Sentences with "all", "many", "some

[Niuc]

Hi Sim Lee,

Thanks for your compliment. Indeed I am still learning Hokkien from many sources including this forum.

I am very interested in linguistics but unfortunately I don't have any formal training in it.

I love Hokkien very much because it's my mother tongue, the first language I learned. I was born in a Hokkien speaking town in Eastern Sumatra, just across strait from Melaka.

I came to cherish more the language during my teens when I realized that its continuity was endangered. I have been learning it more seriously from then, about ten years ago, mainly from my parents, Taiwanese TV, internet, books, etc.

The more I learn, the more I love our ancestral language for its features: tone sandhi, nasal vowels, literary & colloquial pronunciations, reduplication, etc.

I agree that English & Mandarin are very important nowadays. It's good that many people (including Hokkiens) are paying attention on these two languages. But it's not the reason to abandon our mother tongues (ancestral languages), right? Our own languages (any languages, not limited to Hokkiens) are our heritages. Multilingualism is a very good thing. Languages can enrich each other.

I hope Hokkien will be used by more and more Hokkiens people, becoming a lively language for any aspects of our daily life. Same hope goes for all endangered languages.

Let's work together to preserve our beloved ancestral language!

Phai sei, na si gua kong siu~ cue ue a...

[Sim Lee]

Great to hear what you wrote Niuc.

I too am very fond of Hokkien, but, as you may have read from my postings, my Hokkien is very poor.

I would like to make it better, but there are so many other things (languages also!) which I want to learn (like Mandarin, Latin, French, Italian).

Also, I live in Amsterdam, so there isn't really much opportunity to use it, or to learn better Hokkien.

Oh well, I enjoy reading and writing on this forum, and I'm glad you do too.

Cheers,
Sim.

[Ong]

Hi Niuc & Sim Lee,

I am like both of you, very fond of Hokkien language which is my real mother tongue. But like Sim, gua a Hokkian bo si mi ho. I think basically because we don't study it in school and hardly use it especially in areas where other Chinese languages such as Mandarin or Cantonese predominate eventhough there are many Hokkiens such as in Kuala Lumpur. I think Hokkiens should be more assertive like the Cantonese who may be much less in number in countries such as Malaysia and Singapore but whose dialect still prevails over Hokkien. Perhaps the Hong Kong factor in terms of Cantonese movies and TV programmes plays a major role. I hope Taiwanese Hokkiens who constitute the overwhelming majority of the Taiwanese population would push to elevate the status of Hokkien to an official language and increase its usage in education. A Hokkien TV station broadcasting only Hokkien stuff should also be established by the Taiwanese Government which has approved the establishment of a Hakka TV station eventhough Hakkas are in the minority in Taiwan. Media influence is very important to promote a language as can be seen in the case of Hong Kong Cantonese movies and TV programmes and soon the Hakka TV programmes. Unless the Hokkiens are assertive in promoting their language, its influence will gradually diminish as can be seen in Malaysia and Singapore where there is not a single Hokkien TV programme unlike in the past eventhough Hokkiens form the largest Chinese dialect group. Hope Hokkiens would do something such complain through the press to rectify this depressing situation. I have done it before with positive result in Malaysia at least initially with the 2 TV stations(one government and one private) showing some Hokkien movies (rather old Taiwanese movies) and a Taiwanese Hokkien TV serial i.e To Mother With Love. However, insufficent advertisers' support due mainly to the the lack of new and good quality Hokkien programmes prompted the TV stations to discontinue them.

[ppk]

thanks for the correction on 'geh'

[Sim Lee]

Hi there Ong,

You might be happy to read this particular piece of news (it's a bit old though).

http://www.wiedenhof.nl/ul/chtk/nieuws/twunicod/

Sim.

[Niuc]

Hi Sim Lee & Ong & PPK,

I'm really glad to know all of you & other friends in this forum who love our ancestral language. None of our Hokkien are perfect, that's why we're learning from each other here, aren't we?

Ong, fyi in Taiwan, although there are none TV stations that broadcast in Hokkien exclusively, there are a lot of TV stations broadcasting Hokkien drama & news. I think there are positive points to have this kind of mixed Mandarin & Hokkien programs because Mandarin audience can watch the programs and start to learn Hokkien or vice versa.

Formosa TV (民視/Bin-Si/Min2Shi4: <www.ftv.com.tw>) broadcasts many Hokkien (台語Taigy) news and programs in prime-time. About 50% or over of its programs/news are in Hokkien. There are also some educational programs for children to learn both Mandarin & Hokkien.

FTV is very famous among many Hokkiens in Indonesia, available through cable tv. It's also available in some other countries. May be you can check whether it's available in your country (Nederlands, etc). I don't know why it's not available in Singapore cable tv. There are some Taiwanese TVs available in Singapore but they rarely broadcast Hokkien programs. In contrast, there is a Hongkong station broadcasting Cantonese programs.

I also feel that it's very strange that there are almost none Hokkien programs in Malaysian TVs although the biggest Chinese group there is Hokkiens. Hokkien programs produced in Taiwan may not as various as Hongkong Cantonese programs, but there are more and more good programs available.

TV serials such as 'Hui Liong Cai Tian' 飛龍在天, 'Tiong Lam E Sim Pu' 長男的媳婦, 'Cing Gi' 情義, 'Sei Kan Lo' 世間路, etc receive high audience rate in Taiwan & among FTV viewers abroad. Some of them are broadcasted by local tvs in S'pore but already dubbed into Mandarin.

