Penang Hokkien Vocabulary Questions

[amhoanna]

There's no single word for this in TW Hoklo, AFAIK. I would use a variety of structures to get this across, depending on the situation, e.g. whether it was visual confusion, cognitive confusion, etc. My impression is that while MIXING TWO THINGS TOGETHER and MISTAKING ONE THING FOR ANOTHER are semantically related in English (and Mandarin: 搞混 gao3-hun3), in Hoklo they're not. We'll see what Niuc and others of the Penang persuasion have to say.

[amhoanna]

Here's what the Johnny Young books have, adjusted to POJ:

DIAMONDS = lênghêng
CLUBS = saⁿhio̍hhoe
HEARTS = simhêng
SPADES = ku̍tthâuhêng (for the first syllable he had "koot", I think this is what he meant)

Ring any bells?

Another question. How do U guys say TO GIVE SOMETHING BACK TO SOMEONE?

In TW the mainstream word is hêng, the word hâiⁿ lingers on from the Coanciu / Tang'oaⁿ crowd.

At the bank in Amoy, the teller used "oân" or "hoân", I was surprised. She was in her 40s and spoke fluent Hoklo, even though she felt the need to say everything in Mandarin first, then translate herself.

[Ah-bin]

I was taught to say "hêng". That just reminded me, one place where they were very happy to speak to me in Hokkien in Amoy was the post office!

[Mark Yong]

amhoanna wrote:
Another question. How do U guys say TO GIVE SOMETHING BACK TO SOMEONE?

In TW the mainstream word is hêng, the word hâiⁿ lingers on from the Coanciu / Tang'oaⁿ crowd.

At the bank in Amoy, the teller used "oân" or "hoân"

Ah-bin wrote:
I was taught to say "hêng".

I have heard both hoân and hêng used in Penang. Since hêng dominates, that is what I have used more regularly. I use hoân if the speaker uses it first. I wonder if both are cognate with 還, in the same way hoan and peng are supposedly cognate with 反 where one is a literal but bound morpheme (to use Bodman's terminology) and the other is a colloquial unbound one.

[amhoanna]

I wonder if both are cognate with 還, in the same way hoan and peng are supposedly cognate with 反 where one is a literal but bound morpheme (to use Bodman's terminology) and the other is a colloquial unbound one.

Don't know, but there's usually some kind of method behind the madness. There's a whole set of etyma that go -eng in some dialects and -aiⁿ in others:

hêng / hâiⁿ
cheng / chaiⁿ 千
keng / kaiⁿ 間 (Coanciu proper: kuiⁿ)
tēng / tāiⁿ
seng / saiⁿ 先 (not 100% sure about this one)
cêng / câiⁿ / cûiⁿ 前

All the words with surefire Mandarin cognates are -ian in Mandarin, and either -in or -aan in Canto. None have -uan / waan.

Is colloq 反 is páiⁿ in the -aiⁿ dialects? Maybe Niuc can shed more light.

I'm guessing 還 is the punji for oân/ûn as in oânná / ûnná = STILL; NEVERTHELESS.

[SimL]

There's no single word for this in TW Hoklo, AFAIK. I would use a variety of structures to get this across, depending on the situation, e.g. whether it was visual confusion, cognitive confusion, etc. My impression is that while MIXING TWO THINGS TOGETHER and MISTAKING ONE THING FOR ANOTHER are semantically related in English (and Mandarin: 搞混 gao3-hun3), in Hoklo they're not. We'll see what Niuc and others of the Penang persuasion have to say.

Agreed. Even in as close a language as Dutch is to English, the first is "mengen", and the second is "verwisselen", with no connection perceived between the two.

[SimL]

... there is another vulgar word I have seen written in Penang Hokkien sí-pē•, 死爸. What does it actually mean and how is it used? I have heard sí-pē•-hó which seems to mean "really good". What other meanings does the word have?

Sorry, have to pass on this one: not aware of this term at all.

[amhoanna]

Sípē -- commonly "softened" to síbē -- just means VERY, or "blah-blah-blah as hell". I think it started in a dialect we don't talk about much here, Melaka-Singapore Hokkien. I recall Aokh saying the word only began to be used in Penang recently.

[SimL]

Electronically leafing ("next-screening"?) through my Douglas-with-characters-PDF [though I could have concluded the same with my paper copy], I discovered that there is no listing for the verb "lEh4".

I have no idea what this is in non-Penang Hokkien (or indeed if it exists) - perhaps "leh4"?

It's a verb which describes rolling over something with a wheel (more often a tyre): "chit-ciah katam-pulu soah hO wa lEh si" (= "this frog was killed by me by my going over it with the wheels of my car").

Is this verb known in other varieties? How is it pronounced? Is there a known character for it?

[Mark Yong]

SimL wrote:
the verb "lEh4"... describes rolling over something with a wheel... Is there a known character for it?

A guess... a very wild guess: 轆.

I am wondering if it bears any relation to the Malay ‘golek’.