Some more vocabulary questions

[Ah-bin]

Now Ive started work on the Penang Hokkien to English Dictionary again! So i'm back to beg your indulgence with many more vocabulary questions.

I'm completely finished with Tan Choon Hoe's first book. There were a few odd questions that even native speakers couldn't answer, so i have left them and moved on to the next book Penang Hokkien for Penangites and Tourists. This book has many rhymes, songs and proverbs in it, but also a lot of specialised conversations for caregivers and nurses. There are quite a few words I have been looking for but have

hàng-hàng for swollen or burning. What is the difference between this and hông which is also supposed to mean swollen?

Tan Choon Hoe has koâⁿ for meaning "to feel chilly". I had assumed that PGHK only used lêng. Is this word very commonly used.

Another one is seik chew which he annotates as "strong liquor" since he usually spells e•h as eik (or egg) this would probably be se•h-chiú. I wonder if it is supposed to be 熟酒？

Then there is an odd one I heard John Ong say: thâu-kha-chhù for "house on the ground floor" Not sure of the tone for the very first syllable but I guessed it was 頭. Is this common? My intuition suggested it was a corruption of lâu-kha-chhù "a house downstairs".

I've discovered I can type many of the tone marks in POJ directly into my browser on a mac, even though I unfortunately have no more Tailo to character input. •, û, ù, and ú are easy to type. If I could get superscript n automatically, things would be almost perfect.

[AndrewAndrew]

Tan Choon Hoe has koâⁿ for meaning "to feel chilly". I had assumed that PGHK only used lêng. Is this word very commonly used.

It's very common.

[SimL]

hàng-hàng for swollen or burning. What is the difference between this and hông which is also supposed to mean swollen?

In my usage "hang3/7" means a "glowing feeling". This can be "externally" caused or "internally" caused. So, if you stand next to a burning fire, then your face gets that glowing feeling (external). And if you get an inflammation on (say) your arm, then it can sort of throb and "glow" at the same time (internal), and this would also be "hang3/7". I'm not aware of the "hong5" that you give for "swollen". I only ever use "cheng2", which I have always assumed is 腫.

Tan Choon Hoe has koâⁿ for meaning "to feel chilly". I had assumed that PGHK only used lêng. Is this word very commonly used.

I can confirm Andrew's reply that this is very common in Penang Hokkien. In fact, in my usage, there is a very strict distinction between "kuaN5" and "leng2" (note: you have "leng5", but it should be "leng2"). The former ("kuaN5") means "to FEEL cold" (as in, what a person feels when the weather is cold); the latter ("leng2") is what feels cold to the touch, or when the air is cold (also a form of "touch").

So:
1. "ci(t)-le lang kuaN": the normal formulation – this person is feeling cold.
2. "ci(t)-le lang leng": unusual – might a corpse or a sleeping person, which you're feeling with your hand, and the body's gone cold!
3. "ci(t)-ki pit kuaN": unusual – perhaps personifying a pen as a sentient being, and feeling cold and shivering!
4. "ci(t)-ki pit leng": the normal formulation – the pen feels cold when you hold or touch it (perhaps someone has put it in the fridge for a while).

(3 and 4 are meant to be slightly comical examples, to illustrate the point. In reality, "leng2" would be used for iced drinks, or a cup of coffee which is meant to be hot but has gone cold.)

Another one is seik chew which he annotates as "strong liquor"

I'm unfamiliar with this term.

Then there is an odd one I heard John Ong say: thâu-kha-chhù for "house on the ground floor"

I'm not familiar with any term for a house on the ground floor. At a guess, I'd say that it's more likely to be a 'corruption' of "thO-kha-chu", where ""thO-kha" is the everyday word for "floor" (i.e. soil-foot).

PS. Every time I post a reply, the format of the webpage changes to a very non-graphical one. Does anyone else have this problem?

PPS. "hang3/7" is also the sensation you get when you put "Vicks VapoRub" or "Tigerbalm" on your skin, for the obvious reasons.

