Questions about Penang Hokkien

[Ah-bin]

In the Penang Hokkien podcast forums I have got a lot of help with learning Hokkien by asking how to say certain English phrases and words. Sometimes I hear something I am not sure about, and I can't find it in my dictionaries (Douglas, Campbell, some PRC dictionaries). I can usually tell if things are Malay words as I they have a nice long list of Malay loans into Hokkien on the forum which I look at too. But I heard some phrases that pop up every now and again that I would like to know. I'll write in Douglas and Campbell Church Romanisation, but I have to miss the tones on some words, because I can't hear them properly.

1. "chi-nia"

ka-liau chi-nia chun I think it means "all correct"

chi-nia chi-nia chhau. I think it means "always arguing"

What is the meaning of that word?

2. "chia"
Lu si-m-si chia lo'-kun? I know this means "Are you a doctor?" but I don't know what the "chia" is doing there. What does it mean?

I sometimes hear chia-che for "many" as well. Is this the same as Taiwanese "chiok" - another word for very?

I think of more every time I listen, but these two have been making me think for weeks.

[Mark Yong]

What you heard as "chi-nia" and "chia" (as in "chia-che" in the 2nd example) is is really a contraction of the two-word combination 真正 chĭn-chniā, i.e. "really", "truly". So, "chia-che" works out as 真正侈 (and here, I am being unusually liberal in the use of the correct hanzi for che!)

On the subject of the doctor, what you heard could have been either "chia lo-kun" or "chie lo-kun". The former could have been 正, i.e. "Are you a real doctor?" (strange question!). The latter could be a contraction of chit-le, i.e. simply "Are you A doctor?"

[Ah-bin]

Aha! no wonder I couldn't find it in a dictionary. Thanks very much for that.

As for chia, I'll try to find another example too. I don't think it was nasalised.

I remembered the other word I wanted to know, it was "peh-peh" for "together". Is that really "peh" with a glottal stop, or is it something else?

Choe-tin and cho-hoe are other ways of saying it I have heard, but I don;t know if they use them in Penang or not.

[SimL]

I remembered the other word I wanted to know, it was "peh-peh" for "together". Is that really "peh" with a glottal stop, or is it something else?

Hi Ah-bin,

This doesn't ring any bells with me at all. I wonder if you might be referring to "pEN-pEN"? Here the word "pEN5" (here "E" = open-e, IPA [ε], N = nasalization) means "level, flat, even, parallel". [Sorry, I'm not sure of the hanzi, "piN5" in Amoy Hokkien (could it be 平?)]. One might conceivably say "i-(l)ang pEN-pEN kiaN / chiau-khek / chit to(h)-teng etc" (= "they walked / sang / wiped the table etc together").

I don't think this is really a very common way of saying it, but I proffer this explanation in case it's of some help, FWIW.

Regards,
SimL

PS. I agree totally with Mark that "ciaN / cin-(n)ia" is an elided form for "cin-ciaN / 真正". This is how I always say "very". I'd even venture to say that this has become such a standard form (as opposed to being the informal form of "cin-ciaN"), that if I wanted to stress that something was "very good/big/many etc", I would then say "u-iaN 有影 cin-nia ho/tua/ce etc", and not "cin-ciaN ho/tua/ce etc". In fact, I think the only situation where I'd actually say "cin-ciaN" would be to explain the origin of "ciaN", "cin-(n)ia"!

As with Mark, I have nasalization in "ciaN". However, I have no nasalization in "cin-nia" (or only as much as 'accidentally' introduced by the "-n" and "n-").

[Mark Yong]

SimL wrote:
I wonder if you might be referring to "pEN-pEN"? Here the word "pEN5" (here "E" = open-e, IPA [ε], N = nasalization) means "level, flat, even, parallel". [Sorry, I'm not sure of the hanzi, "piN5" in Amoy Hokkien (could it be 平?)]. One might conceivably say "i-(l)ang pEN-pEN kiaN / chiau-khek / chit to(h)-teng etc" (= "they walked / sang / wiped the table etc together").

