Different variants of minnan

[Andrew]

English has a standard that is taught internationally, regardless of how others mispronounced the words or other native english subdialects.

Xng, which standard? UK or US?

In most countries, it is UK. In Singapore , malaysia, Hong Kong, Australia it is UK English.

We are talking about standard within a country. Were you ever taught american english (besides UK english) in Singapore schools ?

That's not what you said. Clearly there are multiple standards of English. The fact that former British colonies generally use the British standard is not relevant. Which standard should an English learner in China or Cambodia follow? I've lived in Beijing and had classmates from the UK and USA who both were teaching English to local Chinese students.

[aokh1979]

We are talking about standard within a country. Were you ever taught american english (besides UK english) in Singapore schools ?

I am sure we're not talking about standard within a country, as our discussion spills over to Taiwan, Singapore and Malaysia...... And you mentioned there was a standard taught "internationally". I still speak and write based on British system but after leaving in China for 7 years, I am very certain that the several English institutions in Xiamen hire teachers from US and UK to teach their own variant. Students have 2 major options to select.

I still stand firm on my theory, that Hokkien language is a reflection of culture. One day it may turn into 1 common variant, like Cantonese, but that has to happen naturally. Just like Penang, Hokkien and Teochew live in harmony for 200 years (if I am not mistaken), the 2 variants apparently start to merge very well now. I use more Teochew vocabulary than I know in a Hokkien conversation with family.

I do enjoy discussing about how a word is pronounced or used in other variants here, please don't kill any variant. If any variant is meant to die away no matter how hard we try to save, let it happen naturally. Let Traditional Chinese continue to live even some people think Simplified Chinese is the standard. Let other 北方話 live even more and more people from the north start to sound like Beijinger. Let 泉州 and 漳州 continue to shine to make Hokkien a colourful mixture of different people, different history, different countries.

[xng]

No offense. I can understand the sentiments towards one dialect variant but in order for the language to survive, there must be a standard.

You guys seem to place hokkien at the same international prestige as English. English (or even mandarin) can afford to have two standards internationally but definitely not Hokkien.

I can only forsee hokkien dying out under the onslaught of both English and Mandarin in China as they are more international and useful languages.

[Andrew]

I don't think the lack of a single spoken standard is a problem. Historically the Amoy dialect has been the 'standard', and in modern times it may be that the Taiwanese dialects become 'standard'.

The bigger problem is the lack of a written standard, without which the language is severely constrained. The ROC government is already working to develop a written standard, though, as we have discussed on this forum.

[hohomi]

The bigger problem is the lack of a written standard, without which the language is severely constrained. The ROC government is already working to develop a written standard, though, as we have discussed on this forum.

We already have a widely used romanization called lô-má-jī(羅馬字) or pe̍h-uē-jī(白話字POJ) since 100 years ago. It is used by Christian church. It has been widely used in Southern Fujian and Taiwan. There are many books written in that form. People who don't read and write Chinese characters can write letters using POJ.

The current official standard in Taiwan is Tâi-lô(台灣閩南語羅馬字拼音方案, a.k.a 台羅). It is based on POJ. I recommend it to all of us.

The problem is not that we don't have a written standard, but that most native speakers aren't aware of it. We can write Hokkien with both Tâi-lô and Chinese characters or exclusively with Tâi-lô .

[Andrew]

We already have a widely used romanization called lô-má-jī(羅馬字) or pe̍h-uē-jī(白話字POJ) since 100 years ago. It is used by Christian church. It has been widely used in Southern Fujian and Taiwan. There are many books written in that form. People who don't read and write Chinese characters can write letters using POJ.

The current official standard in Taiwan is Tâi-lô(台灣閩南語羅馬字拼音方案, a.k.a 台羅). It is based on POJ. I recommend it to all of us.

The problem is not that we don't have a written standard, but that most native speakers aren't aware of it. We can write Hokkien with both Tâi-lô and Chinese characters or exclusively with Tâi-lô .

I was talking about the standardisation of Hokkien Han-ji. I'm a fan of Peh-oe-ji, but it is a transcription system, not a standardised orthography, so exacerbates dialectical differences. If you use UK English spelling, a word is spelt the same whether it is pronounced haʊs/hæ:ʊs/heʉs/hy:s/hɔɪs, etc. It is much more difficult to read Peh-oe-ji than in Han-ji if you are not from the same locality as the writer.

[xng]

I was talking about the standardisation of Hokkien Han-ji. I'm a fan of Peh-oe-ji, but it is a transcription system, not a standardised orthography, so exacerbates dialectical differences. If you use UK English spelling, a word is spelt the same whether it is pronounced haʊs/hæ:ʊs/heʉs/hy:s/hɔɪs, etc. It is much more difficult to read Peh-oe-ji than in Han-ji if you are not from the same locality as the writer.

I agree. It is the Han Ji that unifies all the different variants. When I used Han Ji for Putian, it is immediately clear to non Putian speakers what they were talking about.

But the problem is, a lot of Hokkien Benzi has been lost through times, even the list of standard hokkien characters by ROC have mistakes in them eg. wife (Boh)

I have compiled a list of Benzi in a different thread, feel free to add more or argue.

[xng]

I don't think the lack of a single spoken standard is a problem. Historically the Amoy dialect has been the 'standard', and in modern times it may be that the Taiwanese dialects become 'standard'.

The bigger problem is the lack of a written standard, without which the language is severely constrained. The ROC government is already working to develop a written standard, though, as we have discussed on this forum.

The problem is that even Taiwanese has 2 main variants ie. Taipei and Tainan.

eg. 病 is sometimes pronounced as Penn or Pinn.

I have chosen Pinn, Sinn as we need to strike a balance for what is borrowed from Quanzhou and what is borrowed from Zhangzhou to make the standard a true mixture of the two main variants ie. making the standard a 'middleman' (more intelligible) between people from both Quanzhou and Zhangzhou.

Hohomi,

I believe Xiamen pronounce 病 as Pinn ?

[hohomi]

I believe Xiamen pronounce 病 as Pinn ?

病
pinn 泉/厦/台北 Quanzhou/Xiamen/Taibei
penn 台南 Tainan
peenn 漳 Zhangzhou

[SimL]

One of the people I met at the Taiwan conference was a young woman in her mid-twenties, a native speaker of Taiwanese.

She told me that she says "wa2" / "ua2" for 我, not "gua2". I was very surprised to hear this, and she thought about it a bit more and assured me that not only did she say it this way, but that her mother did too, though her mother sometimes says "gua2"; it was her grandmother who would say "gua2". I could see her mental processes, as she tried to imagine her mother and grandmother speaking, and what they would say. She started by saying that "gua2" sounded rather old-fashioned, "something her mother would say", and then corrected it to "something her grandmother would say".

So, it appears that in some varieties of Taiwanese in any case, "wa2" / "ua2" is a known pronunciation. Most regular readers of this Forum will know that the "wa2" / "ua2" pronunciation of 我 in Penang Hokkien has been remarked upon before as "unique" in the Hokkien group, and due to Teochew influence. It was interesting for me to discover this "wa2" / "ua2" in Taiwanese. Either it's simply a parallel and independent development, or the Penang "wa2" / "ua2" comes from some variant of Minnan which is connected to the Taiwanese variant this young woman speaks.

Any native Taiwanese speakers care to comment?