Msia/Singapore Hokkien borrowed words

[xng]

1. The "dialects" were an important part of Singapore's history, and it's sad that we've now lost them.
2. We don't speak Mandarin as well as people in the PRC and Taiwan anyway.
3. We would love to have our real mother tongue, not some "import" from Northern China.
4. We can't communicate with our grandparents, which is tragic.
5. It's all LKY's fault, with his "Speak Mandarin" policy.

I do agree with all the points for Malaysians as well except for number 2 and number 5.

Number 2 is we can speak Mandarin as well as in PRC and Taiwan if we put as much effort into it except for regional differences.

While number 5 is due to MCA's fault for copying PRC corrupted simplified chinese and trying to destroy dialects in favor of mandarin.

Everybody seems to have forgotten that Mandarin was promoted as a national language in China mainly to act as a medium of communication between the various Han chinese ie. use as lingua franca. Mandarin was NOT supposed to replace all the chinese dialects with mandarin.

In China, the average southern chinese need not learn English, so there's no excuse not to learn their mother tongue plus mandarin which do share a lot of common vocab and grammar since they belong to sinitic language family anyway.

Singaporeans had it a little tough as they have to master English and Mandarin only. Two completely different language in terms of everything ie. vocab, grammar etc.

You can blame LKY because he was English educated in the first place and had too much trouble with any chinese dialects . So he thought that if he can only master ONE language, all the other lesser and dumber singaporeans can only master at most 2 languages ie. English and Mandarin (so-called mother tongue of all chinese)

Malaysians had it worst as they have to master (or try to master) English, Malay, Mandarin, mother tongue (cantonese, hakka or hokkien) even though it is half baked and a 'rojak' language.

[Shawn.Lin]

Hi xng,

Similarly, "lift" in British English and "elevator" in American English.

For that matter, why make a distinction between Hokkien and non-Hokkien words? They seem to say "cit-ma" in Taiwan, and we say "tong-kim" or "tha-na".

Lift and elevator are both considered English regional differences so it is acceptable to both and both countries still understand them. Imagine if you were to speak Malaysian/Singaporean English like 'Kena" (which is non English ie. malay) to them, would they understand ? Eg. "I kena summons yesterday".

Hokkien/Minnan is not ONE single dialect, it has Xiamen, Zhangzhou, Quanzhou main variants. (and I consider Teochiu too). If I am not mistaken, 'Cit ma' is spoken in Penang hokkien so I think it is Zhangzhou hokkien whereas 'Tong Kim' is Quanzhou hokkien and spoken in Klang and Singapore. Since Taiwan hokkien is a mixture of Zhangzhou and Quanzhou, it borrows from both dialects.

That's why Minnan really do need a standard so that all the various dialects use the same words just like what HK cantonese has done for the cantonese but we are digressing from the topic here.

Always love the discussions here. I'm always learining something about Hokkien. Something that just caught my attention, I thought Medan Hokkien is basically the same as Penang Hokkien except we tend to use even more Malay/ Indo words it seems. Medan Hokkien lang normally use "tong-kim". Disclaimer: my hokkien is really bad.

[xng]

http://theonlinecitizen.com/2009/09/is- ... %E2%80%99/

I looked at the article, and I have some queries and found some errors.

'Tiam' is not malay as it is spoken even in Taiwan and mainland and I've found the chinese character for it.

Is 'Kongsi' a hokkien word instead of malay ? What are the chinese characters ?

[niuc]

So neither of the terms fit each other in the different levels of usage, but the non-specialist English usage does fit nicely with the political usage that Singapore and the PRC like to promote.

I think so. They purposely use the term "dialect" to undermine Chinese languages other than Mandarin. I can appreciate their concern for national unity, I even agree that Mandarin should be prioritized, yet I hope more are done to preserve all "dialects".

In ordinary usage in English it is used for non-standard varieties exclusively, but then again, in ordinary usage in China 方言 is the term for regional language in general, whether it is related to Sinitic or not (I have heard people call Tai languages and Miao-Yao 方言).

