ljj,
nope, u have mistaken.
Hokkien word for 'one'
Re: Hokkien word for 'one'
That's because Hokkien are based on Old chinese. Hokkien uses some old characters for this, that, He, You etc.manhal wrote:Hokkien is kind of a different from a dialect like cantonese in that the same chinese character can be read differently in different situation. A good example is 'ren' (Mandarin for human or person).
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Read the original character for Cit here.
viewtopic.php?f=6&t=5988
Re: Hokkien word for 'one'
林寶卿 suggests 禃 as the benzi, but further adds that 一 is the common way to write jit now.. Quoting the Jiyun:
《集韻》 丞職切•職 "禃, 專一也"
On a similar subject:
I have read many reference materials stating that nng/nor 'two (quantity)' is the colloquial reading for 二, and is not 兩 as I thought - something which I am finding very difficult to accept even until today. When I first learnt to count in Penang Hokkien, it was "it, ji, saa, si..." and not "it, nor, saa, si..." (though, I am aware that in Singapore, they tend to say "it, nng, saa, si...", and refer to the number 2 as nng, rather than ji/li).
Anyone care to dispute this?
《集韻》 丞職切•職 "禃, 專一也"
On a similar subject:
I have read many reference materials stating that nng/nor 'two (quantity)' is the colloquial reading for 二, and is not 兩 as I thought - something which I am finding very difficult to accept even until today. When I first learnt to count in Penang Hokkien, it was "it, ji, saa, si..." and not "it, nor, saa, si..." (though, I am aware that in Singapore, they tend to say "it, nng, saa, si...", and refer to the number 2 as nng, rather than ji/li).
Anyone care to dispute this?
Last edited by Mark Yong on Sat Oct 24, 2009 3:19 am, edited 1 time in total.
Re: Hokkien word for 'one'
Hi Mark
It should be "cit, nng, sa*, si..." for cardinal number and "it, ji, sa*, si..." for ordinal number. So "cit & nng" are cardinal (one, two), while "it & ji" are ordinal (first, second). It is always "cit/nng e lang", never "it/di e lang" -> one/two person/s; "te it/ji" never "te cit/nng" -> first/second.Mark Yong wrote:(though, I am aware that in Singapore, they tend to say "it, nng, saa, si...", and refer to the number 2 as nng, rather than ji/li).
Re: Hokkien word for 'one'
Sorry I don't agree with that dictionary.Mark Yong wrote:林寶卿 suggests 禃 as the benzi, but further adds that 一 is the common way to write jit now.. Quoting the Jiyun:
《集韻》 丞職•職 "禃, 專一也"
On a similar subject:
I have read many reference materials stating that nng/nor 'two (quantity)' is the colloquial reading for 二, and is not 兩 as I thought - something which I am finding very difficult to accept even until today. When I first learnt to count in Penang Hokkien, it was "it, ji, saa, si..." and not "it, nor, saa, si..." (though, I am aware that in Singapore, they tend to say "it, nng, saa, si...", and refer to the number 2 as nng, rather than ji/li).
Anyone care to dispute this?
禃 in ucla website is pronounced as 'sit8' 集韻：專一也 and not pronounced as Cit. The sound is not exactly the same. What's the meaning ? It seems to be related to something 'holy' due to its radical 示 ? The meaning is also dubious but I can't find the meaning online.
Cit is a contraction of "this - Ci and one - It" and that's why even 林寶卿 is confused. Cit means 'this one'. Contraction is a pain in the ass and people keep inventing new characters or borrow characters for it. 一 may be the common character now but I doubt it is the original character due to its consonant C.
兩 is pronounced colloquailly as Neng/Leng (see ucla website), 二 is pronounced as Li/Ji.
The literary sound and colloquail sound can't be too far apart. The literary sound for 兩 is Liong. Note that its consonant and ending must match most of the time with the colloquail. Consonant is "L" (interchangeable with N), ending is 'Ng'. So Liong and Leng is quite close.
二 has no 'Ng' or 'N' ending (so-called nasal sound) even though the consonant matches so this is definitely the wrong character.
Most people are confused about when to use 兩 and 二 since they are close in meaning. Sporeans are not exactly good in chinese language so they can make mistakes too
. It should be 'It', 'Li', 'Saa', 'Si'.二 is used for the number two. 兩 is used for two things eg. two cows, two houses etc.
Similarly,
一 is used for the number one. 之一 is used for one thing eg. one cow, one house etc.
The different tone for 一 and 之一 is due to tone sandhi as 之一 always follow with another noun whereas 一 doesn't have to.
