Hoklo in Canto Land, reports from the field

[amhoanna]

So U've heard the bank joke, Niuc! Here's the aLian durian joke:

http://www.limpek.com/hokkien-joke-ah-beng-and-durian/

It's been posted and reposted all over the web in Sg! But someone should re-do it in Hokkien. In fact we should "collect" this story in as many dialects of Hoklo as possible, kind of like the North Wind story that linguists like to use.

For me there's something very compelling about South Seas Hokkien blog posts!

[Mark Yong]

There is this joke I heard in Penang about a Hainanese gentlemen who was invited to be the MC at a Penang Hokkien family wedding, and got a pelting of rotten tomatoes. The reason being, during his speech, he tried to make use of the saying:

有錢出錢，有人出人，沒錢沒人就給汽水。
(If you have money, then give money; if you have manpower, then provide manpower; if you have neither, at least hand out some soft drinks.)

Which should have come out in Penang Hokkien as:
有鐳出鐳，有儂出儂，無鐳無儂出汽水。
u-lui chut lui, u lang chut lang, bo lui bo lang chut khi-cui.

However (and perhaps aokh1979 can verify this), in Hainanese, ‘money’ is 錢 ciⁿ, and 汽水 is kaa-cui (甘水).

So, it came out as:
有錢出錢，有儂出儂，無錢無儂出甘水。
u ciⁿ chut ciⁿ, u lang chut lang, bo ciⁿ bo lang chut kaa-cui.

which sounded in Penang Hokkien like:
有膣出膣, 有卵出卵, 無膣無卵出尻川。
u ci chut ci, u lan chut lan, bo ci bo lan chut kha-chuiⁿ.
(I leave it to the readers to figure that out!)

[Yeleixingfeng]

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:

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.

Where do you live now? I live at the terrace behind the field behind Kwang Hwa! Do you have a copy of Douglas' Dictionary? (I know it's kind of off topic. Haha.)

[SimL]

Gosh, so many things to reply to! [My apologies if I don't respond to one or two specific points - it's probably because I missed them, rather than that I didn't find them interesting.]

Firstly, Mark and niuc, thanks for your time-lines for where you lived and when, and whether you saw shrews there / then. Indeed, they seem to have got less and less common with the passage of time and/or increasing urbanization.

Mark: I don't drive much in Holland, because public transport is so good that I can go everywhere I want to by tram or train (or bicycle). But when I am in a car in Holland (or in Australia), it so saddens me to see and realise the amount of road-kill - all day, every day, all over the world. In Holland, it's mostly hedgehogs and moles; in Australia snakes, possums, and (indeed) "goannas" (a close equivalent to Malaysia's "iguanas").

*: 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.

and

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.

I'm beginning to suspect that I learnt this from a book which was totally wrong, as nobody here seems to know it, not even passively! I shall adjust my vocab and strike this one off. BTW, I just noticed that I typed it in wrong. What I meant to type was 乳罩.

Sim, practically all of the terms you used, except puàt-chîⁿ, are used in my variant too.

I always knew that I had a limited vocabulary in Hokkien, but from the fact that I recognized 3 items only, compared to what you recognized, I realise just how limited my vocabulary is. !

... although there is 食lui ...

It means "to accept bribes", right? As in: "hi(t) (l)e ma1_ta5 ciah lui e" (= "that policeman accepts bribes"). [If so, Ah-bin can add this to his dictionary, but please await confirmation from niuc.]

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

按怎銀行領錢着愛脫褲走(口罩)?

Haha! I think I get it - a pun on "脫褲走" vs "脫口罩"*, right? And I suppose "口罩" is meant to be (approximately**) read in Mandarin / "borrowed from Mandarin" Hokkien, right? Or is "cau2" also a reading of 罩 in Hokkien? [It's not listed with this pronunciation on the etymology page.] Lastly, I'm unsure of 領錢 ('nia-ciN'? = "collar money"?),

I did, however, fully understand the "aLian-aBeng" joke, but even here, I have a question about it: how come it needs to be explained to young people, amhoanna...?


Notes:

*: If I understood it correctly, then it's also nice that it's not just a pun because the words sound similar, but also that it's a different "parsing", i.e. "(脫褲)走" vs "脫(口罩)". I think that adds just a little more humour to the joke.

**: I say "approximately" / "borrowed into Hokkien" because otherwise it would be "ko(u)" rather than "kO"... (or maybe the difference is just part of the pun, as puns don't have to be exact homonyms...)

[Ah-bin]

That is a pun on one of those Japanese loans into Taiwanese isn't it? 口座 kooza, being the Japanese for "bank account", maybe not, that may be pronounced differently.

Speaking of Hokkien jokes, I remember the one I was told in Taiwan about the old Taiwanese woman who went to America and forgot to lock the toilet door. A local man opened it and said "Ma'am I'm sorry", and she was amazed that the American could speak Taiwanese - she thought he had said "Mng a m-so le" 門猶唔鎖咧 "the door isn't locked yet.

