North of Hokkien, reports from the field

Discussions on the Hokkien (Minnan) language.
amhoanna
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Joined: Sat Sep 18, 2010 12:43 pm

North of Hokkien, reports from the field

Post by amhoanna »

Àmhoanná cit cāmmá toà tiàm Ciatkang Lêngkáng 龍港. For Anglophone audiences, "Long Kong" could be as good a name as any. :mrgreen: Cit ê só͘cāi ê gígiân khoânkéng putcí'á chùbī. The major languages in town are 温州話 (Mand: Wenzhouhua), locally known as "本地話", and a language called 蛮話 (Mand: Manhua) that resembles none of its neighbors. More on this one later. The main language of the prefecture (蒼南 ... Chonglâm?) at large is actually -- U guessed it -- Banlamese, locally known as "Hokkiàn'oē".

Rumor has it a few other languages are spoken around here too. There's one or more kinds of Hokciu / Hokciu-oid languages. There's also a kind of Northern Wu. There are ethnic 畲 in the outback that speak Hakka. For chitchat with outsiders, there's Mandarin. And Wenzhouhua itself is a family of poàⁿ-sio-thong (partly mutually intelligible) dialects.

Hokkien is third fiddle in Long Kong. It's kind of out-of-range in Long Kong. It's not a language U can use to approach a random stranger, b/c they probably don't speak it. It's not uncommon to hear it in public. I read somewhere that Chonglâm Hokkien has Coânciu roots. From what I've heard so far, it doesn't have the singsong quality of seaward Coânciu dialects, or Klang Hokkien.

Back to 蛮話 Manhua. Off topic but fascinating, to a hoanná like myself. :oops: This language is spoken by about 200,000 people in the area. These people are actually called 蛮話人. They've descended on Long Kong from around the countryside in great numbers since the start of the economic boom. They're kind of taking over the town. They have a reputation for being (even) more hard-working and go-getting than the Wenzhou-speaking "locals". Their language is related to 蛮講 (Mand: Manjiang), the lingua franca of 泰順 Prefecture to the west. From what I've gathered off the web, 蛮講 is a cross between a Hokciu-type language and some indigenous tongue. I saw some "data" on a forum -- it seems to be about as Sinicized as Vietnamese. Adjectives follow nouns, etc. Wild, wild stuff. Meanwhile 蛮話 has come under influence from Wenzhouhua and Hoklo. It has a much more "Sinitic" character.

Hoklo is spoken in pockets and on islands all the way up through the "Boat Hill" Islands (舟山) as well as down the coast all the way to the Hoklo heartland...
amhoanna
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Re: North of Hokkien, reports from the field

Post by amhoanna »

Forgot to mention that Mango 蛮講 has a 諺文 writing system called 東山越文. Not sure if it's used much. I think that's what U see in the Wiki, but I'm not sure.
Ah-bin
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Location: Somewhere in the Hokloverse

Re: North of Hokkien, reports from the field

Post by Ah-bin »

Ah, very interesting. I'd been trying to find out something about this 蠻講 for a while now. For some reason I thought that it was merely a variety of Southern Min. I've just found a few pdfs on it, if anyone is interested. I can't see anything about transposed adjectives, and indeed it does look like a Min language. Where did you find out about the non-Sinitic grammar?

One of my regrets in Amoy was that I didn't make a collection of this series of books when I was there. I just had too many books, and didn't realise at the tie how useful they would be:

福安畲族方言熟语歌谣
福州方言熟语歌谣
龙岩方言熟语歌谣
古田方言熟语歌谣
建瓯方言熟语歌谣
长汀客家方言熟语歌谣
蒲仙方言熟语歌谣
宁德方言熟语歌谣
漳州方言熟语歌谣

All of them are very well done, with accurate descriptions of the phonological systems and the ways characters are used. I have only managed to order the 漳州方言熟语歌谣 through a Taiwanese website, the conpany affiliated with Amazon in China usually can't be bothered sending things overseas, so they abandoned my order.

They should have them upstairs at the main 新华书店 in 中山路

福安畲族方言熟语歌谣

Was interesting, as it did not look like much of a Hakka dialect to me. On the other hand, the She in western Fukien (I'll have to check the exact locations) and those in Kiangsi speak Hakka-type languages (I have monographs on both of these). The Hok-an She 福安畲 book was very interesting in that it had many squares for the vocabulary items that were Miao-Yao in origin. I also have some notes somewhere on the written form of the "pure" She language which is definitely Miao-Yao, which had special characters all of its own, even though it was modelled on Chinese (like Nom).