Don't we say 'these two cows' as '之Ci 兩 Neng Ciak Gu' and 'those two cows' as ' 許 Hi 兩 Neng Ciak Gu'. Ci and Cit are very close in sound so it can be quite difficult to differentiate for minnan.
Can you tell me what's the meaning of this character 禃 ?
Re: Hokkien word for 'one'
xng,
To clarify: The cit you are referring to as a contraction of 之一 is the Hokkien word for the demonstrative particle 'this'. I am referring to the character for the cardinal number 'one'. Besides, both cit 'this' and cit 'one' have different tones - the former is high-flat, and the latter is low-flat. Try saying cit-ciak-gu 'this cow' and cit-ciak-gu 'a cow', and you'll see what I mean.
"專一也" is not the pronunciation for 禃. That's the definition. The pronunciation is given by the fanqie reading provided, i.e. 丞職切. Apologies if I confused you by leaving out the 切 to denote that those two characters marked the pronunciation and tone for the character - I have duly fixed it in my original post above.
The meaning of 禃 is exactly as what the 集韻 Jiyun states in my quotation, i.e. 專一也 'one'. Even the 康熙字典 Kangxi Dictionary cites this quotation as the definition for 禃. I don't think many of us are in the position to dispute a citation by such an authoritative reference as an ancient rhyming dictionary like the 集韻 Jiyun, which even the 康熙字典 Kangxi Dictionary and Morohashi Tetsuji's Dai Kanwa Jiten builds upon. I detect no confusion or doubt in 林寶卿's book, as she simply quoted the above directly (by contrast, editor 周長楫 is more careful in 閩南方言大辭典, by saying 有人認為本字是"禃", yet cites the same Jiyun quotation!).
I must qualify my statement: I am not saying that this categorically proves 禃 is the character for the Hokkien word jit (cardinal number 'one'). I am just saying that the character 禃 is defined as 'one', and the fanqie pronunciation provided by the 集韻 Jiyun, i.e. 丞職切 - which I think comes out as cit (whether 丞 is aspirated or not, I am not sure), does suggest it as a strong possibility.
If you want an online resource, go to http://www.kangxizidian.com, enter the character 禃, and look-up the relevant scanned page of the 康熙字典 Kangxi Dictionary link provided. You will find the citation I quoted above therein.
niuc,
Thanks for the correction and clarification. It is interesting to note that not many (none?) other dialects actually recite numbers by cardinals (in addition to the usual ordinals) the way Hokkien does. E.g. you don't hear the Mandarin "yi, liang, san, si...".
To clarify: The cit you are referring to as a contraction of 之一 is the Hokkien word for the demonstrative particle 'this'. I am referring to the character for the cardinal number 'one'. Besides, both cit 'this' and cit 'one' have different tones - the former is high-flat, and the latter is low-flat. Try saying cit-ciak-gu 'this cow' and cit-ciak-gu 'a cow', and you'll see what I mean.
"專一也" is not the pronunciation for 禃. That's the definition. The pronunciation is given by the fanqie reading provided, i.e. 丞職切. Apologies if I confused you by leaving out the 切 to denote that those two characters marked the pronunciation and tone for the character - I have duly fixed it in my original post above.
The meaning of 禃 is exactly as what the 集韻 Jiyun states in my quotation, i.e. 專一也 'one'. Even the 康熙字典 Kangxi Dictionary cites this quotation as the definition for 禃. I don't think many of us are in the position to dispute a citation by such an authoritative reference as an ancient rhyming dictionary like the 集韻 Jiyun, which even the 康熙字典 Kangxi Dictionary and Morohashi Tetsuji's Dai Kanwa Jiten builds upon. I detect no confusion or doubt in 林寶卿's book, as she simply quoted the above directly (by contrast, editor 周長楫 is more careful in 閩南方言大辭典, by saying 有人認為本字是"禃", yet cites the same Jiyun quotation!).
I must qualify my statement: I am not saying that this categorically proves 禃 is the character for the Hokkien word jit (cardinal number 'one'). I am just saying that the character 禃 is defined as 'one', and the fanqie pronunciation provided by the 集韻 Jiyun, i.e. 丞職切 - which I think comes out as cit (whether 丞 is aspirated or not, I am not sure), does suggest it as a strong possibility.