[SimL]

有膣出膣, 有卵出卵, 無膣無卵出尻川。
u ci chut ci, u lan chut lan, bo ci bo lan chut kha-chuiⁿ.

LOL! Love of coarse humour, a trait of the Hokkiens ??? .

[amhoanna]

Right, U guys got the khō͘cáu joke. 口座 ACCOUNT is kháucō in TW, and not part of any punchline as far as I know. 領錢 niácîⁿ = WITHDRAW CASH FROM FINANCIAL INSTITUTION. How would U guys say it?

The durian joke "needs explained" in TW mostly b/c a lot of "young ones" don't know "kala̍uh". Actually most older people probably also only have a passive knowledge of it... I'm guessing it comes from Coânciu dialects not well represented on TW. Also the joke has a very Straits flavor that seems to go over TWese heads.

Funny with the kaⁿcúi! That's actually a really cool word too!

The version I heard of the toilet joke is that a Yankee lady went to Taiwan and starting doing her business w/o locking the door. A local guy barged in on her and said while backing out, "Ah m̄ só leh!" = roughly, "C'mon, how about locking the door!"

If U guys get the chance, U can check out the recordings of Hêngchun--ê 恆春兮. He cracked a couple of "learning English through Hoklo" jokes. One was like this: "Bird: ciáu'á, capó͘lâng ê pó. Bird, pó. Capó͘lâng ê ciáu'á. Bird? Ciáu'á, capó͘lâng ê pó." (Using a Ciangpo͘(?)-South Taiwan schwa-like pronunciation for pó.) And: "Impossible. In pâ'á phahsí bó͘. He sī bô khólêng ê tāicì. In pâ'á phahsí bó͘: impossible. Bô khólêng ê tāicì."

[Mark Yong]

Yeleixingfeng wrote:
Where do you live now? I live at the terrace behind the field behind Kwang Hwa! Do you have a copy of Douglas' Dictionary? (I know it's kind of off topic. Haha.)

I am currently based in Sydney. Yes, I have a copy of Douglas & Barclay's Dictionary. I was very, very lucky to get it, as aokh1979 was kind enough to pick up a 2ⁿᵈ hand copy for me from Amoy (while he was still based there not so long ago) and hand it to me while he was passing through KL. That said, I believe the dictionary is now available for purchase online.

[SimL]

Right, U guys got the khō͘cáu joke. 口座 ACCOUNT is kháucō in TW, and not part of any punchline as far as I know. 領錢 niácîⁿ = WITHDRAW CASH FROM FINANCIAL INSTITUTION. How would U guys say it?

Well, when I left Penang in 1972, there were no such things as ATMs. If we went to the bank to withdraw money from a teller, I think we would have said "khi bEnk (or gin-hang) khi theh-lui" ("take money").

The durian joke "needs explained" in TW mostly b/c a lot of "young ones" don't know "kala̍uh". Actually most older people probably also only have a passive knowledge of it... I'm guessing it comes from Coânciu dialects not well represented on TW. Also the joke has a very Straits flavor that seems to go over TWese heads.

Ah, thanks. Well, even in my generation, a lot of Baba Hokkiens no longer knew the distinction between "puah-to" and "ka-lauh" (probably under the influence of English "fall"). My mother used to laugh at my Dad and his family, because they would say "liu-lian (or jam-bu, or sOiN-a, or whatever other fruit) puah-to loh-lai". For her, this created an image of the fruit running along a branch, tripping on something on the surface of the branch, and then falling down".

[Actually, reading what you say that "ka-lauh" is not well known in ciang-ciu makes me think that perhaps it's not a case of English influence on Penang Baba Hokkien, but that "ka-lauh" was perhaps - as in the case of Taiwan - never really in the active vocabularly of Penang Hokkien anyway (though it certainly was in the passive vocabulary).]

[Mark Yong]

It would be 領鐳 niaⁿ-lui for me.

And I do make a very conscious effort to make the distinction between 跋倒 poat-toh (topple/tumble over) and 【?】落 ka-laoh (fall/drop from higher level).

Another set of examples are I can think of are the different ways of saying 'hot' (as in the temperature, not spiciness). I use as many as three (3) regularly:

1. 熱 joak33 - for ambient temperature
2. 燒 sio33 - for hot matter (solids/liquids)
3. 烘 hang33 - this one I use in special circumstances, e.g. nowadays when I turn up the thermostat in my car during the current (unusually) cold autumn months. I would tell my friend "與伊烘烘一下" "hO i hang-hang jit-ae" (there is tone sandhi here - the first hang is hang11). If I had to pick a direct translation into English, it would be "toasty" or "balmy" - which, in my humble opinion, carries a subtly different meaning from just saying "hot".

I guess the above are examples of my way of keeping Penang Hokkien's vocabulary as rich and diverse as possible!