I have a nice little list of these mixed languages now, I'm sure there were many more of them 200 years ago when communications were not so easy. I'd like to compare them with heavily sinified languages like the Lungchow Tai dialect 龍州土語 and those that have switched their canonical word order to Chinese style. It seems they get to a certain intensity of contact and then just slip over into a Sinitic idiom. Then you have the languages that retaining odd word order for certain words like 儂客 and 狗囝, perhaps they were moving in the other direction. I'm sure there is some point where they meet in the middle and it is hard to decide whether people are actually speaking Sinitic or Tai or Miao-Yao!
Ah-bin
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Location: Somewhere in the Hokloverse

Re: North of Hokkien, reports from the field

Post by Ah-bin »

Forgot to mention that Mango 蛮講 has a 諺文 writing system called 東山越文. Not sure if it's used much. I think that's what U see in the Wiki, but I'm not sure.
Hmmm.... looks just like a copy of Hangul to me. I somehow doubt that anyone knows about it except the inventor and his friends.

http://www.asiafinest.com/forum/lofiver ... 06909.html

Just one look at the level of debate on the Asiafinest forum makes me even more in love with this Hokkien forum!
amhoanna
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Joined: Sat Sep 18, 2010 12:43 pm

Re: North of Hokkien, reports from the field

Post by amhoanna »

A native speaker doing some Mango show-and-tell:

http://www.pkucn.com/viewthread.php?tid ... %B0&page=4

Most of what's on the web is pretty speculative. I thought I read somewhere that their adj follow nouns, but not sure if I saw examples. Could be wrong. Would be interested in seeing the PDFs, for sure. Email?

Went to buy breakfast. The boss tried to switch me from Mandarin to either 甌江話 or 蛮話 or probably both. When he asked, "一粒?" it sounded just like Hoklo, so I replied, "Nō͘ lia̍p. Nn̄g lia̍p." He got my drift but switched right back to Mandarin.

More from me later.
amhoanna
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Re: North of Hokkien, reports from the field

Post by amhoanna »

Ah-bin, thanks for the files. Very typical of China topolectologists, to spend all their time comparing the pronunciation of kanji in order to classify each language properly, then submit their papers for peer review so that the whole community of scholars can spend all their time sorting out the pleasures of classification. Then go back in the field, get some more pronunciations, and revisit the classifications, and try to think outside the box to find new ways to classify the languages. :lol: This aside, though, these scholars seem to be interesting and humorous people, and they come up with cool insights regarding the history of it all.

The files U sent me were mostly about 蛮話 Manhua (?), although some data was brought in as to the pronunciation of kanji in Mango 蛮講. :P Some netizens are saying that Manhua 蛮話, in a nutshell, is a more Sinicized version of Mango. In fact I think there's "evidence" of this in the show-and-tell thread on PKUCN.
I have a nice little list of these mixed languages now, I'm sure there were many more of them 200 years ago when communications were not so easy.
Yes!
I'd like to compare them with heavily sinified languages like the Lungchow Tai dialect 龍州土語 and those that have switched their canonical word order to Chinese style. It seems they get to a certain intensity of contact and then just slip over into a Sinitic idiom. Then you have the languages that retaining odd word order for certain words like 儂客 and 狗囝, perhaps they were moving in the other direction. I'm sure there is some point where they meet in the middle and it is hard to decide whether people are actually speaking Sinitic or Tai or Miao-Yao!
Yeah. I was going to give other examples I found when I was an undergrad, but I think I've done that in these parts alraedy.
amhoanna
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Re: North of Hokkien, reports from the field

Post by amhoanna »

龍港. Encounters with Hoklo speakers. Mutual intelligibility isn't high. Repetition for understanding. I mentioned this to some Manhua speakers. None of them really spoke Hoklo, but one said, "Lứ tiâng--o?" to see if I'd understand. I almost gave up right away, but tiâng "felt" like WHO, and I was right. (In hindsight, maybe tiâng < tī lâng...) I said in TW it would be "Lí sī siáng?" (Or "Lí sī ciâ?" for some.) One dude nodded and said, "Zhebian ye you ren nayang jiang."