If you want an online resource, go to http://www.kangxizidian.com, enter the character 禃, and look-up the relevant scanned page of the 康熙字典 Kangxi Dictionary link provided. You will find the citation I quoted above therein.
niuc,
Thanks for the correction and clarification. It is interesting to note that not many (none?) other dialects actually recite numbers by cardinals (in addition to the usual ordinals) the way Hokkien does. E.g. you don't hear the Mandarin "yi, liang, san, si...".
Re: Hokkien word for 'one'
1. 專一 means 'dedicated' and not one. (if my chinese language serves me right) Eg. Ee cin (cuan it 專一) t'ak cu. (he is very dedicated in his studies)Mark Yong wrote:
The meaning of 禃 is exactly as what the 集韻 Jiyun states in my quotation, i.e. 專一也 'one'.
Does it sound right to say 專一 ciak gu ? Dedicated cow ?
2.The ucla website prints 禃 as 'Sit8' and not 'Cit8'. Although Cit8 is possibly the colloquail sound but it's still not specified in ucla ??? 丞 has a consonant 'S' and not 'C'. 丞 is pronounced as Sing and not Cing.
Check here http://solution.cs.ucla.edu/~jinbo/dzl/lookup.php
3.Why would min language use a different character 禃 for such a basic everyday word whereas cantonese/mandarin don't ?
Sorry, I am still not convinced for the above reasons. Maybe we should look at what the character is for Mindong ie. Hok Ciu. That should give us some clue.
As for difference in tone, there's such a thing as tone sandhi. Unfortunately, min language has quite a lot of tone sandhi which confuses. Thus, the same character can have different tones depending on the context and usage.
Anyway, since there's a stalemate, there's no point discussing about this until more evidence comes up.
Re: Hokkien word for 'one'
I am not an expert on benzi, and this particular topic is just about hitting the boundaries of my limited knowledge, so I think I, too, will leave it here. Suffice to say, I admit that I myself have been quite happy to use 一 for both it and jit, in the absence of a confirmed unique character for jit.
Perhaps if Hong, one of our senior Forumers who is quite knowledgeable on benzi happens to drop by, he could shed some wisdom.
However, I have to challenge the following statement:
1. Both Mandarin and Hokkien have 看 for 'see', i.e. kan and k'ua, respectively. Yet, Cantonese uses 睇 t'ai, which has the specific meaning of 'to peep' rather than 'see'. To note that all three have departed from the Classical Chinese word for 'see', i.e. 觀.
2. The simple word 'thing'. Modern Mandarin uses 東西. Now, we have to admit here that fundamentally, 'east-west' hardly has any direct correlation to 'things' - unless you want to go down the road of justifying its use on the basis of an 'extended meaning', which will then open a whole new can of worms. Cantonese is even more hopeless, whereby there is no correct character for yæ. Surprisingly, it is Hokkien that comes ahead here, having faithfully retained 物 in regular use - surviving in the form 物件 miq-kiaN.
3. The word 'small'. All the Southern dialects (粵 Yue, 閩 Min and 客家 Kejia) seem to have adopted 細 (sai, sue/se, sæ, respectively), despite the more obvious word 小 being readily available.
4. The demonstrative particles 'this' and 'that'. I don't think I need to point out here that practically every dialect has its own words for them, and virtually all of them do not have 'official' ways of writing them using Chinese characters (even the Mandarin 這 and 那 are, strictly speaking, 假借字 loan-words). Being a Classical Chinese proponent, I just settle for 此 and 彼 when writing - but that's my own personal bias.
5. Here's a personal favourite of mine from Minnan: Up and down. 上 and 下. How much more basic can it get (beyond the numerals)? Yet, spoken Cantonese and Hokkien choose 落 'fall' in place of 下. And Hokkien takes it further by choosing 起 'rise' instead of 上. And then there's 頂 and 骹 (as in 樓頂 'upstairs' and 樓骹 'downstairs', in place of 樓上 and 樓下). Not only are they indirect meanings, but the written characters have in excess of 10 strokes as opposed to just 3 in the 'basic' words.
6. Another favourite of mine from Minnan: Man and woman. 男 and 女. Again, two very basic words. And still you end up with the di-syllabic compounds ta-pO and cha-bO. One is supposedly a highly-convoluted pronunciation of 丈夫 and the other cannot even be correctly written using Chinese characters (in my more linguistically-naive days, I postulated 少婦, but quickly rescinded it). Though, to be fair, Hakka is also guilty of substitution, using 妹仔 moi-chai for 女.
