Hoklo in Canto Land, reports from the field

[SimL]

Well, we've been off-topic for ages now, so I suppose I'll just keep going. [Plus, it was amhoanna - the initial creator of the topic - who first sent it off topic, so I needn't feel guilty about it .]

On the etymology page, I discovered two 錢-compounds which were very well known to me. The first was no surprise once I saw it - it's just that I never happened to think if it myself, but I might have eventually, given the time. The second was totally unexpected, and might be a surprise to other readers too (or perhaps it mightn't).

1. tát-chîⁿ 值錢 = "valuable". "ci le chiu-pio cin-nia tat ciN" (= "this watch is very valuable / is worth a lot of money"). [I have a vague feeling it can also mean "is worth it", "gives you value for money", but I'm not sure.]

2. chîⁿ-chhú 錢鼠 = "a shrew".

Now, I don't know if they're still common in Penang nowadays, Yeleixingfeng, but they were common enough when I was living in Penang. They're a smallish, slim mouse, with a pointed nose. They can run really quickly, when you're trying to beat them to death with a rolled-up newspaper (something which I really hated doing, on the rare occasions when one was around the house).

When I first saw the compound "chîⁿ-chhú" listed on the etymology page, I went "No! Surely not!", because I never associated this "cin5" with the "cin3/7_chu2" of "shrew" (semantically, I didn't see a connection between "shrew" and "money" - and still don't). Anyway, the etymology page also gives the Mandarin equivalent - a brilliant feature, as that enables me to check Google or Wikipedia for Mandarin related information on the Hokkien term. In this case, the etymology page gave "香鼩 / 臭鼩 / 鼩鼱 / 守財奴" as the Mandarin equivalents. Of these 4 terms, the middle two yielded Chinese Wikipedia articles [http://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E8%87%AD%E9%BC%A9 and http://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E9%BC%A9%E9%BC%B1], which linked (respectively) to the English Wikipedia articles http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asian_House_Shrew and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shrew. So, this confirmed the third compound known to me in Penang Hokkien where 錢 is used.

niuc: I saw a number of your 錢-terms in the list. Perhaps if you have the time and energy, you could go through and see if there are any others you recognize but hadn't thought of...

[amhoanna]

Túnkiáⁿ? Wow.

In TW, COIN(S) = gînkak(g)á 銀角囝/銀角仔. Not sure but this word might be falling out of use. More commonly heard is "lânsan--ê" 零星仒 = COINS AND SMALL BILLS. I don't know or remember the regular word for paper money. Coáphiò 紙票 comes to mind -- not sure if that's the regular usage. BTW TWese money is called Tâiphiò in TW Hoklo. So here's the round-up:

TWD = Tâiphiò
CNY (China) = lângthâucoá
IDR = tún
THB = poa̍t
VND = ??
MYR = ??
PHP = ??

I really like túnkiáⁿ and anything with "lui" in it.

[Plus, it was amhoanna - the initial creator of the topic - who first sent it off topic, so I needn't feel guilty about it .]

[Yeleixingfeng]

But - as Yeleixingfeng suggested by his original question - I don't think it's commonly used by itself, or in any other common compounds. [Other Penang Hokkien speakers please correct me if I'm wrong!]

LOL, don't base anything off what I said. I am not fluent in Hokkien at all. It might just be not as common as lui.. I don't know. Note: my friends all know ciN means money. As to frequency of usage, I am going to ask tomorrow.

BTW, I've also known the word "bang2-ta3" (= "mosquito net") for years too, but never knew what the "ta3" was. Then, when I started learning Mandarin, I came across the word 罩乳*. I then found out that 罩 actually means "cover" (I wouldn't have guessed it from the meaning of 罩乳...). For some reason - I don't know how any more - I then discovered that this was pronounced "ta3" in Hokkien. I hence started to have the strong suspicion that "bang2-ta3" might be 蚊罩. And lo and behold: the etymology page confirms (again, just 5 minutes ago) that this is the case.

When ta3 was first mentioned I thought of 榻 - what is bed called? Does Hokkien use this character, or 牀?

Notes:
*: 罩乳 - I initially learnt it as the word for "bra", but apparently, 胸罩 is the more common term in Mandarin.

I have never heard of 罩乳. Is it a Hokkien term?

PS.
Yeleixingfeng: do you know about http://www.internationalscientific.org ? [For some reason, I call it the "etymology page". Perhaps that was its name in the distant past, when I first discovered it.]

