More words...about 300 I can't track down.

[SimL]

Page 218 of Douglas: "kiet-á, a lime" written 橘, which also fits both phonetically (in terms of the sound shift of Hokkien-k-plus-i to Mandarin fricative), as well as from the point of view of tone (tone4 sandhi to tone8). .

The "-la" of Penang Hokkien might well be just an intrusive l.

[SimL]

"tok4" is used for knocking (or pecking?), without a sharp edge. The most common phrase it appears in is "tok4-o5" (啄? 蚵?/蠔?).

I was wrong about the character and the most common usage.

Douglas p526 [扌+豖] gives: "tok [R. to strike; to beat], to beat so as to bruise; to pound with a stone; to hurt by knocking against something. tok-phoà, to strike so as to break, as a shell or thin piece of earthenware; to wound, as one's head, by striking it against something. [...]"

My definition of "without a sharp edge" more or less matches what Douglas gives and is also appropriate for the example I give - breaking oyster shells.

I forgot to give the meaning when I first gave the example (perhaps it was clear from context): "tok4-o5" was the activity of gathering oysters at the beach, by knocking open the shells, usually with a stone in the hand.

This could be something that amateurs did, when having a day at the beach, just to gather some oysters to take home to eat, or it could be done by professional women. We would sometimes see them, with their large, flattish, conical reed (or split-bamboo?) hats and long-sleeved shirts (as protection from the sun), as they worked in a group of about 2-3, on a cluster of rocks. Each person would have a little plastic or enamel cup with them, and they would carefully break the shell of the oyster by knocking at it, then extract the body, put it in the cup, then move on to the next oyster.

Also, a definition further down in Douglas ("tok koe-ng, to strike an egg on something so as to break the shell") reminded me of a far more common use of "tok4" in everyday Penang Hokkien: "breaking eggs".

"ce1-thng1 lu2 na3 tok4 ci-liap8-niu7 loh8--khi3 kho2/3-kha1 ho2-ciah8 lo2."

"If you break an egg into this soup, it will taste even better."

Notes:

1. "ce1-" is the merged form of the two syllables "cit4-(l)e5" = "this", and is the most common way of saying "this" in my form of Penang Hokkien. "cit4-(l)e5" would sound unnecessarily stilted.

2. Douglas confirms 蠔 for "o5" oyster, famous, of course, in Hokkien cuisine, in 蠔煎. Those hawkers cooking the stuff were probably supplied by those women we saw.

3. When I was in my early teens, my mother wanted me to practice piano for half an hour every day, in connection with my weekly hour-long piano lessons. I was very slack about doing this, and at a certain moment she decided that the only way she could get me to do this was to summon me to the piano and then sit next to me for the next half hour, every day. She did this, but grumbled a lot to her relatives and friends that I wouldn't do my half hour's practice unless she made me do it in this way. She used the phrase "wa tioh be tok i, a-bo i m ka-ki co" (= "I have to 'tok' him, otherwise he won't do it himself"). Up until yesterday, I have always thought that this "tok4" was the same morpheme as in [扌+豖]蠔. My image was of my mother knocking away at me, to make me practice ! Only now, after learning Mandarin, and having access to a character-enriched Douglas (and looking a few entries down from [扌+豖]), do I see that her "tok4" in this context was simply 督 "to oversee", "to supervise" .

[AndrewAndrew]

lime - I know the word for"kaffir lime" (Thái-ko-kam 癩哥柑) but not for a normal lime, or for a lemon. I was given Suiⁿ-kam 酸柑 – n. a lime

I use 酸柑 for a proper Western lemon (yellow, larger, not round), not for a lime (green, smaller, round). I think the word for "lime" is "kiEt4-la2". I'll have to check with my parents. This might be "結<something>", as its sandhied tone is correct (not that that means that much).

To me, suinn-kam is a normal lime, limau nipis in Malay. Kiet-la is a calamansi, limau kasturi in Malay.

Lemons are foreign to this country.

[Ah-bin]

Great! I'm happy some of us are still around! Many thanks for you answers. There is a lot of fascinating material here.

Actually, it seems to happen on a fairly regular basis that something I ask about here pops up on the Penang Hokkien podcast a few days later. Kiat-la and suiⁿ-kam were mentioned. I'll have to ask John Ong what he uses them to refer to as well.

Also, a definition further down in Douglas ("tok koe-ng, to strike an egg on something so as to break the shell") reminded me of a far more common use of "tok4" in everyday Penang Hokkien: "breaking eggs".

Wow... I didn't even have this verb in my dictionary yet! I first heard it, I think in a word "chhong-tok" used by Bhante Dhammavudho Thero for "to clash with". Then I only just found out about "tok-tok-mi" - which I guess is the same one. This was in the same podcast as kiEt-la and suiⁿ-kam. John Ong explained the meaning of the name like that it came from the sound of knocking bamboo sticks made by the vendors in former times to draw attention to their food. It must be the same verb, and looks very much as if it is originally an onamatapoeaic word.

There is an entry for Penang cuisine on Wikipedia.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Penang_cuisine

I really want to put a few more of these things into the dictionary. I think it needs this sort of thing, as well as the names of some Penang landmarks and street names in Georgetown.

"ce1-thng1 lu2 na3 tok4 ci-liap8-niu7 loh8--khi3 kho2/3-kha1 ho2-ciah8 lo2."

"If you break an egg into this soup, it will taste even better."