7. 'He is eating rice'. Mandarin 他在吃飯, Cantonese 渠食緊飯, Hokkien 伊佇食飯. As simple as a four-word sentence can possibly get - yet across the three dialects under consideration, you have three different 3rd person pronouns (他, 渠, 伊) and three different temporal particles (在, 緊, 佇). And none of them correspond to the Classical Chinese lexicon (Classical Chinese does not have a specific word for the 3rd person pronoun, but has quite a variety for the 1st and 2nd).
In the Shanghai dialect, they use 銅鈿 t'ung-di for 錢 'money'. The reason cited by 湯志祥 is because the word 錢 in the Shanghai dialect sounds like 賤 'cheap (in the derogatory sense)'. Many other word substitutions/compounding like this exist in the Shanghai dialect, mostly due to the Shanghai dialect having lost all but one of its consonant endings (a syllable in the Shanghai dialect can only end in a vowel, -ng or a glottal stop), resulting in a large number of homonyms. So, Mr. Zheng 鄭 and Mr. Chen 陳 are both Zeng Sizang in Shanghainese. That is why within the Shanghai dialect has evolved a list of 'clarifications' to define what word they are referring to, especially surnames, e.g.
1. Zeng13: 奠耳鄭 for 鄭 vs. 耳東陳 for 陳
2. Zoa13: 走肖趙 for 趙 vs. 曲日曹 for 曹
The point I am making is that such substitutions/compounding/re-clarifications exist in the other dialects, too, and one cannot just say that because it is easier to write a word in this character, it should be just as easy/obvious to speak using this character, too. There are other factors at play, not least of which is the non-Sinitic influence on the Southern dialects (which I shall duly leave for a different thread).
Perhaps if Hong, one of our senior Forumers who is quite knowledgeable on benzi happens to drop by, he could shed some wisdom.
However, I have to challenge the following statement:
This phenomenon exists for all dialects, not just Hokkien. To cite a few common examples of 'basic everyday words':xng wrote:
Why would min language use a different character 禃 for such a basic everyday word whereas cantonese/mandarin don't ?
1. Both Mandarin and Hokkien have 看 for 'see', i.e. kan and k'ua, respectively. Yet, Cantonese uses 睇 t'ai, which has the specific meaning of 'to peep' rather than 'see'. To note that all three have departed from the Classical Chinese word for 'see', i.e. 觀.
2. The simple word 'thing'. Modern Mandarin uses 東西. Now, we have to admit here that fundamentally, 'east-west' hardly has any direct correlation to 'things' - unless you want to go down the road of justifying its use on the basis of an 'extended meaning', which will then open a whole new can of worms. Cantonese is even more hopeless, whereby there is no correct character for yæ. Surprisingly, it is Hokkien that comes ahead here, having faithfully retained 物 in regular use - surviving in the form 物件 miq-kiaN.
3. The word 'small'. All the Southern dialects (粵 Yue, 閩 Min and 客家 Kejia) seem to have adopted 細 (sai, sue/se, sæ, respectively), despite the more obvious word 小 being readily available.
4. The demonstrative particles 'this' and 'that'. I don't think I need to point out here that practically every dialect has its own words for them, and virtually all of them do not have 'official' ways of writing them using Chinese characters (even the Mandarin 這 and 那 are, strictly speaking, 假借字 loan-words). Being a Classical Chinese proponent, I just settle for 此 and 彼 when writing - but that's my own personal bias.
5. Here's a personal favourite of mine from Minnan: Up and down. 上 and 下. How much more basic can it get (beyond the numerals)? Yet, spoken Cantonese and Hokkien choose 落 'fall' in place of 下. And Hokkien takes it further by choosing 起 'rise' instead of 上. And then there's 頂 and 骹 (as in 樓頂 'upstairs' and 樓骹 'downstairs', in place of 樓上 and 樓下). Not only are they indirect meanings, but the written characters have in excess of 10 strokes as opposed to just 3 in the 'basic' words.
6. Another favourite of mine from Minnan: Man and woman. 男 and 女. Again, two very basic words. And still you end up with the di-syllabic compounds ta-pO and cha-bO. One is supposedly a highly-convoluted pronunciation of 丈夫 and the other cannot even be correctly written using Chinese characters (in my more linguistically-naive days, I postulated 少婦, but quickly rescinded it). Though, to be fair, Hakka is also guilty of substitution, using 妹仔 moi-chai for 女.
7. 'He is eating rice'. Mandarin 他在吃飯, Cantonese 渠食緊飯, Hokkien 伊佇食飯. As simple as a four-word sentence can possibly get - yet across the three dialects under consideration, you have three different 3rd person pronouns (他, 渠, 伊) and three different temporal particles (在, 緊, 佇). And none of them correspond to the Classical Chinese lexicon (Classical Chinese does not have a specific word for the 3rd person pronoun, but has quite a variety for the 1st and 2nd).