Surprisingly, I discovered this site too. In fact, it was because of its Oracle Bone and Bronze script images that I was able to form my conclusions - the etymological explanations of the site is quite inaccurate and sometimes even far-fetched. >.< But, strangely, your link differs with mine greatly, although they all point to the same website. I use chineseetymology.org.

Now, I don't know if they're still common in Penang nowadays, Yeleixingfeng, but they were common enough when I was living in Penang.

I live in a terrace house - landed, yet I had never in my entire life encounter such a creature. I bet none of my friends had too. Much has changed, LOL; why did you leave Penang?

[SimL]

But - as Yeleixingfeng suggested by his original question - I don't think it's commonly used by itself, or in any other common compounds. [Other Penang Hokkien speakers please correct me if I'm wrong!]

LOL, don't base anything off what I said. I am not fluent in Hokkien at all. It might just be not as common as lui.. I don't know. Note: my friends all know ciN means money.

That's more than I knew until 1-2 years ago, because I never knew it as an independent word, only in the compounds "kE-ciN" and "tat-ciN" [without ever stopping to ask myself if 1) they were the same "ciN", and 2) what that "ciN" might mean]*. Which shows that although you're modest about your Hokkien abilities, it wouldn't surprise me if your Hokkien were better than mine. Don't forget, I left Penang at 14, so I speak a "young child's version" of Hokkien. I try to compensate for my lack of knowledge in Hokkien by knowing quite a lot about linguistics .

*: "Not knowing what some Hokkien syllables are/mean". This is a common phenomenon for Hokkien speakers who are not literate in Chinese characters. For example, for most of my life (before becoming really interested in Hokkien in the last 10 years), I (of course) knew that "bin-chng" was "bed" and "kau-i" was "chair", but I never knew what "bin" or "kau" by themselves meant. I do nowadays know what "bin" is/means: it's 眠 and means "sleep", and is the same "bin" as in "ham-bin" (= "to mutter in one's sleep"). And I've asked Ah-bin about "kau" (and he's told me), but I've forgotten again.

Actually, it's a phenomenon which occurs (to a much lesser extent) among people who are literate in Chinese characters as well. Even someone as knowledgable as niuc sometimes says "I say <Hokkien-syllable-1><Hokkien-syllable-2> to mean <English-term>, and I know what <Hokkien-syllable-1> is and means, but I've no idea what <Hokkien-syllable-2> is/means." It's just that the less literate one is in characters (or the younger one left Penang), the more of these unknown syllables there are.

I have never heard of 罩乳. Is it a Hokkien term?

Not as far as I know. I learnt it as the Mandarin word for "bra".

But, strangely, your link differs with mine greatly, although they all point to the same website. I use chineseetymology.org.

Exactly. I must have had a similar link to yours once - I guess that's why I call it "the etymology site"! Yeah, no idea why the two are different.

I live in a terrace house - landed, yet I had never in my entire life encounter such a creature. I bet none of my friends had too.

There are a number of possible explanations for this. Perhaps some of the smaller animals have been wiped out, because of the greater number of people and increasing urbanization, or perhaps better hygiene and cleanliness of the city means that these animals have less rubbish to scavenge on. [Or perhaps your parents' house is cleaner than my parents' one was (ducks for cover!!!) .]

Much has changed, LOL; why did you leave Penang?

I went with my parents when they migrated to Australia. Quite a large number of people migrated to Australia and NZ in the 1970's and 80's.

[AndrewAndrew]

cit-poat-ciN and cit-khO-gin are quite common expressions in Penang.

Gin is of course also used by itself to mean silver, or in expressions such as 銀行.

[amhoanna]

Not knowing the hanji can be a good thing, if your livelihood doesn't depend on it. Guys and girls who don't "know the hanji" tend to serve up better colloquial Hoklo and tell better Hoklo stories and jokes, etc. Trouble is, most of them don't know POJ either. Take Lo̍kkángsian, for example. He wasn't really Hànbûn literate. Once he learned POJ and put pen to paper, he was a monster. If he was Hànbûn literate, the Hànbûn would've wrecked his flow. For the same reason, aLiân-aBêng Hokkien blogs from the Straits of Melaka can be much better reads than Hokkien activist blogs from the Other Straits. There was a nice story up on http://www.molemole.sg at one point. Otherwise it's an English blog. That's the problem with aLiâns.

