Lost usage of "hiaN1" in Penang Baba Hokkien?

[SimL]

I'd like to share one interesting (well, to me anyway) socio-linguistic fact which I found out only when I was doing my family history project.

When I was growing up in the 60's and 70's, the husband of one's elder sister was always addressed as "<personal name>-Ko", i.e. the way same as one would address an elder male (blood) cousin. So, if one's Tua-ci was married to someone called "Kim Huat", then one would address him as "Ah Huat Ko" (or "Kim Huat Ko"). If one's Ji-ci was married to someone called "Beng Keat", then one would address him as "Ah Keat Ko" (or "Beng Keat Ko"). ["Keat" is the "traditional Malaysian" way of spelling "kiEt" 吉.]

What was interesting was that I learnt from my father that in the Baba families of his youth (1920s to 1950s), the term "hiaN1" 兄 was used for this instead. I.e. these people would have been addressed as "Ah Huat HiaN" (or "Kim Huat HiaN") and "Ah Keat HiaN" (or "Beng Keat HiaN") respectively. The "-Ko" form - with personal name - was only used for elder (blood) male cousins. This was hence a useful way of distinguishing between these "male elders of the same generation by marriage" and "male elders of the same generation by blood". ***

By the time I was growing up (1960s to 1980s), this distinction had been totally abandoned. It was "ko" for both types of male elders of the same generation, and the word "hiaN" was only known to me from "hiaN-ti-a" (one's older and younger brothers).

Did this system exist for any other forms of Hokkien? Does it still exist anywhere today?

PS. ***: On a (totally) side-issue, this system of using personal names for the husbands of elder sisters (IMHO) again reflects the tradition Chinese bias of giving men preferential treatment to women. One's elder brother's wife was called "-So2", so the Tua-Ko's wife was Tua-So, and the Ji-Ko's wife was Ji-So, etc - i.e. the woman took the rank from the husband, whereas one's elder sister's husband never took his rank from his wife - i.e. the Tua-Ci's husband was not Tua-Ko or Tua-HiaN, the Ji-Ci's husband was not Ji-Ko or Ji-HiaN, etc. One could argue that it *couldn't* have been Tua-Ko, Ji-Ko etc, because otherwise it would have been confused with the real (blood) elder, second, etc brother, but the same "excuse" doesn't apply to "HiaN", because (within the pre-1950's Baba system, at any rate), the "-HiaN" was only used for the non-blood relative, never for the blood relative.

Anyway, this isn't a particularly important point, but (to me) reflects this traditional Chinese "asymmetry". As does the fact that the brothers of one's father are distinguished by whether they are older or younger than he (pEh4/cek4), whereas the sisters of one's father are not distinguished by whether they are older or younger than he (all just "kO1") - because they are, after all "only women"; the sisters of one's mother are not distinguished by whether they are older or younger than she (all just "i5") - because they are, after all "only women"; and brothers of one's mother are not distinguished by whether they are older or younger than she (all just "ku7") - because even though they are men, they are, after all "only the brothers of a woman"! At least, that's how I've always felt about the system (despite the fact that I actually like and admire it), ever since I became conscious of feminist ideas.

[Mark Yong]

SimL wrote:
...the woman took the rank from the husband, whereas one's elder sister's husband never took his rank from his wife...

Actually, Sim, my experience in Penang was slightly different...

My friend's mother is the 3rd of five sisters. This, of course, means that her (my friend’s mother) sisters’ children would address her as 三姨 sàⁿ-í. But correspondingly, her husband would be addressed by them as 三姨丈 sàⁿ-ĭ-tìauⁿ (or simply 三丈 sàⁿ-tìauⁿ for short - I find this abbreviation quite common in Penang), i.e. he would take his wife’s rank number in this instance.

Similarly, a 二姑 jĭ-kÒ’s husband would be 二姑丈 jĭ-kÒ-tìauⁿ, which is what my three nieces (my wife’s younger brothers’ daughters) have been taught to address me as.

But I suppose this example is not an apple-to-apple comparison, as your scenarios referred to addressing relatives within the same generation, whereas my example above straddles two generations.

[SimL]

Hi Mark,

Thanks for your response. Yes, you're totally right. It is balanced when it comes to one generation up. There (in my family as well), a man takes his wife's rank within her family, in a completely parallel way to a woman taking her husband's rank within his family. As you say, it's only the same generation where this asymmetry exists.

You bring up another interesting feature though. My non-Penang/Baba maternal relatives too have a very strict distinction between "kO-tiuN" and "i-tiuN", where in Penang, the "kO-" and "i-" are not used (indeed, AFAIK, are even unknown). Leaving this "kO-" and "i-" is a lot less precise than the "standard" Hokkien system, as one can't distinguish paternal married-into-the-family uncles from maternal married-into-the-family uncles. The only "nice" thing about the Penang system is that every 1-generation-above elder gets a 1-syllable kinship term, giving a nice compactness to the terms: pEh/m, cek/cim, kO/tiauN, ku/kim, i/tiauN. It's just a quirk of mine, but I really like this compactness*. This then carries over into the fact that every 2-generation-above elder gets a 2-syllable kinship term: pEh-kong/m-po**, cek-kong/cim-po, kO-po/tiauN-kong, ku-kong/kim-po, i-po/tiauN-kong. With, in both series, just the rank within the nuclear family put on the front. Again, this results in a very nice "even" system***.

I've always been very "impressed" with how many fine distinctions this can make, compared to the English "Uncle John" and "Aunt Mary".

