Getting angry in Penang Hokkien

[Ah-bin]

Very nice to have you around kkslok. I notice they sometimes have people from Taiping on the Penang Hokkien podcast, but they sound the same as Penang people to me, it must take a trained ear to tell them apart. It's also good to know that I can use Penang-style Hokkien all over the north of the peninsula, and not just on the island and in Butterworth.

[kkslok]

Hi Ah Bin,

Nice to "meet" you!

In fact if you go to Pangkor, Alor Star / Kedah and many other places around Taiping (e.g. Kuala Sepetang, Selama) where Hokkien is spoken, you would realise that people are speaking with the same accent (with the Penang one).

Also, there is a very slight difference between Penang and Taiping Hokkien. That's why I said 99%=

[aokh1979]

Hi Ah-bin:

Not only Northern Region, if you go to Medan, Indonesia - you will be surprised. Of course, like kkslok said, 99%.

In Medan,

• they pronounce Penang as Pin-neng, with pressure on "n" in between.

• they dun say chit-le as in "one" instead they say chit-ge.

• they use loan words from Bahasa Indonesia more often.

In Kedah,

• people often put a "kot" (not sure about the origin) at the end of sentence when they emphasise.

• I found people use more old-fashioned words in Kedah, like ai-cheng for "boy / girlfriend".

[SimL]

Hi kkslok,

Nice to meet you. Welcome to the Forum!

[kkslok]

Thanks Sim,
It's always good to find people with the same interest.

I am new to this forum. Wonder has anyone here done any studies on the variants of Hokkien in Malaysia / SE Asia?
From friends who are from various parts of Malaysia. I noticed that Kelantan (Kota Bharu), Kuching, Melaka and Johor each has its own distinct accent of Hokkien (Min nan). Kind of interesting.

[SimL]

Hi kkslok,

Wonder has anyone here done any studies on the variants of Hokkien in Malaysia / SE Asia?

The only one I know about is this one which Ah-bin found a while back: ""Malay Lexicalized Items in Penang Peranakan Hokkien" (http://pacling.anu.edu.au/catalogue/SEALSVIII_final.pdf - search for "Hokkien" in the pdf).

I think the emphasis of the paper is on the borrowed Malay words. Perhaps the sorts of studies you're thinking about would be more general: just a description of Northern Malayan Hokkien, Singaporean Hokkien, or Philippine Hokkien, Hokkien or Teochew in Thailand, etc. That's the sort of study I'd like to see, in any case. Any such study would of course include a discussion of the borrowed Malay, Tagalog, Thai etc words, but it would be nice to see a broader description of these varieties as well.

[kkslok]

From my friends who are originally from various parts of Northern Peninsular Malaysia. There are various accents of "Northern" Hokkien in Kedah, Penang / Northern & western Perak, Kelantan and Hokkien variant south of Ipoh (e.g. Teluk Intan etc.).

[Ah-bin]

I think I may have the answer to the puzzles about "getting angry" and "suddenly".

I was reading through a Hokkien dictionary yesterday when I found hiong-hiam 兇險, with the meanings "dangerous" and "suddenly" and then I checked 起 and there was 起雄 which meant "to lose one's temper"!

So I was completely wrong about naik angin, and about 風險 - because the change appears in two different words, I think it is more likely that these "hongs" were originally "hiongs" in Amoy/Chiang-chiu.

[SimL]

Sounds like an excellent explanation for Penang Hokkien "khi hong" to me. . Which dictionary was it?

[Ah-bin]

Sorry, I ran out of time to write that....it was the little blue one, but I didn't bring it with me today. My memory is telling me one of the terms was on page 280, but I can't remember which or which term it was.