Decided to dedicate this afternoon to replying threads. ^^ Btw, hi Harold! You'll soon see, as have I, how friendly this forum is as compared to others. Haha.
As you all know, I suck at Hokkien. So, in the course of learning, I have just realised this one dilemma that I am quite certain that many of you have faced – how to define Penang Hokkien?
I made a simple characterisation, and found three strata in contemporary Penang Hokkien, ie. the original Hokkien words, the early borrows, and the modern substitution. The Hokkien words are lu(汝), phong-i(膨椅), mo-kin (毛巾) including the etymologically non-Sinitic ones like ca-bO. The early borrows are like sat-bun (sabun), toa-la (tuala), ba-li cui (Barley 水), gos-tan (go asturn) etc, which albeit foreign (Malay of origin), has been incorporated into Hokkien so intricately that even individual tones were given, ie. not following the default tone pattern that SimL mentioned in another thread (1,3). The modern substitution category encompasses modern concepts that Hokkien are ‘supposedly’ incapable of conveying, like molecule (as Harold mentioned), Microsoft Words, 狼(lang2, from Mand) etc.
So, to which stratum do we consider un-Hokkien? Personally, I think the third stratum is out – however, as a Hokkien-learner, I wish to get my ideas expresses clearly. Ignoring the Chinese-fanatic side of me, I learn 狼 rather than long5, and I am pretty sure many other Hokkien-learners – I hope there are – face the same problem too. Saying long5 won’t get me anywhere in Penang; saying lang2, yes.
I ask this question as a Hokkien-learner – which to learn? Kilin or giraffe?
Next, we are left with the second stratum. Now, these borrows have survived at least a generation, and earned itself an established position in PGHK. I doubt any adults would feel comfortable with pui-cio anymore. If we were to revive the usage of Hokkien in Penang, should these be encouraged? On another view, it promotes integration among cultures – the only advantage I see of this.
So, I ask this as a Hokkien-enthusiast – which to learn? Mo-kin or toa-la?
PS: This includes also, Mr.Tan or Tan sin-seN.
What to Revive?
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Yeleixingfeng
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What to Revive?
Last edited by Yeleixingfeng on Tue Jul 05, 2011 8:12 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Yeleixingfeng
- Posts: 110
- Joined: Thu Mar 17, 2011 12:50 am
Re: What to Revive?
Btw, I don't know where to post this, but I need to tell someone!! People just give me the so-what stare whenever I speak of my craze on Chinese.
There is an event in Penang, held in accordance to the July 7th Heritage Day. (The day Penang was listed as one of the historic sites. Blablabla.) Needless to say, I volunteered to help, despite my erupting parents. >.<
Wait 'till you hear this!
Whoa, this is exciting!!!
THEY ARE MIMICKING PENANG AS HOW IT WAS 100 YEARS AGO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! The clothes, the money, the style~! WOW!!! They made it mandatory for every helper to buy a tiong-kok-sa and wear it (They spoke in Mandarin - 中國裝.) ie, the 唐裝. I actually hate the 唐裝 and 旗袍, 'cause it is not originally Chinese but instead reminds me of how the Chinese have lost to the Manchurians, been 剃髪易服-ed upon.
Anyway, that is good effort.
Then comes the infuriating part.
It was the worship of the ancestors, or rather the previous leaders of Meng Eng Soo (名英祠), which actually is a branch of Ghee Hin. Worships often include reciting strings of words, like 天地共睹 blablabla, then ending with 敬茶, right?
They were all read in Mandarin during our briefing. Then, as you all know how bold I am >.<, I suggested at the end of the ceremony that the words be recited in Hokkien, since Mandarin probably haven't reach Penang then. The advisor of the whole event, who is also the president of Penang Chinese Culture Association, answered me as though questioning my historical knowledge,
"We can also use Mandarin, eh? People then use Mandarin regularly too."
SHIT!!! What the ****? PRESIDENT OF PENANG CHINESE CULTURE ASSOCIATION?????
Even the old Chinese-culture professor who was supposed to overlook the whole event said nothing, as though that is the fact. I could have cursed aloud!!
There is an event in Penang, held in accordance to the July 7th Heritage Day. (The day Penang was listed as one of the historic sites. Blablabla.) Needless to say, I volunteered to help, despite my erupting parents. >.<
Wait 'till you hear this!
Whoa, this is exciting!!!
THEY ARE MIMICKING PENANG AS HOW IT WAS 100 YEARS AGO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! The clothes, the money, the style~! WOW!!! They made it mandatory for every helper to buy a tiong-kok-sa and wear it (They spoke in Mandarin - 中國裝.) ie, the 唐裝. I actually hate the 唐裝 and 旗袍, 'cause it is not originally Chinese but instead reminds me of how the Chinese have lost to the Manchurians, been 剃髪易服-ed upon.