I agree that we must be more assertive in preserving our language without being chauvinistic. Firstly Hokkiens must realize the beauty and values of our language before there'll be enthusiasm using it. There are many Hokkiens feeling that their own ancestral language as inferior compared to Mandarin or others, as a result of political propaganda & misunderstanding.

Hopefully Hokkiens will pay more attention to their own heritages, especially those having opportunity/knowledge/money/power/etc to do so.

[Ong]

Hi Sim Lee,

Thanks for referring me to that piece of news which I have in fact read when it first appeared in Taipei Times. I was pretty excited when I first read that news about the effort by that group of Taiwanese scholars to register Romanised Hokkien in unicode to enable computer communication in Hokkien. However, I am not sure whether they have been successful since after the May 2002 dateline set by the international body, I have not heard of any good news on this matter. In my opinion, the Taiwanese government does not seem to be interested to promote Hokkien to the extent of making it an official language. If they have been serious about it, there would be no neccessity for the scholars to conduct public hearing and seek funds to undertake the effort. Of course, during the election campaign, DPP had promised to look into this and that including, if I am not mistaken, making Hokkien an official language but after gaining power this is swept under the carpet. I think there is a deliberate attempt by those in the Taiwanese government administration (many of whom are supporters of the former KMT regime) to undermind the effort to promote Hokkien. In fact, there seem to be more government-supported effort to promote Hakka and Aboriginal languages in Taiwan. Perhaps, as recently reported in Taipei Times (if it was not concorted by the interested parties in the press), they have found the President and Prime Minister of Taiwan to be of Hakka origin while the Vice-President herself is half Hakka. Suddenly, being Hakka seems to be fashionable in Taiwan. Is it the work of the Taiwanese press which seems to be biased against the Hokkiens is for you to ponder. If Hokkien position is elevated in Taiwan, then the Taiwanese Hokkien factor will definitely help to popularize the usage of Hokkien amongst the overseas Chinese especially in South-east Asia where Hokkiens predominate. Right now, it seems only Mandarin and Cantonese are given recognition even in countries where Hokkiens predominate amongst the Chinese community.

[Sim Lee]

Yes, I also saw the article where everyone had a hakka ancestor. I found it quite curious really.

There are various different ideas about how to write Taiwanese Hokkien. peh-oe-ji is one known romanisation, but some people want to use characters, by investigating the "correct" characters and promoting a standard. Some others want to introduce a variant of pinyin.

I can read peh-oe-ji, and I can't read characters anyway, but I have no strong feelings either way. As long as Hokkien gets promoted, I don't mind how.

-Sim.

[Ong]

Hi Niuc,


Thanks for your info on Taiwanese Hokkien TV programmes. Though the programmes may be available in Taiwan and over cable TV networks, they have not made any impact in Malaysia and Singapore. In fact, Taiwanese Hokkien TV series previously available in video centres in Malaysia have lost their appeal and are now hardly in demand. Even the Hokkiens themselves prefer the Cantonese TV programmes from Hong Kong. Maybe the quality of Taiwanese Hokkien TV programmes can't match those from Hong Kong or those in position of authority in the media industry conspire to prevent the market of mainly Cantonese TV programmes from being undermined by Hokkien programmes. I understand that many of those in the private broadcasting stations in Malaysia and Singapore are recruited from Hong Kong and I strongly believe it is in their self-interest to ensure the predominance of Cantonese programmes and dub even TV programmmes originally in Hokkien into Mandarin to curb the influence or appeal of Hokkien programmes.

[Niuc]

Hi Ong,

It's true that there were only a few Taiwanese Hokkien programs compared to overwhelming Hongkong Cantonese programs. Hongkong was lucky that Cantonese was not suppressed during British governance. In Taiwan, Hokkien was suppressed until recently. Now it's going better, there are more and more Hokkien programs produced and their quality are improving.

Regarding Hokkiens that prefer Hongkong Cantonese programs, it's ok if they have watched recent Taiwanese Hokkien programs. Yet if they keep thinking like that without knowing how Hokkien programs look like nowadays, I think they are either 'brainwashed' or 'ignorant'

There are some Hokkien tv serials being broadcasted in S'pore, of course have been dubbed into Mandarin. I heard that a serial called 'A Seng' (A Cheng) is a favorite among middle age group. It means the story should be quite ok, at least for its fans. It'll be nice if the serial is broadcasted in dual options: Hokkien & Mandarin. Unfortunately beside Mandarin, all Chinese 'dialects' are banned from tv. Japanese, Korean, French, virtually all languages are allowed but not Chinese 'dialects' .

BTW, at the site of Formosa TV <www.ftv.com.tv> you can pay to view many serials (including Hokkien, of course). Watching via internet should be quite common in Taiwan & Korea, but I have never tried it. Obviously high speed internet connection is needed.

Whether there're conspiracies against Hokkien programs or not, at the end the real cause for Hokkien decline in Malaysia & Singapore is Hokkien people themselves. I never heard that Hokkien Huay Kuan (Hokkiens Association) in Singapore offering Hokkien courses but Hainam Huay Kuan offering Hainam courses and Cantonese Association offering Cantonese courses. There were letters written by Hakka & Cantonese persons in newspaper in support of reviving dialect programs on tv, yet I haven't read any sent by Hokkiens (although Hokkiens is the largest Chinese group in S'pore). What a sad fact! Well, hopefully my impression is not accurate