Hokkien and Indonesia 'Wuxia' novels

[niuc]

Coh Hiangswe, thank you for sharing, also for the list of Hokkien words used in búkiap novels. I agree with you that somehow Hokkien terms fits better in Indonesian, may be because we are already used to so many Hokkien words loaned into Bahasa Indonesia. IMHO the phonology of both are more similar than to Mandarin.

Btw I think Tok Ciang = Poisonus palm = 毒掌 , hand's palm.
Cayhe = "I" used when talking with junior = 在下
Tiat Pu San = armour stance -> Tiat may be 鐵 (thiat).

About Medan Hokkien, I only know that it is very similar to Penang Hokkien, as confirmed by Sim also.

Ah-bin, your analysis about Medan/Penang/Gilan variant as mix of Cuanciu & Ciangciu in the reverse way of E-mng is enlightening! Do you know where in Hokkien province is this variant spoken?

[xng]

And by the way, where are U from, Xng?

I'm guessing KL or Sinsoaⁿ.

I am from KL judging from my past indifferences to Penang Hokkien posts.

Are you a Thai Chinese ? Which part of Thailand ?

[amhoanna]

Coh s.s., thanks for the link. I'll definitely be in Malang at some pt. I'll be in touch!

These terms "Cina Medan" and "Cina Semarang" are real interesting, not to mention "bahasa Bagansiapiapi" and "bahasa Pontianak". Indonesia is a world unto itself. Is Hokkien still spoken in Semarang?

Xng -- I'm guessing U speak real good Cantonese then! Ah goá ho͘ⁿ, goá sī Bílētó lâng lah.

[xng]

Xng -- I'm guessing U speak real good Cantonese then! Ah goá ho͘ⁿ, goá sī Bílētó lâng lah.

What is bileto ? Please write in English.

PS: Yah, I speak good pure cantonese too (not those mixed canto).

[Ah-bin]

Ah-bin, your analysis about Medan/Penang/Gilan variant as mix of Cuanciu & Ciangciu in the reverse way of E-mng is enlightening! Do you know where in Hokkien province is this variant spoken?

I think the Gî-lân variant is definitely in the Chiang-chiu camp (doesn't have lú, hû, tu only lí, hî, ti). I haven't found anywhere in China or Taiwan where anything corresponding to the Northern Malaysian/Medan style is used. The test case is a dialect that uses pūiⁿ mûi and lú, hû, tu simultaneously, I don't think such a dialect exists now.

So either Bahasa Cina Medan is “Made in Hoan-péng" from dialect mixing (not unusual, US and Canadian English are the results of just the same process, as is Amoy Hokkien itself), or it is a preservation of some older regional form that has been lost in China through migration and mixing in the Amoy area. I would say it's probably a bit of both, but the exact processes are not known.

Looking at the way Douglas preserves the distinction between j- and l- initials in a dictionary of Amoy speech, I would guess that this distinction was lost in Amoy only within the last century. (See also p.124 of van der Loon http://www.ihp.sinica.edu.tw/~asiamajor ... 967-95.pdf)

I have just thought up a theory about the phonological system of Amoy as a "reduction" to features common to Chiang-chiu and Choan-chiu. What I mean by this is that phonological features unique to either Chiang-chiu or Choan-chiu were lost in the formation of Modern Amoy.

Examples:
Initial j- and final -ūiⁿ and -e• were found mainly in Chiang-chiu, but people from Choan-chiu couldn't pronounce them. Chiang-chiu does have initial l- and final -ng and -e for other words, so Amoy eventually developed the features that people from both areas could pronounce. In the opposite direction, Choan-chiu has final -y and Chiang-chiu does not, so Amoy reduced the -y endings to -i, an ending that also existed in Choan-chiu (just for different words).

This doesn't explain Penang/Medan Hokkien though. The retention of -ūiⁿ and j- in these varieties would suggest that Chiang-chiu people were the main group and people from other areas just had to learn those sounds, but why did they start saying lú, hû, tu? I think maybe lú, hû, tu actually developed from ly, hy, and ty (perhaps from Teochew even?) but because this vowel sound -y doesn't exist in Chiang-chiu, people approximated it with -u.

Something needs to be done on the origins of different types of Southeast Asian Hokkien similar to this:
http://www.victoria.ac.nz/lals/research ... nglish.pdf

Btw I think Tok Ciang = Poisonus palm = 毒掌 , hand's palm.

Yes.....of course this makes much more sense! I imagined that there was some palm tree that someone was making poison out of.....

[AndrewAndrew]

The -u sounds are attested by Douglas in Tang-oann and villages on Amoy island, so you don't need to go as far as Cuanciu.

[Ah-bin]

Yes, I should have put that in as well, but I wonder why the -u developed in the first place. Were the people in these areas approximating -y the best way they could, whereas others approximated it with -i? I am just speculating until i find out more.

Then again.....
The prevalence of the -u in the earliest areas of out-migration from Fukien (such as Hainan and Lui-chiu) and overseas in sixteenth century Manila and the base language of the Babas would suggest that -u was much more common in the past than it is now!

[AndrewAndrew]

Why does -u have to have developed from either -i or -y rather than e.g. vice versa? The MC final was -io / -jo apparently.

[Ah-bin]

Ah, that makes perfect sense then. I should have looked that up to start with.

[amhoanna]

-ng and -iⁿ in general seem to have some kind of exchange program going on. Didn't someone here come across a dialect of Hoklo recently that had -ng instead of -iⁿ, e.g. tng for sweet, hn̄g for ear, etc.?

Seems likely that -uiⁿ existed in Coânciu dialects during the "making of Amoy". Isn't 間 kuiⁿ in modern central Coânciu? And isn't 關 kuiⁿ in modern Amoy and the Amoy dialect of Old Tâi'ápak 台北?

There are lú/tū people on TW and some of the Pescadores. I can't recall ever meeting one myself, but some people I knew went to the Pescadores and the local people asked them if they wanted to "cia̍h hû". Don't know if they say mûi/nūi/pūiⁿ though. That would be pretty crazy. Seems as likely as not that that combo was "Born in Penang and Medan". More power to that.

Also what do the Proto-閩 reconstructions have for -y/-u/-i? I'm guessing it was back unrounded -y. The evidence points to a shift from -y to -i and -u. The fact that -i and -u exist in all dialects of Hoklo, etc. Also just that high back unrounded vowels are kind of rare in human language. Also that -i and -u "flank" -y: so some people fronted it, others rounded it, etc. If it was really -u or -i to start, though... Well, stranger things do happen.