Yes, 方言 (hong1-gian5) basically means the language/speech of a particular place, not necessarily Sinitic. I agree with those who translate it as "regional speech" or "topolect".

Once the majority of Hokkien speakers are materially well off, they may well start thinking about Hokkien more too. By that time it may be too late.
...
In Taiwan the government calls Hakka and Taiwanese 本土語言 or 母語 in official documents. Officially the attitude has changed, but to get young people (particularly those who will have children soon) to speak something they think is uncouth is the biggest challenge of all.

Even though they are (or become) well off, I don't think they will care about Hokkien too, as they have never felt of losing any heritage/tradition. Once they think of Mandarin as standard and Hokkien (or other "dialects") as non-standard/uncouth, they will even avoid "dialects" more fervently as they become richer and learned, thinking "how fitting the Standard Chinese (Mandarin) is for our (newly) high status":-) Those who care for Hokkien will (mostly) remain so, regardless material gains.

From what I've read about the "formation of identity", people tend to identify themselves "in contrast" to other people around them.

Yes, I totally agree with that. However, I think that is not the only factor. From what I heard from my Cantonese friends, including the one from Guangzhou (telling me few years ago that Cantonese was often still the language of instruction in schools of Guangzhou!), it seems that Cantonese people have a very strong linguistic identity and often opposition toward Mandarin. Hakka people have a strong ethnic identity but less than Cantonese in preserving their language. In fact lots of Hakka speak Cantonese around KL area, don't they? But even for those not speaking Hakka, usually they will highlight to you that they are Hakka. For reasons I am not sure of, somehow Hokkiens usually lack both. However, in Indonesia, Hokchia 福清 and Hinghwa 興化 people usually adopt Minnan Hokkien (and together with Hokkiens adopting Mandarin nowadays, if they manage to care about Chinese, otherwise usually only Indonesian).

Cantonese has a strong historical advantage, as it has been the first language for Chinese in Hong Kong. Even though majority of Taiwanese are Hokkien/Minnan, Hokkien has never been and never will be more prominent than Mandarin, not to mention that it was banned during Japanese occupation and previous KMT rule. This fact has deep psychological impact on Cantonese and Hokkien speakers respectively, I believe.

One of the greatest languages the human race has ever known is English. At its best, it can be incredibly subtle, and flexible, and poetic ... So there are millions of people who respect and love this “rojak” language.

Count me in!:-)

In fact Penang may become one of the last enclaves of Hokkien. While all Chinese in Bagansiapiapi still speak Hokkien (and have no daily need of Mandarin, as the national language there is Indonesian), it is a small town with less economic opportunities, so a lot of them have moved out of the town to bigger cities and subsequently their youngsters are naturally adopting Indonesian due to their new surroundings. Surely in Taiwan and China there will still be some places where youngsters may still speak Hokkien, but I don't think those places are better than Penang (unless Penang people adopt Mandarin as the lingua franca, hopefully not).

[niuc]

Is 'Kongsi' a hokkien word instead of malay ? What are the chinese characters ?

It is an extended meaning of 公司.

[SimL]

You can blame LKY because he was English educated in the first place and had too much trouble with any chinese dialects . So he thought that if he can only master ONE language, all the other lesser and dumber singaporeans can only master at most 2 languages ie. English and Mandarin (so-called mother tongue of all chinese)

Yes, good point. I do indeed blame him for that attitude and the policy which came out of it. I have to admit that I still feel (a little bit of) "anger" whenever I see his photograph or read about him, solely because of this one issue! I suppose it's a bit unfair, because he has done a lot of good things for Singapore, but Hokkien is so special to me that it makes me so sad that it was lost in Singapore.

This is the text of a recent speech by him on the subject (I guess many readers of this Forum will already have seen it):

http://www.news.gov.sg/public/sgpc/en/m ... 317-1.html

A friend of mine showed me a video of this speech, from the internet, but I can't seem to find it at the moment. I'll ask him again and post the link if he still has it.(I also feel that I need to add that I don't at all think that it's a bad thing that Singaporeans speak Mandarin quite well. I have said that previously on this Forum as well, in connection with this topic. I really do see that it gives Singaporeans access to the rest of the Chinese-speaking world, gives them access to another of the world's greatest languages, etc (a point which niuc also made above). So, in no way am I anti-Mandarin.)

