khun suat mui". However, www.internationalscientific.org/Etymolog only lists the pronunciation "cin" (they give it as "chin", because they use Poe-Oe-Ji/Churh Romanisation).

Does anyone know if this surname can be pronounced both "cin" and "khun"?

Thanks,
Sim.

[ong]

I found that even older sound is not possible to get khun sound. I think you misheard 君 .

[ong]

This book is a must
www.9551.cn/list.asp?id=365267

[SimL]

I found that even older sound is not possible to get khun sound. I think you misheard 君 .

Hi Ong,

Thanks for this. It is very useful for me to know. The singer sings "khun suat mui" twice in the song, where the internet text says "秦雪梅". Of course, this doesn't necessarily mean that she is mispronouncing the word "秦". Perhaps she is using a different text, where a different word appears in front of "雪梅".

I'm transcribing the song in TLPA, so it's very useful for me to know that even though I hear the word "khun" being sung, it doesn't correspond to the character "秦". That way, I can put a footnote about some doubt at this point.

Thanks again,
Sim.

[ong]

This thesis says it is called 國慶調