This could be because (even) when I was young, inflation had resulted in 5 cents being the minimum normal unit of currency. Now, the -gin5, or -ciN5 additions were mostly used 1) (as Mark explains) when the quantity involved is a whole number, but also 2) when that whole number is less than or equal to 10. So, one has "cit khO gin", "nO khO gin", etc, to "peh khO gin", "kau khO gin", "cap khO gin"; but rarely "cap-it khO gin", "cap-ji khO gin" etc; and (I think) never "saN-cheng khO gin" etc. i.e. I see the "-gin" as adding something to pad out the phrase for small numbers. Similarly for "puat-ciN" (though this one has a natural limit anyway, because more than 9 "puat" already become "khO").SimL wrote:... I know of no equivalent for "lui", i.e. I never say "Z lui-ciN5" or any other word after "lui1".
So - as one hardly had to make distinctions between (or even talk about) 1 cent, 2 cents, etc up to 8 cents, 9 cents in everyday conversation in my youth - one hardly had to add an extra syllable at the end, to pad out what was being said. I remember my father speaking about how - when he was very young - a bowl of mee cost half a cent, and an ice ball cost a quarter-cent (and they had coins for them too!). In such times, one would have had to speak about 1 cent, 2 cents, etc up to 8 cents, 9 cents in everyday conversation, so I'll ask him if he had a word to pad out the phrase, when the number of cents was between 1 and 10.
PS. This is how I feel the usage of "-gin" and "ciN" works in Penang Hokkien. It's apparently quite different for niuc's form, as he adds "-cin" to whole cents, even though he's younger than me, and has even less need to distinguish 1 - 9 cents in everyday conversation!
My variant uses both 'sian' and 'sian-cîⁿ', 'kho•' and 'kho•-gûn', 'tún' and 'tún-gûn'. The second part of each pair is usually used for emphasis. Beside meaning "cent", we also use 'sian' to mean a small amount of money, e.g. bô-kuí-sian(-cîⁿ); bô-puàⁿ-sian(-cîⁿ).
