What is “Hokkien” (and what is not)?

[Mark Yong]

You know how we always talk about “Hokkien words”, “how to say this-or-that in Hokkien” and the gradually-shrinking general Hokkien vocabulary. This has prompted me to think a lot about some fundamental questions:
1. What is Hokkien?
2. What is not Hokkien (i.e. another Chinese language*, such as Cantonese, Hakka, Shanghainese, Mandarin)?
3. What is Chinese, in general (and I will stretch that definition to include Classical Chinese)?

To put things in perspective: Nowadays, we tend to think a lot about “Hokkien” as a language that is separate from “Chinese” – by the very token of the existence of Hokkien dictionaries written in Chinese! But when you look at Hong Kong, the locals there do not sub-consciously think of “Cantonese” and “Chinese” in separate terms. Nor do you normally see “Cantonese-Chinese dictionaries”** used there (even though they exist – I know, because I own two). To them, they are one and the same thing (ironically, I get the impression that Hong Kongers think of Mandarin as something separate!). I believe this would have been very much the case in China, Taiwan and even in the predominantly-Hokkien 南洋 Lăm-IÓⁿ communities such as Singapore, Penang, Indonesia and Philippines before the 20th century.

Another way to look at it: When you flip through a “Hokkien dictionary” or a “Cantonese dictionary”, have you noticed how the word entries tend to fall into two broad categories:
1. Words that are unique to the said dialect, with the definitions provided in Modern Standard Chinese (i.e. they would not be cognates) or English (or whatever medium the dictionary is composed in)
2. Mainstream Chinese words, but just mapped to the said dialect’s pronunciation (i.e. cognates)

So, the question morphs into: What constitutes a dialect* dictionary, and what constitutes a Chinese dictionary?

Let me try to put forth some examples to illustrate the point:

1. 抌㧒捔 tìm hīat kàk (to throw) is Hokkien
2. 轉 tûiⁿ is Hokkien (well, actually not uniquely Hokkien, as Hakka also uses it, as cŌn)
3. 目 is of Classical Chinese origin, now preserved in 閩 Min in its original definition for ‘eye’, with that definition now having fallen out of use and superceded by 眼 in the other major dialects
4. 幹嘛, 別 (as in, the contraction of 不要) and 他 (as used for the 3rd person) are Mandarin
5. 手，月，出 are all Chinese in general
6. 反對 is a relatively-modern compound that is now part of Chinese in general, including Hokkien
7. 政府 and 圖書館 are Japanese borrowings that are now part of Chinese in general, including Hokkien

When you say 反對 hŭan-tūi, do you stop and think to yourself, “I just said a Hokkien word” or “I just said a Chinese word using Hokkien”? Interesting when you actually dissect it, right? I realise it is not so cut-and-dried, as real-life sentences in Hokkien are a mix of all the above categories (except #4, i.e. the outright Mandarin ones, though I have once heard a friend say 爲甚麼 ŭi-sàm-mÔ in Penang before).

*I am treading very carefully with the use of the word dialect for what we know should really be referred to as Chinese languages.
** This is different from Cantonese phrasebooks for tourists (which are rather abundant) and specialist Cantonese dictionaries / pronunciation charts for linguistic studies. The target audiences in these cases are quite specific.

[Ah-bin]

I had a similar question when i was living in Japan, about where Japanese ended and where Chinese began. You would think 我們 was definitely Chinese, but if you write 'warera' next to it as Takizawa Bakin does in his novels, then it becomes Japanese. The conclusion I came to was that almost everything that was written in Chinese characters was potentially Japanese, since at some time or another it will have appeared in an old Japanese book. If you show someone some rare character, they will usually say it is a rare Kanji that they don't know, not that it is necessarily Chinese.

I say almost everything, because there are some characters now that Japanese would instantly recognise as Chinese from the simplified set and words like 你 that they have not seen in Japanese books (although I have seen this one in a Japanese book too).

I'm sure that the same went for Korean and Vietnamese at one time as well.

[amhoanna]

Tsinoys (Phils Chinese) are the same way, right? They don't think of "Fukien", "Chinese" and "Mandarin" in separate terms.

When you say 反對 hŭan-tūi, do you stop and think to yourself, “I just said a Hokkien word” or “I just said a Chinese word using Hokkien”?

When we say "nggak" (NOT) in b. Indo, do we stop, and go, "Wait, I just said a Javanese word using Malay?" I think every language has these layers...

True, the subjective "psycholinguistics" are different for "Chinese" languages. The Arabic languages have the same kind of dynamic going on, but different b/c Classic Arabic is heard as well as seen, and there's no "Modern Standard Arabic", i.e. no "Mandarin of Arabic". Urdu vs. Hindi, w/ Sanskrit and Arabic looming in the bkgrd, is another interesting "test case".

I like dictionaries that help me improve in a language. For that, hybrid, "Swiss Army knife" Chinese-&-Cantonese! Chinese-&-Hoklo! etc. dictionaries are misleading at best. I like how the 台語白話小詞典 that came out a few yrs ago doesn't treat words different no matter whether they're Sinitic or non-Sinitic or exist in Literary Chinese. It does note the etymology of every etymon, except the non-Sino etyma in the oldest layers, like "bat"/"pat". Loanwords of loanwords (e.g. sapbun) are traced back stop by stop with much precision. The new pan-Chinese Sino-Japanese borrowings are marked as Japanese Sino loanwords, and in the Formosan context they really were -- they didn't pass through either Literary or "Modern Standard" Chinese. A complete and consistent Hok-Mand dictionary, yours for just 9.99.

http://blog.roodo.com/taiwanbook/archives/12450321.html
http://www.books.com.tw/exep/prod/books ... 0010449853

[niuc]

When Mark writes "another Chinese language" and “Cantonese-Chinese dictionaries”, it seems to me that those are two different definitions of "Chinese", the latter being equivalent to Mandarin. Using the former definition, personally I always think of (or rather "know") Hokkien as a part of Chinese, and Mandarin as a sister language.

