為 (ūi) as a preposition

[Ah-bin]

I have come across this word used in a few of Johnny Chee's poems, and I've been wondering exactly how it is used. Taiwanese has ūi-tióh 為著, and Mandarin weile 為了, both meaning "for the sake of" or "on account of". How about Penang Hokkien? Do people use ūi in everyday speech or is it just for poetic effect? How would one say, for example "She did it all for us" with an emphasis on the US rather than the ALL?

[SimL]

I'm not aware of this usage.

I would say "ce1 i1 si3 co3 hO7 lang2 ka3-liau2", literally "this she is do give us all".

I wouldn't be able to stress the "us" rather than the "all".

[Mark Yong]

Hi, Ah-bin,

Indeed, 爲著 ūi-tióh is very much alive and well in today’s Penang Hokkien, and used in exactly the same context as the Mandarin 爲了“for the sake of...”. So, "She did it all for us" would come out something like 伊做徦了 pun2 是爲著我儂爾 i tso ka-liau pun si ui-tioh wa-lang nia.

[SimL]

I checked with my parents about this. My non-Baba/non-Penang Hokkien mother knows this construction, for "on behalf of", "for the sake of", but my Baba/Penang Hokkien father says it is only very vaguely familiar to him. So, it seems to have dropped out of our family usage quite a while back, and my unawareness of it isn't purely due to the personal limitations of my Hokkien, but was apparently already present in my father's generation.

This shows what a reduced version of Hokkien the Babas were speaking, caused no doubt by the fact that they adopted so many Malay and English words into their speech.