Questions about Penang Hokkien

[duaaagiii]

In Taiwan, other than "being scared to death", we also say 恐怖 (khiong2-poo3) for "frightening".

[SimL]

Hi duaaagiii,

Nice to see you again. Another very colloquial way of saying this might be: "kiaN si lang" (literally "scared dead person"). Personally, I think this is used more for "horrible" than for "frightening" (extended usage).

SimL

[niuc]

But IF that "ka" is short for "kau", how does one explain: "i cau kau ka cit-peng" (= "he ran up to here"), with even a "kau" in front of it?

In my variant we don't have 'ka' in that sentence, so it is 'i cau kau cit-pin(g)'. One sample of both 'kau' & 'ka' in Bagan Hokkien is 'i ua* kau ka tak-e tan a khun khy a' 伊晚到到逐個等到睏去了 ("he arrived so late until everyone had fallen asleep while waiting"). Although I am not 100% sure that 'kau' & 'ka' both are 到, yet at least usage of 到 still makes sense here. Notice the first 'a' is elided form of 'ka', second 'a' is elided form of 'la/liau'.

Yes, I think I noticed that "ka3" in Douglas the other day. However, I say "kah4" for "to teach" (with the -h dropped in compounds, like "ka8-chEh" (literally "to teach books", which is the normal way to say "teach" (in a school))).

I clearly remember my parents once explaining to me when I was very young that there was a distinction between "ka3" (= "to instruct, order, command (someone to do something)" and "kah4" (= "to teach") [or vice versa], but my parents now totally deny that this is the case, and can't imagine that they ever told me that.

In my variant, it's the reverse: "to teach" is 'ka3', 'ka4' ('kah4') is "to order someone to do something", as in 'che1-ka4'. I suspect 'ka4' is another reading of 叫 (kio3) or may be it is 遣, so 'che1-ka4' may be 差叫 or 差遣 .

There is a saying in Hokkien:
差豬遣狗, 不值自己走
'che1-ty1 ka4-kau2, m7-tat8-kai7-ki7-cau2'
"rather than dispatching a pig or a dog (to do something), better (go to) do it by (our/your) own"

[Andrew]

In my variant we don't have 'ka' in that sentence, so it is 'i cau kau cit-pin(g)'. One sample of both 'kau' & 'ka' in Bagan Hokkien is 'i ua* kau ka tak-e tan a khun khy a' 伊晚到到逐個等到睏去了 ("he arrived so late until everyone had fallen asleep while waiting"). Although I am not 100% sure that 'kau' & 'ka' both are 到, yet at least usage of 到 still makes sense here. Notice the first 'a' is elided form of 'ka', second 'a' is elided form of 'la/liau'.

The use of "kau ka" is quite common with us to mean "until" or "up to", e.g. kau ka am-mE, kau ka toa-lO-au.