My books

[Andrew]

I've acquired a few more books since this board fell quiet, so I thought I'd summarise what I've got and what I've found useful. Perhaps other people can add what they have found particularly useful - no need to mention those that aren't very useful.

1. Douglas, Chinese-English Dictionary of the Vernacular of Spoken Language of Amoy, wih the principal variations of the Chang-chew and Chin-chew Dialects, Kut'ing Press reprint of the 1873 edition, with the 1923 Supplement by Barclay - English. This is the most important book for an English-speaker, and for anyone interested in the dialectal variations. I wish it had Chinese characters though, and there are some editions that do.

2. 林宝卿，《闽南方言与古汉语同源词典》2002 Amoy University Press, 28¥- Chinese (simplified with traditional characters in brackets). Good for finding benzi, and the links between Hokkien and Classical Chinese usages. Not very user-friendly in that it arranges by rhyme instead of alphabetically.

3. 《廈門方言詞典》, 2002 Jiangsu Education Press, 37¥, part of the 現代漢語方言大詞典 series. Chinese (traditional character edition). Useful, but again arranged by rhyme.

4. Bodman, Spoken Amoy Hokkien 1987 Spoken Language Services. English - very good language course in the Amoy dialect. I bought the book only.

5. 林宝卿，《闽南话口语》, Amoy University Press 20¥ - slim book with Chinese (simplified - no romanisation) with cassettes in Amoy dialect. Satisfactory, but the lack of romanisation means you have to listen very hard if you are used to another form of Hokkien.

In addition I have a small E-C C-E dictionary and a large C-E dictionary. The remarkable thing is that the books above each use a different system of romanisation, apart from the fifth which has none.

[SimL]

Hi Andrew,

Thanks for sharing the titles of your newly acquired books, and giving a brief review of them.

Where did you order them from? Individually, from different sources, or all from a single bookshop / internet book company? Could you pay with credit card?

Sim.

[Andrew]

I used two online shops for the Chinese books, dangdang.com and joyo.com. I think the latter is an Amazon offshoot. Dangdang had cheaper postage - the postage for both came up to more than the cost of the books themselves, which was negligible.

Bodman I got from Amazon, and Douglas I found on abebooks.com

[ong]

This is no enough.These books don't tell us there are 4 sects in longhai,2 sects in anxi,3 sects in nanan,3 sects in huian,etc.
What is so special about huian 惠安 vowel? There is ciangciu sect in anxi,there is ciangciu sect speaking lu,hu ,khu,etc.
You are wrong about Douglas ,the best book for English speaker is the one by Campbell. He copied all the hanzi from 雅俗通十五音。

贤 =gau is the hanzi used in china 闽南韵书 before them ,so angmo just used it in their dict.

[Mark Yong]

Hi, Andrew,

1. Douglas, Chinese-English Dictionary of the Vernacular of Spoken Language of Amoy, wih the principal variations of the Chang-chew and Chin-chew Dialects, Kut'ing Press reprint of the 1873 edition, with the 1923 Supplement by Barclay - English.

You managed to acquire a copy of Douglas? Wow! I only managed to spot it on E-Bay, going at a whopping USD$1,350, so sadly, I had to give it a miss.

2. 林宝卿，《闽南方言与古汉语同源词典》2002 Amoy University Press

Did you get this via dangdang or joyo? The fact that it talks about benzi and links to Classical Chinese is the part the interests me the most! (I think those of you who are regulars here are well-aware of my obsession for benzi, especially Sim!)

4. Bodman, Spoken Amoy Hokkien 1987 Spoken Language Services.

I have this, too. I like it a lot, as it captures a lot of words and terminologies now seldom used in contemporary Hokkien conversation in Malaysia.

[ong]

Lin baoqing 's book is selling in KL.If we become a member of an online library from China,it can be read and printed as well.
Dict can't replace article on grammar.Those articles will explain clearly more than dict able to explain.
Bodman is an expert on old chinese language but certainly not minnan language

[Mark Yong]

Lin baoqing 's book is selling in KL.

Hi, Hong,

Could you tell me which bookshop it is in KL? I normally go to 學林 in Jalan Silang.

Thanks,
Mark

[ong]

I saw one a few months ago in xuelin .She will publish her new putonghuaminnan dict ,a new version of 1982 version.benzi she knows will be there.This book didn't explain about how we can get the sound,so I don't think it is a good book. Benzi which has to do with shangguyin must be explained to the reader.Like how can we get 治 with <ai> vowel,etc.
The book which has the most ABB adjective is tairidacidian,others are not good enough in this area.

[Heruler]

Hi,

For those who would like to have Taiwanese/Hokkien - English dictionaries, you may want to consider acquiring the following:

(1) Taiwanese-English Dictionary 台語英語字典 by the Rev. (Father) Edward J. Flanigan, M.M. (洪惠眾) of The Maryknoll Language Service Center, Taichung, Taiwan. (Also known as Maryknoll Fathers; Maryknoll Taiwan.) First edition 1976; second edition 2002. No ISBN number. The Catholic Church in Taiwan has adopted the POJ developed by the Protestant Missionaries.

(2) English-Amoy Dictionary 英語閩南語字典 by the same author and the same publisher. First edition 1979; second edition 1995. No ISBN number.

I highly recommend both dictionaries. I first found them at the Asian Center Library of the University of Chicago. In a trip to Taiwan, I bought them at 台灣e5店 (The Shop of Taiwan) in Taipei.

Heruler

[ong]

厝 is mentioned as benzi in Linbaoqin's book without any explaination .But If we have her teacher huangdiancheng's article we will understand.厝 is cho ,it is because we try to avoid 醋 cho,so it became chu
In book about benzi ,the author must explain why he rejects other benzi.Lin's book didn't mention any other benzi besides hers.