Háp and Háh 合

[Ah-bin]

If anyone ever looks at this forum apart from me now......

What is the difference between

Háh and Háp both are different readings of the same character (合) but is there a difference in meaning?

In my dictionary I have:
sek ū háh bô? 色有合無? Do the colours match?

and

tán kàu háp ê tiám-siaⁿ 等夠合个點聲 "wait until a suitable time"

Both collected from native speakers (One was Sim, I think and the other a recording of Bhante Dhammavudho)

Is one "match" and the other "suitable" perhaps?

[SimL]

Hi Ah-bin,

I still check the Forum every few days . I should be posting more in a couple of weeks, but I've got a visitor from Australia at the moment, and he's staying for about 2 weeks, so I'm rather tied up.

I definitely don't know the answer to your "ends" question in another thread/topic, but will ask my parents.

As for hah/hap, my own usage is "hah" for colours and "hap" for "compatibility". But I realise that colours are also just simply "compatibility". So perhaps my usage is that "hah" is just a specialized pronunciation of 合, in the context of colours.

But I'm very unsure of this. I will check this with my parents this weekend too.

BTW, for: 等夠合个點聲, I would definitely not use 夠 and perhaps use 到
(or whatever character one would use for this morpheme). I think it's "wait until (=reach)" not "wait enough".

Delighted to hear that you're still working on the Penang Hokkien Dictionary.

[AndrewAndrew]

Hah is a lot more common but it means to match or to go with something else. I think hap may just be a more literary pronunciation - I haven't really come across it. For to be suitable, I would say ho-si.

I check the forum occasionally, so please keep the questions coming. If there are no replies it usually means we can't answer the question.

[Ah-bin]

Thanks for your replies. I noticed that the Hokkien forum had even fallen of the google number one ranking due to the lull in activity! I am glad people are still looking.

I have had a bit if a rest from Hokkien for a while, but now I have a whole lot of questions. There are about 300 words I took from a Chinese English dictionary that i still have no Hokkien terms for. Well, I do have some terms from de Gijzel and Cheah, but I think I need extra confirmation abut some of these.

Hap I actually hear Bhante Dhammavudho use all the time. if there is no real difference in meaning I can stick it in as a variant pronunciation. As for the character for kau, I may go through and change to 到 eventually.

I still pick up quite a few things from Bhante Dhammavudho and the weekly PGHK podcast. Bhante Dhammavudho is the best for sentence structures, I feel. His grammar is occasionally influenced by English but he still uses native-like structures when connecting sequences of events, rather than some PGHK speakers who connect sentences with "after that" and "before"

Tan choon hoe had a nice construction (I'm on a MAc at home now so diacritics are harder to enter) for "before"

a-boe + V + i-cheng 猶未＋V＋以前

This sounded a bit strange at first, but I found in my old Cantonese textbook from the 40's that the same construction is also found in Cantonese.

[amhoanna]

Ha̍p and ha̍h are two different etyma in TWese, much like RIGHT vs -RECT- in English. I would expect the same to be true in most Banlamese dialects, but Penang's "Indian Ocean Hokkien" is a breed unto itself.

[SimL]

My parents gave rather unhelpful answers to these questions, which I guess reveals that usage is not clearcut.

"end"

My mother felt that "bue" could be used for either end of a rope. My father felt that a loose rope lying around didn't have a "bue", but acquired one if it were tied at one end to something, and loose on the other (the latter then obviously became the "bue").

"hah8" vs. "hap8"

My mother couldn't decide on her usage. My father said that "hah" is for colours, particularly clothes, while "hap" is more for "getting along with one another", as in personal relationships (e.g. husband and wife compatibility). After some thinking he ventured that it's also appropriate for food (e.g. whether two different dishes go together in a meal, or whether two different ingredients go together in the same dish). This is usage which is not familiar to me. He then added that for food, the word "ngam1" (which he believes to be borrowed from Cantonese) is also appropriate. This last one is definitely at odds with my own usage. I'm aware (and actively use) "ngam1", but I used it only for clothes. I see very little difference between "ngam1" and "hah8" in the clothes usage.

[Ah-bin]

Thanks, Sim, actually I find both answers very helpful indeed. Now that you mention it, háp for getting along with people is a usage I have heard from Bhante Dhammavudho. I had completely forgotten about ngam, although I had it in the dictionary. This would be used in a sentence like chit-tiâu saN bô-ngam "this shirt doesn't fit" I suppose.

I think it may be the case that Hokkien doesn't really have a name for "end" for both ends of something, and would say "chit-pêng" and "lēng-gōa chít-pêng" for this and that side or end of something that isn't necessarily long and thin, (Wá gīm-tiâu chit-pêng, lú gīm-tiâu lēng-gōa chít-pêng = I'll hold on to this end and you hold on to the other end)

For the ends of ropes or strings it would be bóe, and that a lot of other things are like stories in English, having a beginning that one holds on to or is connected to something, and an end which is not connected to anything, or is the opposite end to what one is holding.

[AndrewAndrew]

For the ends of ropes or strings it would be bóe, and that a lot of other things are like stories in English, having a beginning that one holds on to or is connected to something, and an end which is not connected to anything, or is the opposite end to what one is holding.

Incidentally, in English when one end of a rope is connected to something it is the "standing end", and the end that is not connected to anything is the "bitter end".

I suspect in Hokkien, a rope must "u thau, u boe"

A.

[Ah-bin]

Incidentally, in English when one end of a rope is connected to something it is the "standing end", and the end that is not connected to anything is the "bitter end".

Ha! I had no idea about that, and I'm supposed to be a native speaker. I thought the bitter end was just when someone was fed up with something!
I have tracked down "ooui knua" now, thanks to Amhanna. It's

Ùi-koâⁿ 畏寒 – to feel chilly

does anyone know if it is also used for "to shiver" in Penang, like Douglas says it is in Amoy? I can;t imagine much shivering going on in Penang myself.

[SimL]

does anyone know if it is also used for "to shiver" in Penang, like Douglas says it is in Amoy? I can;t imagine much shivering going on in Penang myself.

Well, one does shiver after being caught for a long time in a tropical downpour...

As you probably realised, I was totally unaware of Ùi-koâⁿ 畏寒. I say "cun3/7" for "shiver", but it also means "tremble" (as when one's hands tremble or shake, e.g. when very old, or when having coffee withdrawal symptoms).