Anyway, that is good effort.
Then comes the infuriating part.
It was the worship of the ancestors, or rather the previous leaders of Meng Eng Soo (名英祠), which actually is a branch of Ghee Hin. Worships often include reciting strings of words, like 天地共睹 blablabla, then ending with 敬茶, right?
They were all read in Mandarin during our briefing. Then, as you all know how bold I am >.<, I suggested at the end of the ceremony that the words be recited in Hokkien, since Mandarin probably haven't reach Penang then. The advisor of the whole event, who is also the president of Penang Chinese Culture Association, answered me as though questioning my historical knowledge,
"We can also use Mandarin, eh? People then use Mandarin regularly too."
SHIT!!! What the ****? PRESIDENT OF PENANG CHINESE CULTURE ASSOCIATION?????
Even the old Chinese-culture professor who was supposed to overlook the whole event said nothing, as though that is the fact. I could have cursed aloud!!
Re: What to Revive?
Hi Yeleixingfeng,
I really like everything you wrote in this thread, in both postings.
Your grasp of the linguistic issues in posting #1 is really impressive for someone so young. [I don't mean this to sound condescending, and I hope you will take it in the right spirit. I'm simply very impressed by what you know about linguistics at your age. I only found all this stuff out between the age of 20 and 40.]
As to posting #2, you demonstrate again your "revolutionary spirit", and your ability to speak out when people are mouthing total nonsense (I'm thinking of the other time when you spoke out against your teacher, in a posting from several months ago). As I said then, not many people dare to speak out against people in positions of authority.
Keep it up, and keep developing those ideas and skills!
I really like everything you wrote in this thread, in both postings.
Your grasp of the linguistic issues in posting #1 is really impressive for someone so young. [I don't mean this to sound condescending, and I hope you will take it in the right spirit. I'm simply very impressed by what you know about linguistics at your age. I only found all this stuff out between the age of 20 and 40.]
As to posting #2, you demonstrate again your "revolutionary spirit", and your ability to speak out when people are mouthing total nonsense (I'm thinking of the other time when you spoke out against your teacher, in a posting from several months ago). As I said then, not many people dare to speak out against people in positions of authority.
Keep it up, and keep developing those ideas and skills!
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Yeleixingfeng
- Posts: 110
- Joined: Thu Mar 17, 2011 12:50 am
Re: What to Revive?
SimL,
LOL, thanks. There's nothing to fear la, actually.
Er, but the real question is - what do you think, the descriptive linguist? >.< Hehe.
And, this is actually just a small break from homework. Sigh... Going to dig back in after this few days...
LOL, thanks. There's nothing to fear la, actually.
Er, but the real question is - what do you think, the descriptive linguist? >.< Hehe.
And, this is actually just a small break from homework. Sigh... Going to dig back in after this few days...
Re: What to Revive?
'
Oh, come on, don't you like the 康熙字典 and 四庫全書? All paid for and supported by nice Manchu Emperors......and who won in the end? Not many people speaking Manchu nowadays. BTW I overheard a guide in the Forbidden City in Peking tell an American tourist that the Chinese/Manchu signs in the Palace were written in "Chinese and Mandarin" which proves that in China absolutely anyone can be a tour guide!cause it is not originally Chinese but instead reminds me of how the Chinese have lost to the Manchurians, been 剃髪易服-ed upon.
Anyway, that is good effort.
This is particularly funny...because I know which other forum you have been on, and I bet a lot of the people here can guess who you met there.Decided to dedicate this afternoon to replying threads. ^^ Btw, hi Harold! You'll soon see, as have I, how friendly this forum is as compared to others. Haha.
Re: What to Revive?
Sadly, not just China. I was in the British Museum 4-5 years ago (the British Museum!!!!!), and the guide there was telling people about stuff from China (in connection with an exhibition on Chinese ceramics). She pronounced all the Chinese names and terms in a horrible English accent, and got THREE facts wrong (I forget what they were). Unlike other more assertive members of this Forum, I just kept quiet, shuddering to myself.Ah-bin wrote:BTW I overheard a guide in the Forbidden City in Peking tell an American tourist that the Chinese/Manchu signs in the Palace were written in "Chinese and Mandarin" which proves that in China absolutely anyone can be a tour guide!
[Looking back now, I shouldn't have kept quiet. I could have just politely corrected her, because a Forum member here has made me realise that people spreading false assertions should be challenged. But then, as many of you know, I'm a very mild sort of person, who doesn't like conflict, even in its very minor forms.]
Hah! Don't sure don't mean him!Ah-bin wrote:This is particularly funny...because I know which other forum you have been on, and I bet a lot of the people here can guess who you met there.Yeleixingfeng wrote:Decided to dedicate this afternoon to replying threads. ^^ Btw, hi Harold! You'll soon see, as have I, how friendly this forum is as compared to others. Haha.
