North of Hokkien, reports from the field
Re: North of Hokkien, reports from the field
I am reading a book from Singapore National Library Board, titled "Native Tongues" by Charles Berlitz. It's very interesting. On page 162, chapter "23. What's in a Name: Places", it gives the meaning of Hong Kong as "Fragrant Streams" instead of "Fragrant Harbour". Does 港 also mean streams (including river?) in Cantonese? Or in any other Chinese languages? Or the meaning given in the book has Minnan/Hokkien flavour?
Re: North of Hokkien, reports from the field
Sheik's doesn't list as STREAM as a meaning for 港 in Cantonese. Now back in the day I think Hakka was top-dog in HK, and Hoklo was spoken too, along with a local "Cantonoid" language.
I like to translate Hong Kong as "Port Joss".
I like to translate Hong Kong as "Port Joss".
Re: North of Hokkien, reports from the field
While we are on that off-topic...amhoanna wrote:
I like to translate Hong Kong as "Port Joss".
Australia is actually a contraction of Terra Australis Incognita (Latin for “the unknown land of the South”). To be semantically-accurate, it should have been translated into Chinese (to use the Hokkien pronunciation) as 異南洲 I-Lam-Ciu, or just 南洲 Lam-Ciu. Of course, that would really mess people's brains up when referring to the state of South Australia - 異南洲南州 I-Lam-Ciu Lam-Ciu
Re: North of Hokkien, reports from the field
Hi Mark,
Seeing as we're going to go off-topic... thanks to you, I just had a moment of revelation (a.k.a. "aha erlebnis").
I've known - for most of my life - that Australia was "o-ciu", and - for the last decade or so - that Penang Hokkien was rather like the "ciang-ciu" variety. But I've never thought about whether there is any connection between the two "cius".
Then, I started learning Mandarin, and learnt of 洲 "zhou1" and 州 "zhou1". I found it interesting that both a huge land mass and a (relatively) small area of land were both "zhou1", but still never thought about the relationship between those two "zhous" and the two Hokkien "cius".
Then, today, thanks to your posting, the penny dropped!
It's weird, when one doesn't see particular relationships until they're pointed out, and once pointed out, one can't understand why one didn't see it before. But that's how it happened in this case.
[Perhaps too trivial to even post here, but, hey, people post a lot more trivial things on the net these days...]
Seeing as we're going to go off-topic... thanks to you, I just had a moment of revelation (a.k.a. "aha erlebnis").
I've known - for most of my life - that Australia was "o-ciu", and - for the last decade or so - that Penang Hokkien was rather like the "ciang-ciu" variety. But I've never thought about whether there is any connection between the two "cius".
Then, I started learning Mandarin, and learnt of 洲 "zhou1" and 州 "zhou1". I found it interesting that both a huge land mass and a (relatively) small area of land were both "zhou1", but still never thought about the relationship between those two "zhous" and the two Hokkien "cius".
Then, today, thanks to your posting, the penny dropped!
It's weird, when one doesn't see particular relationships until they're pointed out, and once pointed out, one can't understand why one didn't see it before. But that's how it happened in this case.
[Perhaps too trivial to even post here, but, hey, people post a lot more trivial things on the net these days...
]Re: North of Hokkien, reports from the field
Didn't it orignally refer to an eyot (an island in a stream) or something like that?
州 was once a huge area too, they were the original 省 or even bigger than that. There were nine of them under the Han, then two were added 交州 (covered all of 廣東 廣西 and northern Vietnam) and another one in the north that I forget the name of. 福建 was counted as part of 揚州 although how much of the countryside was actually under its jurisdication is anyone's guess.
Subsequent dynasties split them again and again making them smaller and smaller until the T'ang, when a new "top layer" of administrative unit needed to be created and the 道 was born. The Sung renamed this 路 and after that 州 survived only in the names of cities that had once been the centres of 州. I think for most of the Southern Dynasties, the Fukien area belonged nominally to 江州 (centred on 九江 in Kiangsi 江西). The only names of towns recorded at this time were 晉安 (near Choan-chiu) and 侯官 (near Foochow) and between Choan-chiu and 義安 Commandery (Teochew) was the land of the 蠻獠 Man Lao (make sure not to mispronounce this as "liao") until they were so kindly brought the gifts of Chinese civilisation by Tan Oan-kong 陳元光 in the late seventh century. I suppose I could have answered this in "History of the Various 州" an unanswered thread from a few years back, but I didn't feel like doing it just then, as you can well imagine.