BRA = nîphè'á in TW Hoklo (pretty sure). What's the word in Penang and Bagan?

"Chùità" is one of the words for 口罩 (SURGICAL MASK in English? not a household word in the Anglosphere...) ... in TW. Some said "gûchùi àmmá" was a better coinage. Not sure if anybody ever said that. This was in the time of SARS. Lots of people just called them "khō͘cáu". Have U guys heard the TW Hoklo khō͘cáu / bank joke? Always good to have an overseas Hokkien joke on hand. In TW I like to tell the aLian-aBeng / durian / helmet joke, but someone over 35 always has to explain the punchline to the younger people.

[SimL]

In TW I like to tell the aLian-aBeng / durian / helmet joke, but someone over 35 always has to explain the punchline to the younger people.

Could you tell it here? (Apologies if you've already told it and I forgot...)

PS. I"m really impressed that you *read* these POJ and other bloggers...

[SimL]

I live in a terrace house - landed, yet I had never in my entire life encounter such a creature. I bet none of my friends had too.

There are a number of possible explanations for this. Perhaps some of the smaller animals have been wiped out, because of the greater number of people and increasing urbanization, or perhaps better hygiene and cleanliness of the city means that these animals have less rubbish to scavenge on.

Mark, what years were you living in Penang, and did you see any in the period of your stay? Andrew, similar question to you. And niuc, what about you in Bagan (please tell us up to what year you were there, or in Jakarta?). I guess there would be none in the Singapore of today!

[niuc]

*: 罩乳 - I initially learnt it as the word for "bra", but apparently, 胸罩 is the more common term in Mandarin.

I never heard about 罩乳 before.

2. chîⁿ-chhú 錢鼠 = "a shrew".

Wow, I would never have guessed that chîⁿ there is 錢! I also don't see the connection.

niuc: I saw a number of your 錢-terms in the list. Perhaps if you have the time and energy, you could go through and see if there are any others you recognize but hadn't thought of...

Sim, practically all of the terms you used, except puàt-chîⁿ, are used in my variant too. From the long list given by http://203.64.42.21/iug/ungian/SoannTeng/chil/chha.asp , though most are understandable, I only ever heard some of them in Bâ-gán-uē i.e. 免錢, 母錢, 無錢人, 手尾錢, 找錢, 存錢, 偆錢, 出錢, 食錢, 食錢官, 錢母, 錢財, 錢鼠, 錢銀, 錢歹趁, 錢票, 錢上好 and so on. Most of them commonly have lui in place of 錢, though both are used. However, I never heard of 母lui or 食lui官 (although there is 食lui). I don't remember of hearing 侵錢, only 侵lui; or 錢伯仔, only lui伯仔 .

BRA = nîphè'á in TW Hoklo (pretty sure). What's the word in Penang and Bagan?

In Bâ-gán-uē we just say 內衫 laī-saⁿ. In fact in Singapore Mandarin, usually people say 內衣 instead of 胸罩.

Have U guys heard the TW Hoklo khō͘cáu / bank joke?

按怎銀行領錢着愛脫褲走(口罩)?

And niuc, what about you in Bagan (please tell us up to what year you were there, or in Jakarta?). I guess there would be none in the Singapore of today!

Yes, I ever saw 錢鼠 in Bagansiapiapi. We moved to Jakarta in 1991. So far I never saw any in Jakarta or Singapore. However, I saw snake in Singapore, twice, once at a roadside in Ang Mo Kio!

[Mark Yong]

Hi, all,

Wow, I disappeared from the Forum for just 3 days, and the backlog of posts I have not read is overwhelming! Glad to see that things are heating up again around here. Give me some time to trawl back on them, and I will address the questions that were directed to me. But first, I'll address Sim's latest question:

SimL wrote:
Mark, what years were you living in Penang, and did you see any in the period of your stay?

Between February 1998 and February 2004. I was living in a terrace house in Taman Sri Nibong (pretty close to Bayan Baru, Lip Sin Garden and Sungai Dua). Did not see any furry mammals around my neighbourhood - just the occasional 5-foot long 四骹蛇 iguana around the construction areas, and especially those crossing the East Coast Highway. In the case of the latter, given their slow crawling speed (relative to the cars!), I would see the buggers crossing the highway on my way driving down to Georgetown, and by the time I returned, they would be sprawled all over the road, flat as 慢煎糕 ban-can-kueh.