Hokkien words in Thai

[niuc]

Kūkáng. What a great name for a city.

It is written as 巨港, but I read somewhere that it was 舊港. Kūkáng was the capital of Sriwijaya.

The story about "bahasa Pontianak" surprised me too, the part where the customs officials give people a hard time if they hear them speaking Mandarin, but give them service with a smile if they hear them speaking Teochew. I wonder how "bahasa Medan" or "bahasa Bagan" would do.

That surprised me too. Well, sadly it is probably not true for Bahasa Medan or Bagan. The custom official must be from Pontianak or knew some orang Pontianak, as Chinese in Jakarta often don't know how Bahasa Pontianak sounds like, not to mention pribumi in Jakarta. I guess the relationship between pribumi and Teochews in Pontianak are much better than Medan or Bagan. Another place is Bangka where Hakka people comprise a large portion if not a majority. Pribumi in Bangka are in good terms with Hakka there, but I am not sure if they call it Bahasa Bangka or Bahasa Pangkal Pinang or any of that sort.

Kóng khí Ha'oái'ī ìsù tō sī kóng, "Goá bô ài chap lah, mài hō͘ goá tiâu tī Bíkok tāilio̍k tō hó a." Ah m̄ koh kóng sī ánne kóng, khêngsi̍t goá pēng m̄ sī tùi Hoekî tāilio̍k hiahni̍h bô cênggī. Taⁿ tī Ha'oái'ī bô kúi ê lâng beh to̍kli̍p. Gō͘ca̍p tang āu tō bô tiāⁿtio̍h ah. Btw, thanks for using "tùike̍h". That's a new word for me.

Bian2-khe4-khi3! Tong1-lian5 cia*5-cue3-Hue1-ki5-lang5, ly2 ke1-kiam2 ma7-e7-ai3-kok4.

Btw last night while I was having dinner with my wife at Thai Express, suddenly I noticed that curry in Thai is "kaeng"! In Bagan-ue we call "normal" curry as king7! And king7-kue1 (curry chicken, beside lor2-ba4) is a must for Chinese New Year and practically all festive days in Bagan custom. What we call ka1-li2 in Bagan, e.g. unique ka1-li2-png7, is yellow-greenish and a bit sticky. It looks and tastes more similar to Japanese curry.

[amhoanna]

Interesting Thai-Hokkien connection. Well, you said that the orang Bagan arrived from Songkhla-Singgora, so it makes sense.

In case anybody's interested, here are a map and an overview of Indochina, from a Chinese POV circa 1860ish.

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/c ... ssical.png

http://zh.wikisource.org/zh/%E7%80%9B%E ... 4%E5%9C%8B

To skip to the Hokkien-relevant paragraphs, just search for 閩.

The guy mentions that Siâmlô and Oa̍tlâm were both crawling with people from 閩粵——1/6 of the population in Siâmlô. He says that Siâmlô was kind of backward at the time, far behind Oa̍tlâm. He recites the sea routes from South China to various destinations in these two places, but when it comes to Burma, he refers to the land route from Kunming.

In the map, the Johor area is called 息力. Wasn't Singapore called Si̍tla̍tpho or Sitla̍tpho in the past?

[amhoanna]

It is written as 巨港, but I read somewhere that it was 舊港.

This reminds me of a debate that took place in Tákáu / Kohiông a few yrs back over how to say 巨蛋 in Holo and Hakka. The 巨蛋 is a major shopping center with a stop on the subway. The debate was resolved in favor of just saying it in Mandarin. Now, when the trains stop at the 巨蛋 station, the PA system says 巨蛋 in Mandarin 3x. I think they should've called it Kīnūi 巨卵.

[niuc]

Interesting Thai-Hokkien connection. Well, you said that the orang Bagan arrived from Songkhla-Singgora, so it makes sense.

From what I read, only 18 people came from there. Some said Songkla was only a transit. Subsequently a lot of migrants came directly from China... so in a sense I am a bit puzzled how Bagan got this Thai influence deeply into its language and culture that it has been thought as native.

In the map, the Johor area is called 息力. Wasn't Singapore called Si̍tla̍tpho or Sitla̍tpho in the past?

I never heard that before. I just asked my mom and she said my gua7-ma8 usually referred to Singapore as Sitlatpho. Thanks for the info!

[Ah-bin]

Well, after having a look through the Singapore Hokkien dictionary, I found another explanation for "pa" as a shortening of Malay "pabrik". I suppose it is possible too, but then we would have to explain why it's in Thai Teochiu.

If it is a borrowing from Tai, then it even has a character to write it! In the Saw-ndip script used to write the ritual texts in the Tai languages of Kwangsi pa was usually written as 岜.

the dictionary also gave the compounds 開岜 khui-pa (to "open up" jungle) and 拾岜 khioh-pa (to pick up wood from the jungle? - actually, I wasn't sure what the definition was in English)

Has anyone heard of these compounds?

[AndrewAndrew]

Well, after having a look through the Singapore Hokkien dictionary, I found another explanation for "pa" as a shortening of Malay "pabrik". I suppose it is possible too, but then we would have to explain why it's in Thai Teochiu.

I'm unaware of any Malay word 'pabrik', unless you mean the Indonesian loan-word from Dutch 'fabriek', which doesn't seem relevant at all.

[Ah-bin]

Haha, that's what I thought of...a "pabrik" where you make stuff. The dictionary doesn't actually say what "pabrik" means either. I'll go for Thai, because it has a character...

[niuc]

Indeed Indonesian "pabrik" (factory) is from Dutch "fabriek", and I also don't see any connection to "pa1" (forest). In my variant, 開岜 khui-pa is to clear a forest and make it a field or settlement. I never heard the term 拾岜 khioh-pa.

[amhoanna]

Whatever the story is with pa, it looks like it might have something to do with kēng for curry. Over time, Niuc might discover even more Thai words in Hokkien?

The kīng pronunciation in Bagan suggests that there was an intervening "-eng" dialect of Hoklo, whether Hokkien or Teochew.

BTW, is the word kēng used in Penang?

It's interesting that pa is used in the Tai-Kadai languages in Kwongsai, and yet had to wait till it got to the Lâm'iûⁿ to get borrowed into Hoklo. Kwongsai, Kwongtung and Hokkien really turns out to be one of "those places where people come from".

[SimL]

BTW, is the word kēng used in Penang?

Hi amhoanna,

Do you mean for "curry"? I'm not aware of it. My normal word in PgHk is "gu3-lai2" (pseudo-sandhi on first syllable), which I imagine is borrowed from Malay.

BTW: (for the moment, in any case!) I've resolved to report every single spam I see on the Forum (but it's pretty overwhelming). Apparently some other readers are also doing the same (for which, thanks!). Personally, I've never understood how spammers think that they can stimulate people to buy their stuff by irritating the hell out of them!