[Ah-bin]

Thanks also for all of these examples and usages, Sim.

The actual sentence in Tan Choon Hoe was "Loo ooui knua bo?" Which I suppose is his way of writing "Lu ui koaⁿ bo?"

I had just assumed that the ui was "oe" 會, until I remembered that Penang Hokkien says "e". Also I'm not sure whether PGHK uses 會 like that to start with. In Taiwanese they use it for some uncomfortable feeling, like being too cold or food being too spicy. Taiwanese Mandarin has picked this usage up too, and makes sentences like "你會冷嗎? and 會辣嗎? (Do you feel cold? Is it spicy?). Does PGHK have anything like that? I don't recall ever hearing that usage.

[amhoanna]

uìkoâⁿ

[SimL]

I remember finding the "hui4" usage (for 'future tense') in Mandarin really odd when I first came across it, but then slowly realised that it can be used in Hokkien, even in Penang Hokkien. I think one needs to have a definite reference to the future along with it though: "lu2 kim1-mE5 e7 kuaN5 be7?" = "(do you think) you'll be cold tonight?") or "m7-cai1 ma2-cai5 e7 loh8-hO7 bo5?" = "(I) don't know / wonder if it'll rain tomorrow?".

I can't really make anything of "Loo ooui knua bo?". If it had been "Loo e ooui knua bo?", then I would have said this means "Is it cold in your place/home" or "Does it get cold at your home/place?". AFAIK, it's not common to leave out the "e" possessive particle, the way they sometimes do in Mandarin.

BTW, your Tan-example and my own suggest that my originally formulated distinction between "kuaN5" and "leng2" isn't quite accurate and needs to be refined slightly. "kuaN5" doesn't just mean someone feeling cold, but also a situation or place where someone feels / would feel cold. So, to say that England is a cold place, one would say "eng-kok cin-nia kuaN5", not *""eng-kok cin-nia leng2". This is because England is not a thing/object which one touches and which then feels cold to the touch (which is what the second sentence would imply).

[AndrewAndrew]

In Taiwan the e/be is for negative qualifiers, and u/bo is for positive qualifiers, and I suspect it is the same in Penang: e.g. "e phaiN khoaN be", "(u) ho tsiah bo".

[Ah-bin]

I always thought that Penang style Hokkien made little use of be as a final question marker, and preferred bo or o for most things (with the exclusion of me• questions) i.e.

Mà-chài ê thiⁿ-sî ē hó bô? (Will the weather be good tomorrow?)

rather than:

Mà-chài ê thiⁿ-sî ē hó bē?

Isn't that right?

[SimL]

I always thought that Penang style Hokkien made little use of be as a final question marker, and preferred bo or o for most things (with the exclusion of me• questions) i.e.

Mà-chài ê thiⁿ-sî ē hó bô? (Will the weather be good tomorrow?)

rather than:

Mà-chài ê thiⁿ-sî ē hó bē?

Isn't that right?

Your gut feeling corresponds very well to my usage. I use "bē" only when the "ē" means "able to / can". So:

i mà-chài ê khì khuàN-hì bē? (Can he go to the movies tomorrow?, e.g. does he have the time)

"bô" would be used then for the situation you give above, i.e. with "ē" as "will" / future tense marker.

"bē" could be used for this situation as well, but "bô" sounds more natural. Mà-chài ê thiⁿ-sî ē hó bē? feels like it could be interpreted as "do you think the weather could be good tomorrow". Perhaps the closest Hokkien gets to a 'subjunctive'!

[Ah-bin]

Here are a few I've heard or read recently, and I was wondering if they are commonly used

hong-lâu 風樓 for a balcony

These ones are from deGijzel

hiān-lui 現鐳 for “cash”
lui-toaⁿ 鐳單 for a cheque
chhìn-chhái-sî 凊棌時 for any old time

Thanks very much in advance