州 was once a huge area too, they were the original 省 or even bigger than that. There were nine of them under the Han, then two were added 交州 (covered all of 廣東 廣西 and northern Vietnam) and another one in the north that I forget the name of. 福建 was counted as part of 揚州 although how much of the countryside was actually under its jurisdication is anyone's guess.
Subsequent dynasties split them again and again making them smaller and smaller until the T'ang, when a new "top layer" of administrative unit needed to be created and the 道 was born. The Sung renamed this 路 and after that 州 survived only in the names of cities that had once been the centres of 州. I think for most of the Southern Dynasties, the Fukien area belonged nominally to 江州 (centred on 九江 in Kiangsi 江西). The only names of towns recorded at this time were 晉安 (near Choan-chiu) and 侯官 (near Foochow) and between Choan-chiu and 義安 Commandery (Teochew) was the land of the 蠻獠 Man Lao (make sure not to mispronounce this as "liao") until they were so kindly brought the gifts of Chinese civilisation by Tan Oan-kong 陳元光 in the late seventh century. I suppose I could have answered this in "History of the Various 州" an unanswered thread from a few years back, but I didn't feel like doing it just then, as you can well imagine.
Re: North of Hokkien, reports from the field
Hi, Sim,
No problem, happy to know that in my random musings, I somehow helped in shedding light. Quoting Sherlock Holmes to Dr. Watson in The Hound of the Baskervilles, “It may be that you are not yourself luminous, but you are a conductor of light. Some people without possessing genius have a remarkable power of stimulating it.”
Again, as an aside: I developed an eccentric hobby about a year ago. For some reason, there are a lot of Chinese signboards in KL area with the words 潮洲 (e.g. Teochew porridge, Teochew fish ball noodles, etc.) - as you can now see from the past two posts, the second character is technically-incorrect, as they have used the ‘large land-mass’ ciu 洲 instead of the ‘state’ ciu 州. I suspect it is a psychological thing - since the first character 潮TiO has the water radical, so should the second.
So, after patronising the stall/restaurant with those erroneous signboards, upon paying the bill, I would politely tell the cashier, “小姐、汝招牌寫錯了、‘潮州’ 之 ‘州’ 是無 ‘三點水’。”* You should see the shocked look on their faces!
* Sim - Given that it is KL, I normally say it to them in Cantonese. But for your benefit as a Hokkien speaker and one who does not speak Cantonese, I deliberately opted to write it out in 唐儂字 Tng-Lang-Ji, so that you can read it out in Hokkien on your own terms, and make the Sino-psychological link. My way of emulating what it was like in days of yore, when everyone spoke different dialects, but read the same script... and you are a lovely example to use!
No problem, happy to know that in my random musings, I somehow helped in shedding light. Quoting Sherlock Holmes to Dr. Watson in The Hound of the Baskervilles, “It may be that you are not yourself luminous, but you are a conductor of light. Some people without possessing genius have a remarkable power of stimulating it.”
Again, as an aside: I developed an eccentric hobby about a year ago. For some reason, there are a lot of Chinese signboards in KL area with the words 潮洲 (e.g. Teochew porridge, Teochew fish ball noodles, etc.) - as you can now see from the past two posts, the second character is technically-incorrect, as they have used the ‘large land-mass’ ciu 洲 instead of the ‘state’ ciu 州. I suspect it is a psychological thing - since the first character 潮TiO has the water radical, so should the second.
So, after patronising the stall/restaurant with those erroneous signboards, upon paying the bill, I would politely tell the cashier, “小姐、汝招牌寫錯了、‘潮州’ 之 ‘州’ 是無 ‘三點水’。”* You should see the shocked look on their faces!
* Sim - Given that it is KL, I normally say it to them in Cantonese. But for your benefit as a Hokkien speaker and one who does not speak Cantonese, I deliberately opted to write it out in 唐儂字 Tng-Lang-Ji, so that you can read it out in Hokkien on your own terms, and make the Sino-psychological link. My way of emulating what it was like in days of yore, when everyone spoke different dialects, but read the same script... and you are a lovely example to use!
