nō͘ ê "ê" ê thoânsoat

[amhoanna]

Here's a question. Are the two ê's in Hoklo related? The classifier ê, and the possessive ê? Do U guys know any Teochew or Hainamese? What light do they shed on this?

[Ah-bin]

I know that in Teochew and Hainanese both meanings of "ê" are expressed by kai, so that would suggest "yes". Hakka has a single particle "ke" as far as I know.

I see from van der Loon's "Manila Incunabula and Early Hokkien Studies", that the earliest phonetic records of Hokkien from the turn of the seventeenth century have a single "ke" for both meanings.

[Yeleixingfeng]

I have never heard of 仒 being used as a classifier, the general universal classifier was always le(speculated-hanji 類). And, I never thought of them being the same...

[AndrewAndrew]

I have never heard of 仒 being used as a classifier, the general universal classifier was always le(speculated-hanji 類). And, I never thought of them being the same...

I won't speculate whether ê and lê are the same, but definitely ê is used as a classifier - gO-e, lak-e

From my grandfather (from Engchhun), I am also familiar with the classifier, gê, used for people. I will speculate that ê derives from gê.

To a Hakka, for whom ke is used both as classifier and possessive, there is nothing strange about this.