On a side track: another interesting thing I observed in the discussions on the net around this LKY topic is a fair amount of feeling of antagonism towards English-speaking Chinese. A number of people (but certainly not everyone) who criticized LKY felt that he was a "English stool pigeon" or "lackey of the English", and disliked/hated him for it. [I found this in itself already a bit odd, because he is the one who promoted Mandarin - perhaps they found that he hadn't promoted Mandarin enough (for example, in connection with changing Nanyang University into an English-medium institution).] In any case, that dislike/hatred then spilled over into dislike/hatred towards the whole sub-group of English-educated Chinese.

Of course, I knew of the old antagonism between the "Chinese-educated" and "English-educated" (it's even been a topic on this Forum before), but I was quite taken aback to see that it was still so alive and current in some (perhaps small) segment of the Singaporean Chinese community.

For the record: despite my being from an English-educated background, I'm very happy ("proud", if you want to use that word, without chauvinistic connotations) to be Chinese. I have a great admiration for the 4,000 years of cultural achievement, I'm particularly impressed by the continuity of Chinese civilization, and I'm happy that China is becoming wealthier and joining the ranks of the advanced nations. I know lots of English-educated Chinese who feel the same way. I would like to think that one can be a happy, well-adjusted, pro-English, pro-Western-civilization Chinese without betraying one's Chinese roots!

[SimL]

Is 'Kongsi' a hokkien word instead of malay ? What are the chinese characters ?

It is an extended meaning of 公司.

Indeed, I'd forgotten that it had been borrowed into Malay. It's also the same "kong-si" as the example of "kong-si-pa" which I gave.

Interesting to see the evolution of meaning, from "business", "company" -> "institution", "association" -> "doing things in association with one another" -> "sharing". E.g. "wa ka lu kong-si co" (= "let's do this as a business venture together" -> "let's do this in association with one another" -> "let's share this").

Or perhaps the original meaning was just "in association with one another", and it specialised to mean "business association" in one of its meanings.

In any case, in Penang Baba Hokkien (perhaps influenced by Malay usage), it just means "to share": "i bo suka kong-si i e mih-kiaN ka pa(t)-lang" or "i bo suka ka pa(t)-lang kong-si i e mih-kiaN" (= "he doesn't like to share his things with other people).

[SimL]

While all Chinese in Bagansiapiapi still speak Hokkien (and have no daily need of Mandarin, as the national language there is Indonesian), it is a small town with less economic opportunities, so a lot of them have moved out of the town to bigger cities and subsequently their youngsters are naturally adopting Indonesian due to their new surroundings.

Sadly, this happens in Penang too. A huge number of the "high-achievers" among my classmates are now living in KL or Singapore (or in the US, Canada, UK, Australia, NZ), for similar reasons. But, fortunately, it's not as dramatic as with Bagansiapiapi.

[Andrew]

Always love the discussions here. I'm always learining something about Hokkien. Something that just caught my attention, I thought Medan Hokkien is basically the same as Penang Hokkien except we tend to use even more Malay/ Indo words it seems. Medan Hokkien lang normally use "tong-kim". Disclaimer: my hokkien is really bad.

I would like to learn more about Medan Hokkien. Is it really just like Penang Hokkien? From listening to Medan Hokkien speakers, it seems to be. I guess trade links between the two places would have been greater in colonial times.

Penang does not use cit-ma. We use than-na or tong-kim. I get the impression that than-na is more like right now, and tong-kim is more like nowadays.

[SimL]

I guess trade links between the two places would have been greater in colonial times.

I think so too. From my family history research, I found out that my Penang Baba relatives had Malaccan Baba relatives, who in turn had (presumably) Peranakan relatives in Medan. My dad only vaguely knew the Malaccan relatives (wasn't even really sure how they were related to us), and never knew the Medan ones at all, just knew of their existence.

Perhaps I'm even related to Shawn!