Same night. Asked a fish restaurant thâuke, "Lín kám ū teh boē hun, ci̍t ki ci̍t ki--ê?" Thâuke's son (?) held his pack out and I took one. He told me to take a few more. Earlier one of the Manhua speakers had gone past the kitchen and noticed that the thâuke and family were Hoklo speakers. People here seem to always have their antenna out for who speaks which language -- no surprise. On our way out, the thâuke stopped me and hō͘'á koh ci̍t ki. All in all, a fascinating part of the world, and not just b/c of the Ho̍hló'oē.

* Interesting homophone pair:
hunki 分機 EXTENSION (PHONE)
hunki 薰枝 CIGARETTE (used in Sg, not used in TW,...)
SimL
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Re: North of Hokkien, reports from the field

Post by SimL »

Hi amhoanna,

Your personality is just the opposite of mine - in a way that I very much admire! With me, I am afraid to open my mouth in a foreign language until I know that 1) I can formulate my sentences with excellent pronunciation and correct grammar, and 2) I will probably understand my interlocutor well. This means that I never try to speak Mandarin to anyone, and I only speak German after many hours / 1-2 days in Germany, after I've soaked up the atmosphere and feel a little more confident. I can't make myself speak German in Holland, if I encounter Germans on the street, or even if I'm just with German friends.

In contrast - from all your stories - you just plunge into it and see how far you get. Marvellous!
amhoanna
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Re: North of Hokkien, reports from the field

Post by amhoanna »

Yeah, Sim, I just fire up the motor and get on the road, brakes or no brakes, airbags or no airbags. :mrgreen: Some social settings are tougher for certain languages, for sure. When I went to South America and talked to the Hoisan merchants in bad Cantonese (on my part), patched w/ Spanish, that totally threw me b/c I wasn't used to having those two languages in my head at the same time. I think that challenge helped pull me out of whatever rut or groove I'd been cruising in.

On a different note, in Mérida (VE) I saw a restaurant called 天天 Gin Gin. I thought that was bizarre, till I realized 天天 is Hinhin in Hoisan, and Spanish "Gin Gin" sounds like "hinhin" too.
niuc
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Re: North of Hokkien, reports from the field

Post by niuc »

暗番仔! 正實愈來愈欣羨汝呢! You should write a book (or books) about your cultural adventures, I'll really enjoy reading it for sure! 8)
amhoanna wrote: None of them really spoke Hoklo, but one said, "Lứ tiâng--o?" to see if I'd understand. I almost gave up right away, but tiâng "felt" like WHO, and I was right. (In hindsight, maybe tiâng < tī lâng...) I said in TW it would be "Lí sī siáng?" (Or "Lí sī ciâ?" for some.) One dude nodded and said, "Zhebian ye you ren nayang jiang."
In Bâ-gán-uē we mostly say sâng for who ("Lí· sī-sâng?"). [Btw also sâng, though different 字 / homophone, for same/similar.] Occasionally I heard siâng or sáⁿ-lâng or siáⁿ-lâng. [But we never say sáⁿ/siáⁿ (not combined with other word) for what, we say sâⁿ/siâⁿ -> "Lí· kóng-sâⁿ?] I have never heard ciâ in this context; it sounds unique! I hardly heard tiâng in Bâ-gán. Nearby Bagansiapiapi there is a fishing village called Sinaboi (Ciáⁿ-cuí-káng 汫水港) with (all?) population from Kim-m^ng 金門. My father's family & some relatives were living there before they moved to Bâ-gán. I was told that Bâ-gán-lâng (mostly from Tâng-uaⁿ 同安) used to laugh at Ciáⁿ-cuí-káng-lâng e.g. when the latter said "Tiâng-a io-lí· lâi" (Who comes with you? "Sâng kah-lí· lâi" in Bâ-gán-uē). After a while, they switched to Bâ-gán-uē, so I had never heard them speaking like that.

* Interesting homophone pair:
hunki 分機 EXTENSION (PHONE)
hunki 薰枝 CIGARETTE (used in Sg, not used in TW,...)
We also say "hun-ki" for cigarette, sometimes only "hun". I hardly think of extension (phone) when I hear "hun-ki", but possible if within the context.
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