Hi, Sim,

Yes, I think Ah-bin is referring to the nasalised pEN-pEN. I suspect over the successive generations, a certain degree of 'laziness' among the younger Penang Hokkien speakers have resulted in the loss of the nasalisation - the same goes for a number of other such words (正 chnia being another one, now often heard as just chia without the nasalisation). Another noticeable change is the change for 明朝 (tomorrow) - from mnia-chai (i.e. nasalised) to mia-chai (i.e. no nasalisation) to ma-chai.

As for the character for pEN, I have read of two possibilities - 平 and 並. The latter seems closer in terms of definition ("concurrent", "together"). Perhaps hong or the others can provide some better insight.

Cheers,
Mark

[SimL]

Hi Mark,

Always very gratifying to have one's hypotheses supported!

>> from mnia-chai (i.e. nasalised) to mia-chai (i.e. no nasalisation) to ma-chai

Indeed, for this particular one, the laziness started in my generation already. I've never said anything other than "ma-chai", and I remember sometime in my teens noticing people say "mia-chai" (and one person even "min-na-chai") and wondering why they pronounced it in that weird way

Regards,
SimL.

[Mark Yong]

SimL wrote:
"...one person even "min-na-chai") and wondering why they pronounced it in that weird way..."

There are a couple of books I have seen stating that min-na-chai is rendered into hanzi as 明仔朝, i.e. the 仔 is added to account for the middle syllable. However, I personally cannot agree with it, and would support the theory that it is actually mnia, belonging to the family of words with -eng/-nia literal/colloquial reading pairs, e.g.

定 teng/tnia (e.g. 一定 it-teng vs. 定著 tnia-tioh)
明 beng/mnia (e.g. 明白 beng-pek vs. 明朝 mnia-chai).
正 cheng/chnia
成 seng/snia
兄 heng/hnia

Comments welcome.

[niuc]

Hi Mark & Sim

明仔朝 is very probably. Although we usually say 'mia-cai', sometimes we do hear 'bin-a-cai'. The strongest support for 明仔朝 is how we pronounce 'mia-cai' i.e. 'mia2-cai3' instead of 'mia5-cai3'. 明 is both 'bing5' and 'mia5', so 'mia2' there should be from the merging of 'mia5-a2' or 'bin(g)5-a2'. 清明 can be either 'ching1-bing5' or 'chi*1-mia5'. I don't put nasal mark after 'mia' because all vowels after m-, n- and ng- are nasalized naturally. I cannot smoothly pronounce 'mia' with '-ia' not nasalized. I don't think you can either, or can you?

[SimL]

Hi Niuc,

>> I cannot smoothly pronounce 'mia' with '-ia' not nasalized. I don't think you can either, or can you?

Hmmm... difficult question, this one. I too never mark nasalization of (original/old) chinese -n, -m, -ng if the syllable has lost the final nasal but begins with a nasal. Primarily because it is not necessary (i.e. redundant), but also because, for me, psychologically, it's not there. If no one had told me about "mia5" (= "name") being related to Mandarin "ming2", I would probably never have thought about whether there was any nasalization in the -ia. To me, it's as nasalized as the "-a-" when I say the English word "made" or "nature", or the "-o-" in English "north", etc, and I don't think of these as nasalized at all, because nasalized vowels aren't an important part of the English sound system.

Paradoxically, I do very much perceive nasalization in "mE*3" (= "to scold"), which doesn't come from an original Chinese final nasal!

All a bit confusing, what goes on in my mind in this area...

SimL

[Ah-bin]

Tak-ke ho!

About those nasalised syllables....
I remember reading that all syllables that begin with an n or m are nasalised, and that Romanisation systems usually leave this out, writing mE where the pronunciation is actually meN and ni where it is niN.

Also, another question about a word I hear a lot. It means "horrible" or "scary", I guess (from context). I think it might be spelt "kit-li" but I am not sure. The podcast uses it a lot when they are telling ghost stories.

regards,
Ah-bin