[He's the person I had in mind when saying that another Forum member made me realise that nonsense statements shouldn't go unchallenged, above. And I think 'a lot of people here' can also guess which Forum member brought me to that realisation too
! BTW, the interesting thing is that when I go back and read that guy's old postings, they're (still, of course) nonsense, and (still, of course) rudely worded, but they don't come across as anywhere as aggressive and rude as when I felt they were when first reading them. I know that many other Forum members were also incredibly upset by the tone, and I wonder if they also have the same feeling now, on re-reading those entries...]Re: What to Revive?
Oh, a descriptive linguist having to make a pronouncement?!?!Yeleixingfeng wrote:Er, but the real question is - what do you think, the descriptive linguist? >.< Hehe.
Well, I guess I'm with you, in that I would preserve stratum 1 and 2. I might be a bit laxer and allow a couple of stratum 3 words, if I felt that they expressed some uniquely "Penang feeling". One such candidate is my famous: "i kong-ua bo mi7_ning1 e" (= "he's not very logical in his reasoning, he makes the most ridiculous assertions, he talks nonsense"). But (as I've mentioned in earlier postings), I've no idea if this is restricted to only Penang Baba Hokkien or even to only my extended family).
And, of course (as I acknowledged to Mark, and tried to acknowledge to xng), I'm very well aware (as I'm sure you are too, Yeleixingfeng), that these stratum 2 words badly affect our ability to communicate with Taiwanese, Fujian Hokkiens, Philippines Chinese, etc.
Ah-bin proposed a very nice model once (Ah-bin, if you could re-find the note, I think it would be great for Yeleixingfeng to read your thoughts on the matter), namely the Maori one. Maori apparently has a lot of regional variation too, and Ah-bin's Maori teacher advised the class to "learn the local term, but be aware of the existence and usage of the other regional equivalents as well" (to paraphrase what I remember of what Ah-bin wrote). That way, in talking to our fellow Penang Hokkiens, we can have the nice warm feelings of "group solidarity", with our "tapi", "balu", "lokun", etc, but we can still drop these and use other terms when communicating with non-Penang-Hokkien Hokkien speakers. And if they would do the same for our Penang-Hokkien terms, then we wouldn't even have to drop them in speaking to them - we could keep using our terms, and they could keep using their terms, and we'd both understand one another. This happens for example, when the Americans say "elevator" and the British say "lift". Neither would use "the other party's term" in normal conversation, but as both parties are aware of the other party's term, they can continue to use their own term, even when speaking to someone of the other party.
Re: What to Revive?
夜雷星蜂： 汝好！
Your question is a very relevant one for Hokkien as an international Chinese dialect (Forumer, please pardon the gross liberties with the terminology I just used), and is not one that can be answered in a few short sentences without sufficient clarification.
Take the English Language as an example. In my previous job, I had colleagues who were English (of several varieties, including a Yorkshireman who was my boss), Scottish, Irish, Americans and Australians - all just on one floor of my office building. It was always very interesting listening to them talk among themselves, and fascinating to note that 99% of the time, despite the obvious differences in accents, they understood each other perfectly well (and I am not just talking about basic understanding - there were never any hints of subtle double-takes by anyone, even for a split-second, to figure out what the other person was saying).
So, what is the common thread here? They all spoke English. Sure, they retained their own accents and some terminology peculiar to their variants of the language. But there always existed this invisible ‘lowest common denominator’ which allowed them to be mutually-understood.
Here is where it gets complicated. From what I have observed, the ‘lowest common denominator’ shifts, depending on the speakers. For example, when the Scots speak amongst themselves, they would veer towards a heavier use of their dialect, very far removed from the English. The same would apply to two Londoners speaking Cockney. However, when two British - a Scotsman and an Englishman - were to converse, the ‘lowest common denominator’ would shift towards a stratum where the language employed was common to the British Isles. Take it a jump step further when they were to speak to a Malaysian (assuming the Malaysian in question speaks a respectable level of English) - the ‘lowest common denominator’ would shift again.
My point from the above is that the regionalects give the communities their own unique colour and identity. It would be such a boring world if the Scots and the English were in-differentiable within the British Isles. But at the same time, there exists the real need to still be able to communicate across the subtle cross-dialectal lines.
So, to return to Hokkien. What I personally would tell a Penang Hokkien speaker is this:
1. By all means, use batu for stones in Penang. But make sure you also know that the proper word is 石頭 chioq-thau, and remember to use that as the ‘lowest common denominator’ when communicating with Hokkien speakers whom you know to be not of your region.
2. Know and appreciate the fact that 黃 is both Uiⁿ and Ng at the same time, and get out the mindset that ‘the other form is weird’.
