Penang Hokkien Vocabulary Questions

[SimL]

Mosquito repellent – I normally hear 蠓香 bàng-hìoⁿ. Could be Cantonese influence, I don’t know.

I say bang2-hiauⁿ1 (IIRC, Ah-bin has noted that Penang Hokkien is known to have some variation between "-io" and "-iau").

When I was young, we had a great type where there were *two* coils per "disk". That is to say, there were two "interlocking spirals" cut into the one flat disk, sort of like a complicated version of the yin-yang symbol. One had to carefully "push" the two apart - carefully, in order not to break either one. It's one of the tasks I loved doing as a child! And they were always a dark green. Perhaps they are still quite common nowadays?

[After writing the preceding, I found: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mosquito_coil. This is what we had when I was a child (except for the colour, I only ever saw green ones). Even the small metal "stand" which came with each box of 5 or 6 disks looks exactly the same: it comes flat, and you push out the middle bit, to make the vertical part of the stand, while the surrounding bits give it stability for standing on the floor or other flat surface. Also, "mosquito coil" was the standard term for it, in Malaysian English.]

Why do you suspect a Cantonese influence?

Bank note – This is a tricky one! In the very few instances I have encountered where the distinction between notes and coins had to be made, I believe I heard simply 紙鐳 cûa-lūi. On that note (no pun intended), does anyone know the 本字 for tā-lī-kiâⁿ ‘coins’?

My usage is "cua2-lui1" for notes, and "suaN2-lui1" for coins (copper or silver).

In my experience, Penangites seem to have an aversion for using the word 杯 pōe for ‘cup’, preferring to use 甌 aū

My experience as well.

Spoons - As far as terminology is concerned, I only know one: 調羹 thăo-kiōng . That said, a couple of my Teochew-descent Penang friends sometimes say 湯匙 thng-sí and get away with it.

In my usage, thao1-kiong1 for the metal "Western" spoons, and thng1-si5 for the "porcelain, Chinese" spoons (the ones one gets with noodle soup from a hawker stall, along with the chopsticks). Oh, and I always mispronounced thao1-kiong1 as khao1-kiong1, perhaps under the mistaken belief that it was related to "scraping" the food off the plate (i.e. "khao1" = "scrape").

[Mark Yong]

SimL wrote:
Penang Hokkien is known to have some variation between "-io" and "-iau").

My adopting the -ioⁿ ending for words like 想, 香, 量 and 讓 started off life by emulating the speech of my ex-manager in Penang. Much later, through the influence of dictionaries (the main one being the 《閩南語漳腔辭典》, I discovered that the ‘correct’ 漳州 Ciang-Ciu pronunciation of such words is with the -ioⁿ ending. The habit has stuck thereafter.

SimL wrote:
Why do you suspect a Cantonese influence?

Oh, it was just in response to Ah-bin pointing out the Taiwanese use of 蠓薰 báng-hun, making me wonder whether the Penang version was Malayan-ised. I mean, even the pronunciation for 雲吞麵 wan-than miⁿ is, strictly-speaking, partially-Cantonese. But to be fair, even the Cantonese speakers adopt the Hokkien pronunciation for 粿條, bastardising it into gwai-diu! Restaurant menus all over Sydney have it written as 貴刁.

[SimL]

[...] BTW, are you all aware of the claim that Hokkien "really IS special, compared to the other forms of Sinitic", in that it split off from the main body much earlier than any other form (and this is supposed to be the reason that it's the only form without "f-": because the "f-" sound only evolved in the main body after the Hokkien split-off). I recall reading this on English Wikipedia, and I've just tried to find the article again, but it proved too difficult on a Blackberry. I'll have another look when I have a decent screen and keyboard again. [...]

Found it! http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Historical ... _phonology

The relevant quote is:

"Most modern varieties can be viewed as descendants of Late Middle Chinese (LMC) of c. 1000 AD. For example, all modern varieties other than Min Chinese have labiodental fricatives (e.g. /f/), a change that occurred after Early Middle Chinese (EMC) of c. 600 AD. In fact, some post-LMC changes are reflected in all modern varieties, such as the loss of the chongniu distinction (between e.g. /pian/ and /pjian/, using Edwin Pulleyblank's transcription). Other changes occurring in most modern varieties, such as the loss of initial voiced obstruents and corresponding tone split, are areal changes that spread across existing dialects; possibly the loss of chongniu distinctions can be viewed in the same way.