When I said 反對 huán-tuì, I never paused to dissect it. But if I ever did, I would have been assured that it was (and is) Hokkien through and through.

[Yeleixingfeng]

If 反對 is not Hokkien - I am neither stating that it is nor isn't - then what do you call/express 反對黨?

[amhoanna]

It just occurred to me that maybe PgHK "kàliáu" is based on Cantonese saai (阴去) - even though it uses native Hoklo elements. I was just typing a sentence in Hoklo and I wanted to use saai, but the word isn't available in Hoklo. Then I thought of kàliáu. Perfect!

[Ah-bin]

Ah, but then kā-liáu has a very wide range of usages in comparison to saai 嘥. I wonder if Taiwanese can understand it?

I believe it was SIm who said it was probably from kàu liáu "until finished" and I think that is the most probable explanation. It would certainly explain why the tone doesn't sandhi upwards (as liáu doesn't cause sandhi). I think in my dictionary I've been mistakenly writing *kà-liáu which would produce a different tone pattern from what actually occurs i.e. 'ka1 liáu'

Then in the more creolised version of northern Malaysian Hokkien it replaced lóng-chóng 攏總. I am aware this word is familiar to many PGHK speakers, but I wonder if it wasn't reintroduced by the sin-khek, as kā-liáu seems to have taken root in the very structure of the language.

I have been thinking over this for a few days, actually, even before I read this, and had been trying to come up with a list of the various meanings. Just now I thought of:

1) 全部, 所有
Kā-liáu lâng chai (replacing só•-ū or ták inTaiwanese)
Everyone knows… (ták-ták-lâng pún chai is possible too, but it is more like "each and every", isn't it?)

2) 都
I chò ê hì wá kā-liáu bat khoàⁿ kòe (replacing TW lóng)
I've seen all the films she made.

Iâng kā-liáu sī Penang ê lâng (replacing TW lóng, lóng-chóng)
They are all Penangites

3) 嘥
Tōa-pûi chiáh kā-liáu! (replacing 嘥 in this case, but doesn’t Taiwanese use liáu?)
Fatty ate the lot!

[amhoanna]

So the pronunciation is "ka33 liau55" or "ka11 liau55"? I've been misled!

I've been using kàliáu in writing, but not in speech. I think it's borderline understandable for TWnese... Kāliáu or kaliáu wouldn't be. No idea what kā or ka would mean! The "ka" initial-final combo is overloaded, so tone is "strictly construed".

I think "kà liáu" could be used in TWnese in its literal meaning of TILL FINISHED, TILL ALL GONE. Might need native spkr to confirm, or somebody that watches a lot of TW telenovelas. "Liáuliáu" might be more common, though. "Dụnpiáⁿ cá tọ hõ· i ciạ' liáuliáu ·ala." (潤餅早就與伊食了了 ·a。）

[SimL]

Hi Ah-bin,

Two points:

1. Your mastery of Penang Hokkien is now truly phenomenal. The renditions you gave of the various variants of "all" using ka-liau sound so "native" to me.

2. This is the first time I've realised your point about "liau2" not causing sandhi. So, for example, in "i1-lang5 kau3-liau2" (= "they have arrived"), the "kau3" doesn't sandhi (and any other verb for that matter). But doesn't that then totally discredit my original explanation that "ka-liau" is an elided form of "kau3-liau2" (= "until finished")?

[Ah-bin]

Your mastery of Penang Hokkien is now truly phenomenal. The renditions you gave of the various variants of "all" using ka-liau sound so "native" to me.

Wow, I am very flattered to hear that. One of the sentences isn;t really mine though....it comes from that poem about the fat boy and the paper bag full of 屎!

I was actually trying to thick of other sentences like:

*kui-ê thô∙-kha tâm-tâm kā-liáu

The whole floor was totally wet. (replaces 完全)

and

I Kà i-ê hák-seng kā-liáu sī iōng Hok-kiàn-ōa.

He teaches his students entirely in Hokkien. (replaces 完全)

But I feel something is wrong with them.

This is the first time I've realised your point about "liau2" not causing sandhi. So, for example, in "i1-lang5 kau3-liau2" (= "they have arrived"), the "kau3" doesn't sandhi (and any other verb for that matter). But doesn't that then totally discredit my original explanation that "ka-liau" is an elided form of "kau3-liau2" (= "until finished")?

Not at all! If liáu doesn’t cause sandhi, kà(u) will sound exactly the same as kā(u).Well in Penang at least! I just write it kā-liáu instead of kà(u) liáu for convenience’s sake, because it acts as a single word and deserves a hyphen to keep it together I think, despite its etymology. I suppose I could have written it as the could be the equally etymologically problematic kâ-liáu or ka-liáu, as these both have the same tone pattern as kā-liáu in PGHK (low falling tone + high flat/rising/dipping).