So, my short answers - with a lot of qualification necessary - would be:
1. Keep them all
2. Learn them all
Your question is a very relevant one for Hokkien as an international Chinese dialect (Forumer, please pardon the gross liberties with the terminology I just used), and is not one that can be answered in a few short sentences without sufficient clarification.
Take the English Language as an example. In my previous job, I had colleagues who were English (of several varieties, including a Yorkshireman who was my boss), Scottish, Irish, Americans and Australians - all just on one floor of my office building. It was always very interesting listening to them talk among themselves, and fascinating to note that 99% of the time, despite the obvious differences in accents, they understood each other perfectly well (and I am not just talking about basic understanding - there were never any hints of subtle double-takes by anyone, even for a split-second, to figure out what the other person was saying).
So, what is the common thread here? They all spoke English. Sure, they retained their own accents and some terminology peculiar to their variants of the language. But there always existed this invisible ‘lowest common denominator’ which allowed them to be mutually-understood.
Here is where it gets complicated. From what I have observed, the ‘lowest common denominator’ shifts, depending on the speakers. For example, when the Scots speak amongst themselves, they would veer towards a heavier use of their dialect, very far removed from the English. The same would apply to two Londoners speaking Cockney. However, when two British - a Scotsman and an Englishman - were to converse, the ‘lowest common denominator’ would shift towards a stratum where the language employed was common to the British Isles. Take it a jump step further when they were to speak to a Malaysian (assuming the Malaysian in question speaks a respectable level of English) - the ‘lowest common denominator’ would shift again.
My point from the above is that the regionalects give the communities their own unique colour and identity. It would be such a boring world if the Scots and the English were in-differentiable within the British Isles. But at the same time, there exists the real need to still be able to communicate across the subtle cross-dialectal lines.
So, to return to Hokkien. What I personally would tell a Penang Hokkien speaker is this:
1. By all means, use batu for stones in Penang. But make sure you also know that the proper word is 石頭 chioq-thau, and remember to use that as the ‘lowest common denominator’ when communicating with Hokkien speakers whom you know to be not of your region.
2. Know and appreciate the fact that 黃 is both Uiⁿ and Ng at the same time, and get out the mindset that ‘the other form is weird’.
So, my short answers - with a lot of qualification necessary - would be:
1. Keep them all
2. Learn them all
Re: What to Revive?
I do!Hah! Don't sure don't mean him!
Yes, thank you for mentioning this again Sim. The teacher encouraged her students to have respect for all the other ways of saying things, to listen to the elders in your own iwi (tribal group) or the region where you live, and use the words they tell you, but that it is good and polite to be curious about different words and expressions from other places, and asking other people is a good way to learn these. This was partly because the textbook and teacher were initially teaching a slightly different kind of Maori from what most of the people in the class spoke.Ah-bin proposed a very nice model once (Ah-bin, if you could re-find the note, I think it would be great for Yeleixingfeng to read your thoughts on the matter), namely the Maori one. Maori apparently has a lot of regional variation too, and Ah-bin's Maori teacher advised the class to "learn the local term, but be aware of the existence and usage of the other regional equivalents as well" (to paraphrase what I remember of what Ah-bin wrote).
Actually it is Maori language week in New Zealand this week, and the head of the Maori Language Commission was warning that the original native speakers of Maori are dying out. More young people can speak the language than was the case twenty years ago, but their fluency and range of speech is decreased.
http://www.stuff.co.nz/national/5231778 ... ith-elders
Kind of similar to what is happening with Hokkien, except Maori has government backing, and has had a fixed system of spelling for over 150 years.
It is interesting though how many words creep into NZ English now, like te reo (=bahasa) manaakitanga (= showing respect) wharewaka = a house boat. The middle one would still be unfamliar to peopel my age, but the other two are better known.
I certainly agree with that.So, my short answers - with a lot of qualification necessary - would be:
1. Keep them all
2. Learn them all
As for internationalism, I saw Aokh talking to Amoy people several times in Penang Hokkien with tapis and balus thrown in, and they seemed to just get what was going on. I myself had a lot harder time understanding the Amoy accent to start with but Aokh will testify that i go the hang of it after a few days, even to the point where I unconsciously pronounced bun-te as bun-toe 問題! The other person was adamant that this sort of thing was impossible and that we all had to learn one kind of Hokkien in order to communicate.
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Yeleixingfeng
- Posts: 110
- Joined: Thu Mar 17, 2011 12:50 am
Re: What to Revive?
We now use 'poin'. i kong-ua bo poin e. Though, sometimes I hear i kong-ua bo i-su e. (意思)SimL wrote:i kong-ua bo mi7_ning1 e" (= "he's not very logical in his reasoning, he makes the most ridiculous assertions, he talks nonsense").
Mark,
Learn it all doesn't keep it all in usage, from a linguist point of view. o.0?? Sat-bun or pui-cio? Even now, I often hear sop (soap). Where are these all heading to?