Min Chinese, on the other hand, is known to have branched off even before Early Middle Chinese (EMC) of c. 600 AD. Not only does it not reflect the development of labiodental fricatives or other LMC-specific changes, but a number of features already present in EMC appear never developed. An example is the series of retroflex stops in EMC, which developed from earlier alveolar stops followed by /r/, and which later merged with retroflex sibilants. In Min, the corresponding words still have alveolar stops. This difference can be seen in the words for "tea" borrowed into various other languages: For example, Spanish te, English tea vs. Portuguese cha, English chai, reflecting the Amoy (Southern Min) /the/ vs. Standard Mandarin /tʂha/."

Not to be too chauvinistic or anything, but hurrah for Hokkien being special !

[amhoanna]

That is to say, there were two "interlocking spirals" cut into the one flat disk, sort of like a complicated version of the yin-yang symbol. One had to carefully "push" the two apart - carefully, in order not to break either one.

Is there any other kind?? Besides the electric kind?

Train station – I normally hear people say 火車站 hôe-chīa cĭam or 火車頭 hôe-chīa tháu, probably to disambiguate it from other types of 車頭 chīa tháu.

For the record, (hoé)chiacạm seems to be the regular word for TRAIN STATION in (authentic, not Mandarized) TWnese Hoklo as well. (Hoé)chiathảu seems to be a special term for big stations where a lot of trains start. The only station I know to be a "chiathảu" is the main station in Taipak...

Bank account – Discounting the 紅毛屎 àng-mÒ-sâi’s who tend to conveniently fall back on the English word ‘account’ , I normally hear 戶口 hŎ-khâu.

I am strictly Hoklophone during most of my bank visits in Taiwan (and Amoy -- I told U guys that story, right? ). Interesting but true, most of the ladies that work in TWnese banks do not understand the word kháucọ 口座. About 1/3 of them understand it with hesitation, and reply to double check that I do mean họ·thảu 戶頭. Ah yes, a Mandarism. These "OL" bancarias range in age from 22 to 45. I would say the ones that understand it at all are usually at least in their 30s.

The VNmese word is tàikhoản 財款. In this case, maybe Hoklo would do better to adopt the Vietnamism: cảikhoán. VN > Mod Std Chinese > JP > English.

BTW, are you all aware of the claim that Hokkien "really IS special, compared to the other forms of Sinitic", in that it split off from the main body much earlier than any other form

Maybe "Sinitic" here should be qualified with word "urban", or "major"... Great secrets lie in wait in the hills of the south, amigos. And then there's Vietnamese. Just today I've been re-reading John Phan's paper on the origins of the Sino layer in VNmese, and "the split" is one of the foci of the analysis. Sino-VNmese, or most of it anyway, also "split off" kind of early...

VNmese and Hoklo also share a lot of semantics, syntax and vocab. (esp. semantics!), often things that even Canton Cantonese doesn't share. The evidence seems to point to these being shared retentions. I come across these on a daily basis and haven't found a good way to record them all as I go along. I mean, guess what songsinh 双生 means? TWINS. No big deal, U say? Well, how about ôngbà for Hoklo kóngmá? Coincidence? Possibly... Language contact is a minefield for the unwary.

Not to be too chauvinistic or anything, but hurrah for Hokkien being special !

[amhoanna]

Well, how about ôngbà for Hoklo kóngmá?

I mean kongmá... And the punji for ôngbà should be 翁婆, but, in traditional written VNmese (using kanji), punji usually weren't used for "pẹ'oẹ" (白話)*, colloquial* words like ôngbà.

* In the "Hoklological" sense of the word.

[SimL]

Maybe "Sinitic" here should be qualified with word "urban", or "major"... Great secrets lie in wait in the hills of the south, amigos. And then there's Vietnamese. Just today I've been re-reading John Phan's paper on the origins of the Sino layer in VNmese, and "the split" is one of the foci of the analysis. Sino-VNmese, or most of it anyway, also "split off" kind of early...

Good point. You and Ah-bin are the resident experts in that area, and any stuff you write about this will be read with great interest and enthusiasm. Just forgive me if I forget and slip into the "mainstream model" of thinking every now and again (as I did in my praise of the Wikipedia article on the branching of the sinitic varieties some time back) - I'm very happy to have my vision re-adjusted each time".

