Penang Measure word

[Ah-bin]

Am I hearing this right? I keep on hearing a measure word in the Penang Hokkien podcast for people that I can't find in my dictionaries.

chit-khEn cha-bo' "a woman"

Like hEn-tioh for "see" , it doesn't fit into any POJ spelling I know, so I thought it might be khien/khian like hEn, which was probably hian/hian 現.

Any help would be greatly appreciated....

[SimL]

Hi Ah-bin,

Doesn't ring any bells, sorry. Could you post the podcast(s) and time(s) of a few instances of it?

For guys I think there's "khioh4", but I'm not sure if it's a noun itself or a measure word. Anyone else (in particular, Andrew and Mark) familiar with "khioh4"? It doesn't seem like a noun to me, because I can't associate any specific meaning to it (it's neither an old guy or a young guy, etc), on the other hand (unlike the word you're asking about), I don't think one can say *"chit/nO/san khioh ta-pO".

[Andrew]

Hi Ah-bin,

Doesn't ring any bells, sorry. Could you post the podcast(s) and time(s) of a few instances of it?

For guys I think there's "khioh4", but I'm not sure if it's a noun itself or a measure word. Anyone else (in particular, Andrew and Mark) familiar with "khioh4"? It doesn't seem like a noun to me, because I can't associate any specific meaning to it (it's neither an old guy or a young guy, etc), on the other hand (unlike the word you're asking about), I don't think one can say *"chit/nO/san khioh ta-pO".

I have to say that growing up I only came across e5, le5, kioh4 and ge5 (my grandfather was from Engchhun) as classifiers for persons. The first time I came across khEn2/khien2 was when I listened to the Penang Hokkien podcast.

[SimL]

Andrew,

Is your "kioh" without aspiration on the initial consonant?

Oh, and I've been meaning to ask you a follow-up question for a while now. You said you weren't familiar with the word 樹奶 "chiu-leng" (= "rubber"). What then did you call "rubber bands" (which, for me, were "chiu-leng-tua" 樹奶帶). Did you perhaps call them "las-tik"?

[Andrew]

Is your "kioh" without aspiration on the initial consonant?

Yes. khioh4 sounds to me like "to gather up".

Oh, and I've been meaning to ask you a follow-up question for a while now. You said you weren't familiar with the word 樹奶 "chiu-leng" (= "rubber"). What then did you call "rubber bands" (which, for me, were "chiu-leng-tua" 樹奶帶). Did you perhaps call them "las-tik"?

I'm afraid I never learnt the word!

[Ah-bin]

Thanks,

I knew I wasn't going crazy...when I get home I'm going to have a look in my Teochiu dictionary, because I think John Ong has some Teochiu background. I'm guesssing it might be 件 borrowed in from some other dialect.