Minnan Standards

[Lu B]

I have recently finish a project that embedded hanyu pinyin in a GB font, and currently working on a BIG5 font, the next project I will be working on is the jyitping (Hong Kong Cantonese Standard) embedded in GB and BIG5 font.

The reason I'm posting here is because I would like to have your comment and suggestion on Minnan Standard Pinyin. As I have been researching and come into attention that the MIN dialect varies a lot, this is because of our long history and due to the fact we resist the northern invader 1,000's years ago (I'm not sure if this is correct?). If someone can forward me to a website that have a complete romanisation on Xiamen dialect would helpful. I'm not particularly interested in other variant of Min ie. Fuchow, Chiuchow, Daiwan, etc. because I believe the Xiamen dialect is more universal?

Hopefully if all thing goes according to plant, the next project would be Wu or should I say Shanghaihua?

Another reason I'm interested in this is because while all lot of Oversee Chinese can speak the dialect, but can't write it properly some can't even write it.(over generalisation?) e.i. the putonghua word for eat spell entirely diffirent in Cantonese and Min? (I'm I correct?)

Again Thanks for reading,

Lu B

[%sig%]

[lim eng di]

If you consider Xiamen dialect as the sole standard for all of MIN, I believe you would be making a big mistake. Firstly, there are more than 4 types of Min, and nowadays they are usually categorized on the same par as the other major dialect groups (ie: Yue, Wu, Jin, etc.). Secondly, it's really hard to say if there are any "standards" for Minnan. The closest thing to a universally understood Minnan dialect would have to be Taiwanese Hokkien as spoken on Taiwanese Minnan media. However, even this may be misleading as I've heard a good variety of accents coming from these media sources. Personally, I would feel it unfair, as a Teochiu speaker to have Xiamen as the sole standard. Hmmmm or atleast give me some arguments... =)

[Andrew Yong]

Sadly there is no standard romanisation for Minnan, so even if you could choose one dialect as a standard, there is no standard way to transliterate it. The most commonly used romanisations are based on the missionary system though, but vary a lot.

[pektiong]

The following link provides the most popular romanisation of the minnan spoken in Taiwan which should be close to Xiamen. You might need to install some fonts.

http://203.64.42.21/iug/ungian/SoannTen ... Taihoa.asp
http://lomaji.com/poj/tools/su-tian/

I would also like to suggest you to embed into a unicode font instead of GB or Big5.

[Lu B]

to > lim eng di

I'm not saying minnan hua is the standard for min, I understand how you feel, but I as we all know minnan is more widely spoken in eastern fujian, taiwan, sing, and some part of south-east asia making it more wider in reach, I understand that Teochiu hua is also widely spoken in thailand, indonesia, and hong kong (even thought the majority don't know teochiu hua is mindong? pity aren't we blood cousin?)

to > Andrew Yong

Thanks for your comment.

to > pektiong

Thanks for the link, I been to the sites already, but it would take me ages to map out all the character. I'm looking for something similar to this http://www.arts.cuhk.edu.hk/Lexis/Canton/

I understand unicode is more universal similar to founder super font, but due to some restriction (software capabilites) it's difficult to embed in unicode because of the enormous data, thanks anyway for the suggestion.

[%sig%]

[lim eng di]

Lu B wrote:

"...I understand that Teochiu hua is also widely spoken in thailand, indonesia, and hong kong (even thought the majority don't know teochiu hua is mindong? pity aren't we blood cousin?)"

Huh? Teochiu Ue is certainly NOT Mindong. It is Minnan. Mindong is Fuzhounese.

[A-Hiong]

I thought Fuzhounese is Minbei???? And Mindong was something else....

[hong]

see www.fjsq.gov.cn/showtext.asp?ToBook=27&index=5%