VNmese and Hoklo also share a lot of semantics, syntax and vocab. (esp. semantics!), often things that even Canton Cantonese doesn't share.

What? And with both Cantonese and Vietnamese being "yue4" !?!? !?!? !?!? !?!?

[Ah-bin]

Thank you all for the comments. I think I really need to go to Penang and do a los of asking before I can find out all the answers, though. Here are some things I thought of today...only a bit though.

Just today I've been re-reading John Phan's paper on the origins of the Sino layer in VNmese, and "the split" is one of the foci of the analysis. Sino-VNmese, or most of it anyway, also "split off" kind of early...

Ah, but he doesn't go into detail about the even earlier Sino-Vietnamese, sometimes known as Early Sino-Vietnamese. There is a long list of words or morphemes that have doublets like Hokkien, one descending from an EMC form (Six Dynasties) and one from a LMC (T'ang) form.

Those that are easiest to see are ESV b- corresponding with SV ph- and Hokkien colloquial (EMC) p- with literary (LMC) h-

buồng phòng Pâng = hông 房
bây = phi Pe = hui 飛
bụt = phật Pút = Hút 佛

In Vietnamese in every case the first term was considered vernacular and usually written with a Nôm character.

I notice that some kinds of Hakka also did not develop an f- initial until they had contact with other kinds of Chinese that had it. Jaoping Hakka and Hoiliuk Hakka still say a few words the old way such as phon for 飯. There are more examples of this, but I'll have to go and look for them.

My adopting the -ioⁿ ending for words like 想, 香, 量 and 讓 started off life by emulating the speech of my ex-manager in Penang. Much later, through the influence of dictionaries (the main one being the 《閩南語漳腔辭典》, I discovered that the ‘correct’ 漳州 Ciang-Ciu pronunciation of such words is with the -ioⁿ ending. The habit has stuck thereafter.

The reason why I use -iauⁿ is just because it is unique to Penang, and therefore I feel needs a bit of promotion as a special feature of the dialect not found elsewhere.

[niuc]

Many interesting stuffs to read! As I am on hurry now, I'd just say that mosquito coil in my variant is bánghunhiuⁿ, a combination of TWH & PH!

[Mark Yong]

Ah-bin wrote:
The reason why I use -iauⁿ is just because it is unique to Penang, and therefore I feel needs a bit of promotion as a special feature of the dialect not found elsewhere.

I should be more accurate in my phonology! My saying that I adopted -ioⁿ (i.e. close-mid back rounded) is not quite correct, what I meant was that I use -iƆⁿ (i.e. open-mid back rounded). That more accurately reflects my usage, and sort of comes closer to -iauⁿ.

I guess the reason I gravitated towards -iƆⁿ was because it is actually quite difficult to consistently nasalise a triphtong like –iau (well... at least for me, anyway! )

[SimL]

I guess the reason I gravitated towards -iƆⁿ was because it is actually quite difficult to consistently nasalise a triphtong like –iau (well... at least for me, anyway! )

Amusingly, a (strongly even) nasalized –iau plays a role in quite an important story from my childhood, related to my growing linguistic awareness.

As some regular readers of the Forum may recall, my maternal grandparents are non-Penang Hokkien ("Amoyish") speakers. One day, my maternal grandmother was talking about ginger, and called it (of course) "kiuN1". I was about 9-10 I guess, and (in a nice way!) could sometimes be a cheeky brat, so I decided to tease her. "KiuN, kiuN, kiuN? Ha-mi si kiuN???", I said, in a teasing tone, emphasing the nasality. She was quite amused, and replied just with "KiauN, kiauN, kiauN? Si-mi si kiauN???" She got her own back by not only emphasising the nasality, but also emphasising the -a- (i.e. really s-t-r-e-t-c-h-i-n-g out the triphthong).

I suddenly realised: "Oh, there's nothing intrinsically 'nice sounding' or 'weird sounding' in any sounds. I think 'kiuN' sounds funny, but she equally thinks 'kiauN' sounds funny, and there's no reason to think that she or I have a more correct view of things!" [In fact, thinking back, I believe I even "realised" that - if anything - 'kiauN' sounded a lot more peculiar than 'kiuN' (particularly if one emphasises the -a-)!] I look back at this as one of my earliest "linguistic insights" .