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Yeleixingfeng
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Re: North of Hokkien, reports from the field
Why the 異 in 異南洲? Doesn't 異 mean different...? >.<Mark Yong wrote:amhoanna wrote:
Australia is actually a contraction of Terra Australis Incognita (Latin for “the unknown land of the South”). To be semantically-accurate, it should have been translated into Chinese (to use the Hokkien pronunciation) as 異南洲 I-Lam-Ciu, or just 南洲 Lam-Ciu. Of course, that would really mess people's brains up when referring to the state of South Australia - 異南洲南州 I-Lam-Ciu Lam-Ciu
Re: North of Hokkien, reports from the field
Hi Ah-bin and Mark,
Thanks for your replies
. Both very interesting and informative, so I guess my musings out loud were of benefit...
(Even) a PhD student from Taiwan got caught out by this. I asked him how to say and write "mustard", and his first response was to write 芥茉 "jie4 mo4". However, he himself was a bit unsure about the second character, and checked with a friend (another PhD student), who immediately knew that it should be 芥末. [Later I found out that "茉" is used in a plant name, namely for "jasmine" 茉莉 "mo4 li4".]
Ah-bin: I wonder if the "average Chinese person in the street" realises that the "settlement of the South" was so complex? Until I became interested in the finer detail of Chinese history, I'd kinda assumed that the borders shrank and expanded over the millenia, but that the situation was roughly similar from Qin Shi Huang until now (or at least from the Tang Dynasty onwards)! A bit like many people thinking that for the 4,000 years of Chinese history, everyone dressed in "Ming Dynasty costume", the way they are shown in most Chinese "period films". [Or is this just my "ignorant, non-Chinese educated" background...? Perhaps most Chinese in Malaysia who have gone to Chinese school know all this.]
Mark: glad that I can be a living fossil of the situation for written vs spoken Chinese up to 1900.... Your rendering the conversation in Chinese characters was much appreciated.
Thanks for your replies
. Both very interesting and informative, so I guess my musings out loud were of benefit...Yes, indeed, as 2-character terms often have the same radical, like 蝴蝶 or 波浪.Mark Yong wrote:I suspect it is a psychological thing - since the first character 潮TiO has the water radical, so should the second.
(Even) a PhD student from Taiwan got caught out by this. I asked him how to say and write "mustard", and his first response was to write 芥茉 "jie4 mo4". However, he himself was a bit unsure about the second character, and checked with a friend (another PhD student), who immediately knew that it should be 芥末. [Later I found out that "茉" is used in a plant name, namely for "jasmine" 茉莉 "mo4 li4".]
Ah-bin: I wonder if the "average Chinese person in the street" realises that the "settlement of the South" was so complex? Until I became interested in the finer detail of Chinese history, I'd kinda assumed that the borders shrank and expanded over the millenia, but that the situation was roughly similar from Qin Shi Huang until now (or at least from the Tang Dynasty onwards)! A bit like many people thinking that for the 4,000 years of Chinese history, everyone dressed in "Ming Dynasty costume", the way they are shown in most Chinese "period films". [Or is this just my "ignorant, non-Chinese educated" background...? Perhaps most Chinese in Malaysia who have gone to Chinese school know all this.]
Mark: glad that I can be a living fossil of the situation for written vs spoken Chinese up to 1900...
. Your rendering the conversation in Chinese characters was much appreciated.Re: North of Hokkien, reports from the field
The choice was arbitrary, and the closest single morpheme I could get. Also, 異 has several extended meanings:Yeleixingfeng wrote:
Why the 異 in 異南洲? Doesn't 異 mean different...? >.<
《疏》 謂彼人與己之疏異
《左傳·昭二十六年》據有異焉。《註》異猶怪也。 Strange (adj.) --> Stranger (n.) --> Unknown
It's not perfect, I know. But the more accurate alternatives 未知 and 無名 were too long and too cliched.
I personally like the word 異 for ‘different’. I first learnt its use in the 訓民正音 Hunmin Jeongeum, where the first verse reads “國之語音、異乎中國、與文字不相流通。” Since then, I have almost always written ‘different from’ as 異乎 or 異於 in all correspondences with Mainland Chinese, even though the more common way to express it in just about all the vernaculars - including Mandarin - is 與/共/跟 <subject> 不同/像/一樣。
Re: North of Hokkien, reports from the field
Not at all, in fact I'd say people who are Chinese educated and from China will believe that and in addition will trot out the ridiculous figure of 5000 years. The oldest written records on oracle bone script) are only about 3500 years old, so your guess is 500 years closer than theirs!4,000 years of Chinese history, everyone dressed in "Ming Dynasty costume", the way they are shown in most Chinese "period films". [Or is this just my "ignorant, non-Chinese educated" background...? Perhaps most Chinese in Malaysia who have gone to Chinese school know all this.]