What to Revive?

[Ah-bin]

I'd forgotten to reply to Mark's idea. The best place to do it would be in Singapore, anywhere where lots of Mandarin teachers can hear it.

[AndrewAndrew]

無公平 has just recently went obsolete in our generation. We now use im1-ba2, from imbalance - English. This phenomenon started 2 years ago, and within that 2 years, no one says 無公平 in school anymore. I have seen only a few 20+ adult use it. That is how I define generation. And, you clearly are from the 20-30 years group when you were in Penang, right? >.< But, yeah, I don't think you are as old as my parents.

"No-one says ... in school anymore" and Mark's response to the word im1-ba2 sounds very much like a youth and an adult arguing about the use of teenage slang! Words like that go in and out of fashion amongst limited groups all the time. Only a very few slang words make it into the linguistic mainstream, when said youths actually have to get jobs and discover that their everyday linguistic circle has to be wider than just their age-group! Language is fluid, but it's not so fluid as to change substantially every half generation! (14 years is the difference between my eldest brother and youngest sister - a generation is usually accounted to be at least 25 years - probably 30 years going forward as people marry later). It is very different with loanwords such as "mata" and "sabun", which have been around for so long that they have even made it back to Hokkien/Teochew-speaking communities in TngsoaN. I don't see the point in using words such as pui-tso or i-tso in everyday speech, if nobody in the Hoklosphere uses them any more.

That is why the general advice of learning words that your (non-classically educated) grandmother would understand makes sense - language is about communication, and words that other people cannot understand are useless, even if they are historically correct or new and cool. Of course, you can tailor the register of your speech depending on whom you are talking to, but we are talking about language learning and teaching on a more general level.

[siamiwako]

Pure metals 咧, 伊 ductile, malleable, lustrous, high density, high melting 共 boiling point, 復是 good conductor of heat and electricity. Ductile 咧, 是講伊會be drawn徦變wire. But 咧, pure metals 無焉爾 marketable, 因為伊過頭soft了; so, 挴有 other metals 來 disrupt 伊仒 orderly arrangement. (....)

Maybe this is the reality of hokkien outside of sinosphere esp 南洋. The gap that I see missing is new and technical vocabulary (excluding heat, electricity, soft, pure metals). I must admit that I can't speak fluent hokkien and my vocab is quite bad - I use loan words 李有法倘借我李的calculus的答案和trigonometric table無?

I also think that since load words become de facto standard for that particular generation, it feels weird the first time to go back and use hokkien vocabs. Below is a simple sentence:
李有帶ballpen無?
where ballpoint pen is called 原子筆

If I ask my friend 李有帶原子筆無?
Very likely I get a few second pause then a reply "siami si guan-tsi-pit"?

Personally, I'd like to preserve the hokkien dialect because it contains 古漢語. I remember 水滸傳 novel, written during early Ming dynasty by 施耐庵, contains 古漢語. It mentioned that a character went to a town to "趁吃". I thought it meant to find something to eat but it in fact it meant 謀生! Also mentioned was that the town was 鬧熱 as oppose to 熱鬧. 趁吃 and 鬧熱 are both very close to hokkien.

Let me see how bad my hokkien is... hmmmm *rubs his chin lowers his brows*
heat = sio/dua
electricity = tian
soft = neng
pure metals = chia ti
high density = ?
malleable = ?
conductor = ?
I give up...

[Mark Yong]

Here is my intuitive dig at some of the terms, if I were still working in the factory in Penang today:

drawn into wire 拖 (徦真正) 幼 thūa (kā cìn-ciāⁿ) iù
(OR 拖徦變幼線 thūa kā pìan iù sŭaⁿ)

conductor of electricity 閒過電 èng kūe tiàn

lustrous 光 kūiⁿ (how’s that for simplicity?)

marketable 好賣 hò bĕ

disrupt 做亂 cò lŭan

high-density 密 bàt
(I avoided 高密度 kō-bàt-tÒ, as it is too contrived)

These are not terms that I spent time deliberating over. They are words that I came up with on-the-fly, and would use with reasonable confidence that I will be well-understood by my colleagues or suppliers. How’s that for living-and-breathing Hoklo?