In the Shanghai dialect, they use 銅鈿 t'ung-di for 錢 'money'. The reason cited by 湯志祥 is because the word 錢 in the Shanghai dialect sounds like 賤 'cheap (in the derogatory sense)'. Many other word substitutions/compounding like this exist in the Shanghai dialect, mostly due to the Shanghai dialect having lost all but one of its consonant endings (a syllable in the Shanghai dialect can only end in a vowel, -ng or a glottal stop), resulting in a large number of homonyms. So, Mr. Zheng 鄭 and Mr. Chen 陳 are both Zeng Sizang in Shanghainese. That is why within the Shanghai dialect has evolved a list of 'clarifications' to define what word they are referring to, especially surnames, e.g.
1. Zeng13: 奠耳鄭 for 鄭 vs. 耳東陳 for 陳
2. Zoa13: 走肖趙 for 趙 vs. 曲日曹 for 曹
The point I am making is that such substitutions/compounding/re-clarifications exist in the other dialects, too, and one cannot just say that because it is easier to write a word in this character, it should be just as easy/obvious to speak using this character, too. There are other factors at play, not least of which is the non-Sinitic influence on the Southern dialects (which I shall duly leave for a different thread).
Last edited by Mark Yong on Sun Oct 25, 2009 4:25 am, edited 10 times in total.
Re: Hokkien word for 'one'
Hi Mark
You are welcome. May be I am wrong but I think 'liang' in Mandarin is cardinal and 'er' is ordinal. While the normal counting is "yi, er, san, si...", this can be ordinal. If we insert "ge" to ensure the counting as cardinal and not ordinal, it becomes "yi ge, liang ge, san ge, si ge...". I don't think 二個 "er ge" is acceptable, is it?Mark Yong wrote: niuc,
Thanks for the correction and clarification. It is interesting to note that not many (none?) other dialects actually recite numbers by cardinals (in addition to the usual ordinals) the way Hokkien does. E.g. you don't hear the Mandarin "yi, liang, san, si...".
Re: Hokkien word for 'one'
Hi, niuc,
Yes, you are right - that is precisely what I mean. In Mandarin, we would say "yi ge, liang ge, san ge" when counting in cardinals. What I meant was that for Minnan, it seems okay to count in cardinals with or without the quantifier suffix, i.e. "jit-e, nng-e, saa-e.." or just plain "jit, nng, saa...".
Do the Hokkien speakers in your homeland still make the distinction between pronunciation for ordinals/cardinals beyond 1 and 2, i.e.:
1 it jit
2 ji nng/nO
3 sam saa
4 su si
5 ngO gO
6 liok lak
7 ch'it (same)
8 pat pue/pe
9 kiu kau
10 sip chap
In Penang, ordinal/cardinal distinction in everyday use today has only been taken up to 3, i.e. sam/saa, e.g. when reciting telephone numbers. You only hear the ordinal versions for 4 onwards in the following contexts:
4 su-hai 四海 'four seas' (even this is rarely heard)
5 ngO-kim-tiam 五金店 'hardware store'
8 tu-pat-kai 豬八戒 'Pigsy' from Journey To The West 西遊記.
9 kiu-ong-ia 九王爺
Yes, you are right - that is precisely what I mean. In Mandarin, we would say "yi ge, liang ge, san ge" when counting in cardinals. What I meant was that for Minnan, it seems okay to count in cardinals with or without the quantifier suffix, i.e. "jit-e, nng-e, saa-e.." or just plain "jit, nng, saa...".
Do the Hokkien speakers in your homeland still make the distinction between pronunciation for ordinals/cardinals beyond 1 and 2, i.e.:
1 it jit
2 ji nng/nO
3 sam saa
4 su si
5 ngO gO
6 liok lak
7 ch'it (same)
8 pat pue/pe
9 kiu kau
10 sip chap
In Penang, ordinal/cardinal distinction in everyday use today has only been taken up to 3, i.e. sam/saa, e.g. when reciting telephone numbers. You only hear the ordinal versions for 4 onwards in the following contexts:
4 su-hai 四海 'four seas' (even this is rarely heard)
5 ngO-kim-tiam 五金店 'hardware store'
8 tu-pat-kai 豬八戒 'Pigsy' from Journey To The West 西遊記.
9 kiu-ong-ia 九王爺