A Hokkien loan into Mandarin

[Ah-bin]

It's nice to see that things do occasionally go the other way....

http://www.danwei.org/front_page_of_the ... _new_m.php

The word in question is "給力" (gei3 li4 - give power for poor Sim who is in a country where they haven't heard of unicode yet) which the article says is from Southern Min, so I expect its a calque from a word pronounced "hO lat". Is this one used in Penang? Or Amoy? I've never heard it myself.

Actually some southern expressions from Cantonese are widely used in northern China now, such as 的士 di4shi3 for taxi 寫字樓 xie3zil4ou2 for office, and 買單 mai3dan1 where people used to say 結帳 jie2zhang4 when wanting to pay in a restaurant (heng-lui in Penang Hokkien). These are (or were) unusual in Taiwan, where they say 計程車 ji4cheng1che1 for taxi and 辦公室 ban4gong1shi4 for office and 結帳 jie2zhang4 for heng lui.

[AndrewAndrew]

Interesting. I haven't come across hoo-lat.

In Beijing the standard terms when I was there were 辦公室 bangongshi and 出租車 chuzuche but we usually said 買單 maidan. Loans from Japanese were probably as frequent as loans from other Chinese languages. In Penang I say 算想 suinn-siaunn rather than heng-lui.

The most prominent loans from Hokkien into Cantonese are 粿條 koe-tiau and 油炸粿 iu-tsa-koe, which the Cantonese insist on using the wrong characters and making up false folk etymologies for!

[SimL]

gei3 li4 - give power for poor Sim who is in a country where they haven't heard of unicode yet

Yes, very frustrating. Europe is way behind Australia in terms of openness to Asian culture. I don't think I ever found a single internet cafe in Australia which didn't support hanzi. Here and in London, I would be lucky if 1 in 10 does.

heng-lui in Penang Hokkien

In the Penang of my youth, we said "siu1-lui2" (= "put away / keep money") to the young boys or girls (presumably the teenage children of the hawker stall owner-cook) who served the dishes, when we wanted to pay the bill. The system was that these young people would come to your table to take your order (or you could go directly to the stall yourself), and they would bring you the food when it was ready; you only paid at the end. This was the universal system at the time, but I think this has changed slightly in Malaysia nowadays (I haven't been there for long enough periods - and didn't pay close enough attention - to really know). Could someone confirm if this term is still in use?

[Ah-bin]

Interesting. I haven't come across hoo-lat.

In Beijing the standard terms when I was there were 辦公室 bangongshi and 出租車 chuzuche but we usually said 買單 maidan.

I saw 寫字樓 written on advertisements for real estate in 2007, I was surprised as I knew it from Cantonese, but had never heard or seen it in Taiwan. I think 的士 dishi has entered the spoken language more.

I often notice that the CCP regime promulgates a standard that is rapidly becoming divorced from reality. One example is their continued insistance on 計算機 jisuanji for computer, when people actually use the ROC invented term 電腦 diannao. Probably pure pig-headedness on their part as they view themselves as the ultimate authority on Chiense histpry, language, culture, etc.

Loans from Japanese were probably as frequent as loans from other Chinese languages.

Are you meaning recent loans to do with popular culture like manga, or just japanese loans in general?

As far as I know, loans from Japanese make up most of the vocabulary of Mandarin used to describe anything new the Chinese encountered in the twentieth century from the west, (almost all the political concepts: democracy, anarchy, dictatorship, human rights; the words for philosophy,culture, the arts; inventions like the telephone, telegraph, electricity, police, military terms, postal terms etc. I think it would be impossible to say much about the modern world in any Chinese language without all those Japanese loans.
so I think there are definitely more of these in Mandarin than any loans from other Chinese languages. Makes it nice and easy to learn Korean and Vietnamese, too. That's what I love about them!

[niuc]

Interesting stuffs... I have never heard about "hO lat" either. I suspect 給 there is not 'hor7'/'hO7'. It can be 'kip4' (literary), but 'kip4-lat8' or 'kip4-lik8' are unknown to me too...

According to the link: [给力 has been used all over the Chinese internet, as a saying that could be literally translated as "giving power" but has more meaning along the lines of 带劲, which means "interesting" or "has force." ] It sounds more matching to 'kau3-lat8' 夠力 in Hokkien.

Taxi 的士 is pronounced as de2shi4 in Singapore Mandarin. In Bagan Hokkien it is called 'tik4-si1', so the second TLJ 士 (sy7) doesn't match. How about in your variants? O yeah, we call bus 客車 'khe4-chia1'.

Office is 辦公室 'pan7-kong1-sik4' in Bagan, although many also say 'kan1-to1' or even 'kuan1-to1' (can be mistaken as 關刀 the weapon of 'Kuan1-kong1' the deified Samkok hero), derived from Indonesian "kantor" which is from Dutch "kantoor".

In Penang I say 算想 suinn-siaunn rather than heng-lui.

I suspect this "suinn-siaunn" is from "suinn-siau", 'sng3-siau3' 算數 in my variant, meaning "to calculate the figure or account", sometimes used to call for the bill. We also use 'hai*5-lui1' (= "heng-lui") and 'siu1-lui1'.