I don’t think this problem (if one may call it that) is unique to Hoklo. I doubt Hong Kongers use pure Cantonese in their school/work environment, either. When I once spoke to a Hong Kong-based electrical supplier to enquire about proximity sensors, he didn’t say 感應器 gám-yīng-hēi, he said ‘sensor’, plain and simple. And he didn’t say 報價單 pōu-kāa-tâan, either, he said ‘quotation’. And no 增值稅 câng cĭk sōei, either, just good ol’ ‘V.A.T.’ (Value-Added Tax). And we were speaking Cantonese. Ironically, I was the one using all the Chinese terms.

I suspect it is also because, although Cantonese is the de facto medium of instruction, English is still the language employed in school textbooks, so all the techno-commercial terms are still taught in English. If you want pure Chinese terms, it would have to be a place where the textbooks are all in Chinese all the way till end of high-school, i.e. China and Taiwan (<gasp>... did I just say ‘China and Taiwan’, i.e. Taiwan is not a part of China? )

[amhoanna]

How’s that for living-and-breathing Hoklo?

I'm impressed! Esp. eng5 koe3 tian7.

In Taiwan, too, guys working in "the trades" have a deep, wide and rich Hoklo vocabulary. Socially, they're cut off from the literati, and people that went to schools other than trade schools, and people that go online, etc. A femme friend of mine in manufacturing tells me that a lot of their jargon is a mystery to the women around them as well. To learn any Hoklo from these guys, I find it key to understand no Mandarin from the get-go.

Mark, li bat siunn koe phiansia cit pun "tiancugiap sutian" (glossary) --bo?

[Ah-bin]

I suspect it is also because, although Cantonese is the de facto medium of instruction, English is still the language employed in school textbooks, so all the techno-commercial terms are still taught in English. If you want pure Chinese terms, it would have to be a place where the textbooks are all in Chinese all the way till end of high-school, i.e. China and Taiwan (<gasp>... did I just say ‘China and Taiwan’, i.e. Taiwan is not a part of China? )

People were using English textbooks in Taiwanese universities already when I was first there (1997), but Chinese universities still mainly use Chinese textbooks. The result in Taiwan is that technical terms were borrowed into the students' Mandarin from English, just what happened to English about three hundred years ago. I wonder if in the future Chinese will end up with a lot of loans like that for technical terms, or whether China will become so influential in the sciences that the opposite occurs, and English starts to adopt Chinese words?

My new fun thing to do when forced into conversation about Taiwan with PRC Chinese is say "Well, you try going from one to the other without two separate visas in your passport, or try booking a train ticket from Taipei to Kaohsiung in Canton (you can book one from Amoy to Shanghai there) that's proof that it isn't really part of China" and then tell them they have to be honest and say "ought to be part of China" instead hehehe....

There is an interesting list of banned terms that relates to this a tiny bit...it's fun to see what you can't say, anyway, it makes it all that much more fun to say!

http://chinadigitaltimes.net/2011/07/di ... ned-terms/

You can bet your boots whenever you hear "over 100 countries and regions" that a CCP member has had a tantrum somewhere!

[amhoanna]

People were using English textbooks in Taiwanese universities already when I was first there (1997), but Chinese universities still mainly use Chinese textbooks. The result in Taiwan is that technical terms were borrowed into the students' Mandarin from English, just what happened to English about three hundred years ago.

Last yr an executive at a small tech company in Taiwan complained to me in conversation that folks on "the Mainland" used some awfully strange terminology. Apparently anything but a direct loan from English was what he considered strange, and cruel and unusual. He clarified that the reason why he didn't like these "Mainland" terms was b/c "you can't tell what they mean just by looking at them", I guess b/c they weren't slavish imitations of English terms. Awfully strange logic, or lack of logic, coming from a guy as smart as him. Somebody should turn him on to Penang Classroom Hokkien.

BTW I typed up some observations and impressions about Vietnamese, and Cantonese in VN, and posted them in the Cantonese forum. Topics include Cantonese in Vietnam and the relationship between literary Chinese and spoken Vietnamese, which is still surprisingly tight -- reminding us that people don't lose their literary Chinese layers, nor become numb to it, just b/c of a lack of mass kanji literacy.

[Mark Yong]

amhoanna wrote:
Mark, li bat siunn koe phiansia cit pun "tiancugiap sutian" (glossary) --bo?