Notes:

*: Compactness through the omission of "kO-" and "i-". Though, in a hostile mood, one could argue that this again illustrates a pro-male bias, because the wives of uncles are properly distinguished, while the husbands of aunts aren't (whereas the "standard" Hokkien system at least does properly distinguish them). Still, I'm not in a hostile mood, so I only point this out, without wanting to labour the point...

**: "m-po". In non-Penang Hokkien (as you undoubtedly know), this can also be "m2-ma2". Again, I prefer the Penang system, because the "-kong1" and "-ma2" are completely uniform - one for the male and the other for the female - whereas in the systems with "m-ma", there isn't a corresponding "cim2-ma2" or "kim7-ma2" (AFAIK).

***: Evenness of the system. This 1-syllable (for 1 generation above) Hokkien system seems so much more "even" than the various corresponding terms in Mandarin - "yi2"/"yi2-fu1" etc (which I've never really ever mastered).

[SimL]

I've always been very "impressed" with how many fine distinctions this can make, compared to the English "Uncle John" and "Aunt Mary".

This is what I was actually referring to in my initial posting, when I referred to "the fact that I actually like and admire it" - i.e. the Chinese system of kinship terms in general, the Hokkien system in particular, and even the Penang Hokkien system most of all (not that anyone would ever accuse me of being a chauvinist !!!).

I take it - from the fact that you don't say anything about the "hiaN1" aspect - that you'd never heard of this before? I too hadn't, until my father told me about it about 5 years ago. In fact he'd forgotten about it himself, until he was describing some particular incident where one of his aunts was addressing her brother-in-law, and he - probably paraphrasing - more or less "quoted" what she said. It was then that he realised that the "hiaN" had dropped out of use without his noticing.

[Mark Yong]

Hi, Sim,

Yes, I realised I manfully side-stepped the original thread question!

While I have heard the word 兄 hīaⁿ used in Penang, it tends to be much less frequent than 哥 kō. Also, for family kinship, I have always heard 哥 kō used, not 兄 hīaⁿ. That said, 阿兄 ā-hīaⁿ is normally used to address friends, members of a fraternity (in an informal context, I mean), or as a term of endearment. My non-Chinese-educated contemporaries are generally less familiar with, or less comfortable using 兄 hīaⁿ.

In addition to 兄弟 hīaⁿ-tì, the other occasion where I used 兄 hīaⁿ regularly in the past was when addressing seniors at my kungfu academy at Pinhorn Street (off Penang Free School and Caunter Hall), i.e. 師兄 sù-hīaⁿ.

[amhoanna]

Hiaⁿ 兄 is used throughout Hoklo Taiwan to refer to older brothers and respected dudes of the same generation and sometimes one generation up or even down. The non-kin usage is most widespread in the Presbyterian community, but I don't think the usage arose in the church. Ko 哥 is used to refer to older brothers and respected dudes in some parts of Taiwan. AFAIK, the ko zone includes Tailam 台南, Takau / Takkau 高雄 and the Hengchun 恆春 peninsula. There's also a word hiaⁿko 兄哥 OLDER BROTHER which I don't hear much. Only people from the ko 哥 zone seem to understand it.

[amhoanna]

Tiợ' ·ala，Má'ạk (Mark) hiaⁿ sĩ kanghu saihụ. Ãu pái be' ka' 'ảng oanke· sio pha' ài choẹ ·i ·o.

[SimL]

Hi Mark & amhoanna,

Thanks for your responses. Very interesting in both your cases, the use of "hiaN" for non-relatives in a closer, "intimate" group / society, like a kungfu academy or the Presbyterian Church.

Were there any women doing kungfu at your academy, and if so, what term did they use for addressing one another (and what did the guys use in addresssing them)? Same question for amhoanna (but I guess I don't have to ask if there were any women in the Presbyterian Church!). I would think the answer would be "ci2", but it's always good to ask rather than assume...

[Mark Yong]

SimL wrote:
Were there any women doing kungfu at your academy, and if so, what term did they use for addressing one another (and what did the guys use in addresssing them)?

There were only two, and both were junior to the rest of the boys. We referred to them as our 師妹 sù-mŎi. It is a pity that we did not have any female seniors, so I do not know if they would have been addressed as 師姐 sù-cîa or 師姊 sù-cî.

amhoanna wrote:
Tiợ' ·ala，Má'ạk (Mark) hiaⁿ sĩ kanghu saihụ. Ãu pái be' ka' 'ảng oanke· sio pha' ài choẹ ·i ·o.

番仔兄:

否勢啦、彼時我練拳無偌久爾、無才調 (chai5 thiau5) 做師傅。 我當今佇澳洲則起首誠誠 (cìaⁿ-cĭaⁿ) 練拳。

[amhoanna]

In TW I've heard sucé, but not suciá or sucí.

In the Hoklo (Taigibun) movement in Taiwan, which has a lot of Presbyterian DNA, the word hiaⁿcé 兄姊 is used to refer to the body of activists, e.g. Kok'uị hiaⁿcé tạkgẻ hó / 各位兄姊逐个好. Most TWese find this word almost incomprehensible. There were very, very few women in the movement (link to a femme blog pasted below) -- I can't remember how they were addressed, if they were ever called cé or cí. Kàisẻng gứgiản ẻ cèngtị sĩ tapơlảng ẻ tạicì, chicks just learn a dominant language or two and get the hell on with their lives.

http://blog.roodo.com/bichhin