Names for Koan-yim

Discussions on the Hokkien (Minnan) language.
Locked
Ah-bin
Posts: 830
Joined: Mon Aug 21, 2006 8:10 am
Location: Somewhere in the Hokloverse

Names for Koan-yim

Post by Ah-bin »

A friend of mine from Penang asked me this:
I noticed that in Penang we called her 'Pu Chur Ma', like Ah John used to say 'Ti Kong Pu Chur Ma', which is kind of Taoist and Buddhist all mixed in one sentance. I am curious about that term Pu Chur Ma, maybe you can enlighten me on that.
I have no idea how to answer! I have looked in some of my dictionaries too, but haven't found anything yet. Looks like I am missing out on a very important chunk of Hokkien knowledge!
amhoanna
Posts: 912
Joined: Sat Sep 18, 2010 12:43 pm

Re: Names for Koan-yim

Post by amhoanna »

Hoānsè sī "Pu̍tcó͘má". I typed 佛祖嬤 and 佛祖媽 into Google and it seems to be all about Koan'im.

Tīkong would be 土地公. 地 is tī in that context.
Ah-bin
Posts: 830
Joined: Mon Aug 21, 2006 8:10 am
Location: Somewhere in the Hokloverse

Re: Names for Koan-yim

Post by Ah-bin »

Thanks! It's amazing what an accurate transcription can do!
SimL
Posts: 1407
Joined: Mon Jun 26, 2006 8:33 am
Location: Amsterdam

Re: Names for Koan-yim

Post by SimL »

I'm away from the net for most of this week, so only very short replies.

Indeed, many speakers of Penang Hokkien often have no idea of what many elided or assimilated syllables mean (i.e. which ones they are), because they have no knowledge of Chinese characters. For example, it was only after learning Mandarin (and following discussions here on the Forum) that I had any idea that the first syllable of (respectively) "kiaN3-jit8" (= "today") and "kim1-mE5" (= "tonight") were both just the elided forms of 今. :mrgreen:

BTW: What's this "Koan-YIM"??? What's that horrible pinyin "y-" doing in our otherwise very nice orthography of Hokkien :shock: !!!
Locked