Just to confirm that I am reading what you wrote correctly:
汝捌想過編寫一本“電子業辭典”，無？

有，捌想過。 The problem is, the number of words specific to electronics that I know is very small. Even if I were to add in the metal fabrication terms (which was more my area of specialisation), it still would come to less than a page worth... hardly worthy of a 辭典 or a glossary, for that matter.

Regarding the differences between technical terms in China and Taiwan (yes, that was me being politically-incorrect again): I sometimes amuse myself by reading the instruction booklets for electrical products printed in Traditional and Simplified Characters, and looking out for the occasional differences in terminology used (yep, they ain't just character differences). amhoanna is right - a lot of these terms are defined, and you either know them or you don't.

[Mark Yong]

Off-topic, since we are talking about Taiwan. This is probably academic, given that I am now in Australia.

I have often wondered whether Taiwan is the ideal place to raise and educate my children. What I mean is, from the point of view of the following:

1. As high a standard of Chinese language education as you can get anywhere in the world (Traditional Characters, still more Literary elements than the mainland). And all the culture to go along with it.

2. One of the highest literacy rates, as well as test scores for reading, mathematics and sciences in the world (the regular ones at the top are Finland, Hong Kong, Taiwan and Singapore; Shanghai recently joined them). I know, I know... the 驚輸 kiaⁿ-su trait in me is showing!

3. Okay, the standard of English as a whole may not be fantastic, but I have met quite a few Taiwanese college-mates who speak pretty good English. You don’t get ought for naught.

4. Definitely more land and breathing space than Hong Kong.

5. I shall avail myself of commenting on the plethora of restrictions in China.

6. Hey... industrially, it’s one of the Four Asian Tigers! I presume that means jobs should be in reasonably good supply for spanner-heads like me.

Comments from anyone who has lived there for a significant period of time?

[Ah-bin]

Apparently anything but a direct loan from English was what he considered strange, and cruel and unusual. He clarified that the reason why he didn't like these "Mainland" terms was b/c "you can't tell what they mean just by looking at them", I guess b/c they weren't slavish imitations of English terms.

Actually, perhaps he meant the opposite? It isn't always the case that Taiwanese Mandarin is more Anglicised. I've often thought of it the other way around, where Taiwanese have a better grasp of the Classical Chinese influenced idiom, and PRC Chinese have fallen into a kind of translationese, "purer" on the surface in lexicon (not so many English words used by the young "cool" people), but actually closer to English and other western languages through ignorance of the Classical tradition. From my own experience PRC Chinese is much easier to translate into English than Chinese written by educated Taiwanese.

The two terms I am thinking of at the moment are 線上 (Taiwan and HK) and 在線 (China) for "online", where the Chinese translation follows English slavishly, and 克隆 (China) 複製 (Taiwan HK) where China couldn't even be bothered to come up with a meaningful term for "clone" and chose an ugly transliteration instead. Even 電腦 is less English than the 計算機 (計算 to compute?) still touted as the correct term in China, even though few people use it.

I also notice that in PRC Chinese writing and speech it is more common to use 被 sentences when there is no negative connotation, like 他被...老師教 instead of 他是...老師教的 "He was taught by Mr/Mrs. ...." That struck me as very odd when I first went to China.

I've had many PRC Chinese over the years try to tell me that Taiwanese and Hong Kongers are so westernised compared to themselves, but when I start asking them about visiting temples and having altars at home, they don't know how to answer and I have to remind them that most Taiwanese would be able to answer such questions. I know one very intelligent student from Nanking (he has never said anything silly about westernised Taiwanese) who didn't even know what 拜拜 meant (not the bye bye 拜拜, the 拜尪公 拜拜)! In a similar manner to the linguistic issues, Taiwan and Hong Kong look like they should be more westernised, and some individuals certainly are, but I would say Taiwanese and Hong Kongers actually think in a more conservatively old Chinese way than PRC Chinese ̣not to mention 南洋 Chinese), particularly those in urban areas.

Regarding the differences between technical terms in China and Taiwan (yes, that was me being politically-incorrect again)

I don't get it, who is this politcally incorrect for? It's just stating fact, I don't think anyone here is going to be offended by it at all.