ROC term 電腦 dian4-nao3 is used in SE Asia instead of CCP 計算機 ji4suan4ji1. Usually I prefer ROC terms to PRC. 計算機 ji4suan4ji1 sounds to me like calculator, may be because in Bagan a calculator is called 'tiap8-sng3-ki1' []算機, 'tiap8' is to type.

Those terms from Japanese sound very "native", I think many Hokkiens (and other Chinese) don't know that they were coined first in Japan.

[amhoanna]

A few observations on the fly:

1) Could 給力 be kekla̍t 激力?
2) Bangongshi and pānkongsek are used in Taiwan. I say "xiezilou" some of the time and people seem to understand. 埋單/買單 maidan is used in TW Mandarin but not Hoklo. Say it with full-on Cantonese vowels if you want snappier service
3) The VN word for office is vănphòng 文房. I'd like to have a bûnpâng someday too.
4) "Lui" for money is pronounced lúi in PgHK? It's lui (impêⁿ) in Sing/Melaka/Bagan, right?
5) TWese complain about China terminology all the time. Apparently they chose Mandarin over Hoklo to facilitate communication with billions, but then they prefer to have their own version of Mandarin instead of communicating with the billions. Lemmings!
6) What's the meaning of kàula̍t again? Aokh brought it up too recently. I forgot to ask.
7) Tia̍psǹgki——interesting word. I wish I or we could put all this in a database.

[Ah-bin]

ROC term 電腦 dian4-nao3 is used in SE Asia instead of CCP 計算機 ji4suan4ji1. Usually I prefer ROC terms to PRC. 計算機 ji4suan4ji1 sounds to me like calculator, may be because in Bagan a calculator is called 'tiap8-sng3-ki1' []算機, 'tiap8' is to type.

For the PRC people I asked it suggests a big old fashioned computer, perhaps like a mainframe. That's why I said the regime standard makers are pig-headed. Ordinary people no longer use 計算機 ji4suan4ji1 in ordinary conversation, but they can;t nring themselves to recognise the term, because they didn't invent it.

TWese complain about China terminology all the time. Apparently they chose Mandarin over Hoklo to facilitate communication with billions, but then they prefer to have their own version of Mandarin instead of communicating with the billions. Lemmings!

When I lived in Taiwan (ten years ago) hardly anyone seemed to know (or care) about what the Chinese called things. Seems to have changed.

There was another Hokkien loan into Mandarin I've thought of. Sam-pat (what that means precisely I am not sure, it is an insult used for women - is it just "stupid"?) borrowed as san-ba 三八. The Chinese even have a folk etymology for it, saying it comes from 三八婦女節 the "international women's day" held on the eighth of March. I had never heard of this day before I went to China, and later found out that it was "international" only because it was celebrated in more than one country, and was one of a collection of international days that were until recent years known only in former Communist Bloc countries, even though recognised by the UN. After I found that out I knew it was a Hokkien loan, because I'd remembered it being used in Taiwan (though I forget which language） and therefore that san-ba probably had nothing at all to do with the women's day, as the ROC probably didn't celebrate it because it smacked of communism (it used to be called "International working women's day").

[aokh1979]

Probably pure pig-headedness on their part as they view themselves as the ultimate authority on Chiense histpry, language, culture, etc.

Tell me about it ! I hate it when people say 林吉特 as Ringgit, which is known as 零吉 or 令吉 in our homeland. Then this 浮羅交怡 as in Langkawi, is widely called 蘭卡威 in China. Today, even the so-called 華語規範委員會 in Malaysia thinks 清真寺 is "more standard" than the 回教堂 which we have been using for decades in Malaysia. Even Chinese in China understand what 巴剎 is, but schools in Malaysia force students to use 菜市場 or marks will be deducted. Why do we always think others are better and we should adopt the way we're not familiar with ?

[niuc]

三八 is 'sam1-pat4' or 'sam1-pa1-so5' in Bagan Hokkien, with meaning including some sort of 'ke1-po5' and hint of "uneducated", with eccentric taste of fashion/speech/choices...

Ordinary people no longer use 計算機 ji4suan4ji1 in ordinary conversation, but they can;t nring themselves to recognise the term, because they didn't invent it.

They are playing "ostrich" (a game that real ostriches don't play anyway!), may be? Sooner or later they have to swallow their pride and come back to reality, otherwise theirs will be no more than archaic jargons...

Why do we always think others are better and we should adopt the way we're not familiar with ?

IMO the name of places should always follow how the local Chinese call them. For daily terms such as "market", I think it is better to allow both "standard" and local terms. But I am neither CCP nor 華語規範委員會!

[amhoanna]

Cool. I wasn't aware of 浮羅交怡. The same thing goes on on a larger scale in Ph. There are a set of "sinicizations" based on Hoklo. These are older and still used exclusively in what's left of the local Chinese media. But everything printed or filmed in "the north" uses a newer set of "empty-calorie" Mandarin-based sinicizations.

On a related note... I read something interesting on the web yesterday. It said that while Chinese in general have an edge over non-Asians and West Asians in learning Thai, Chinese from SG/MY have just as great of an edge over Chinese Chinese and Taiwanese Chinese ... B/C OF CULTURAL DIFFERENCES.

Very interesting.