Now this is a great example sentence! There are a few things here that I would have said differently, because I have heard different ways of saying them. "che" for "chi-le" is one of them "na" for "na-si" another and "kho-kha" for "koh-kha". I have tried to cross-reference all of these variations so that people can find them straight away. This is to kind of chip away at the "bo-lang an-ne-khoan kong" way of thinking I have occasionally encountered in interactions with Hokkien speakers.

I think some people do use chi-le all the time, except in very rapid speech. and I have both down as variations.

I have na, and na-si and even a-si down as variations on "if"

This last one is very interesting. The vowel in the first syllable is short when I have heard it, but the glottal stop ending seems to have been elided into the initial of the next syllable. The other interesting thing is that in other varieties of Hokkien the first syllable is koh, the same as in "koh-u" (still have) and "a-boe-koh" (not yet). The initial of the second syllable seems to have influenced the initial of the first. I don't remember the correct word for this process, but it occurs in the word for "difficult" as well, which is often "khan-kho•" rather than the "kan-kho•" that the characters 艱苦would suggest. An English example of this process is the common pronunciation of the loan orangutan as "orangutang" where the final n becomes ng in imitation of the ng in the syllable "rang"


By the way, before I forget to ask this, someone (Mark, I think) said earlier in this thread about a bunch of uncles sitting out on a bench... "bench" is one word that I always forget to ask about!

[AndrewAndrew]

Ah-bin, you should try to pop down to catch some of the general election campaign that runs until 5 May. A lot of election rallies have speeches in Penang Hokkien.

[Ah-bin]

I'm about to start a new job next week, so won't be able to manage it, unfortunately. I hope someone records a few. It would be interesting to hear Hokkien used in this context. Back in Taiwan in the 1990's and 2000's it was usual to campaign in Taiwanese where I was living (Taichung and Tainan), even the KMT did it.

I was just reminded of this video that Aokh brought to my attention a few days ago, it is full of Interesting stuff, a bit of English, a bit of Mandarin, a bit of nativised Malay. I wonder if the political campaigns use a similar style?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ThRTvAWPQCQ

I've been going through trying to collect some words from it as well.

He uses a word hEn-si at 5:33. Is that 現時....? If so that is the third native Hokkien word for "now" I have found so far, after tong-kim and than-a! Or is it more like "at the moment"?

[SimL]

Hi Ah-bin,

Great link! I listened to it over and over again.

It's very interesting to see this sort of person, who apparently speaks English and Mandarin quite well (as well as Hokkien). Very different from my generation, which either spoke English/Hokkien or Mandarin/Hokkien, hardly ever all three (well).

I infer that his English and Mandarin are both quite good from the fact that he borrows equally and naturally from both these languages. I think these are words for which he doesn't know the Hokkien equivalents (or can't think of them quickly enough), and he hence uses either the English or Mandarin equivalents. In contrast, the Malay words he uses are really just completely integrated into his form of Hokkien (as you also said in your original posting). In fact, for these Malay borrowings, using the "real" Hokkien equivalents (or English or Mandarin borrowings) in these spots would be completely awkward.

This is a piece of speech which is just screaming out for transcription by me . I might do that in the next few months, if I get the energy.

There are many "higher register" Hokkien words which I'm completely unfamiliar with. Examples are "gi-guan", "sio-huan", "i-kien", "am-pai" (or "an-pai"). I can guess the meaning of some, like "loh-pio" is probably "to tender". Anyway, they can all be cleared up if I get around to transcribing. I'm sure Mark would do much better than me at understanding this whole passage.

In the meanwhile, I've listed the Malay, English, and Mandarin words that he uses (and also some Hokkien ones of special interest).

First I list them grouped by each of the 4 languages, but - within each group - as they first occur chronologically. Here I include some comments and observations.

The Mandarin list is not complete, as there are some which I can't work out or even make a wild guess at. (And please excuse my ignorance if my guesses for the characters are wrong.) I think the Malay, and English lists are quite complete though.

Then, for convenience, I list these "interesting words" in pure chronological order, but then without comments. This latter order is much easier to check against the actual clip.

GROUPED BY LANGUAGE

Malay
[00:23] bansan: market
[00:24] balu: just recently [also 04:59]
[01:15] pole-tikut: glass-drip-smooth = Pulau Tikus [also 07:27]
[05:24] pun: definitely "pun2" here [also 06:23, 06:29, 07:06]
[05:32] pun?: he says "bun2", but it seems to be "pun" from context (which he uses elsewhere)

Interestingly, he uses the above Malay borrowings naturally, but he never says "tapi", always "tansi" [02:45], [07:01].

English
[00:18] support
[00:47] budget
[00:54] so [also at 00:58]; he seems to alternate with ("proper" Hokkien) "sO-i" [06:57]
[01:02] Penang
[02:12] Mr. Lee
[02:20] architect
[02:24] tender
[02:35] start
[02:40] open tender
[02:51] contractor
[04:21] toilet
[04:27] car park
[04:35] MPPP e office
[05:44] free
[05:49] free e voucher
[06:06] promotion

He doesn't say "modern", he says "sin1-khuan2" [00:37].

Mandarin
[00:21] zhu-yao? 主要: is this a borrowing from Mandarin? (Or is it a genuine Hokkien term cu-iau? I can't find it in Douglas or Barclay)
[00:46] yusuanan 預算案 (he also translates this as "budget", perhaps in case the interviewer's Mandarin isn't good enough)
[01:52] fanshang? ??
[01:55] daodi? 到底 [also 06:12]
[03:36] shijianbiao 時間表
[03:59] tiaoyue?? 條約??
[04:07] xiaoshi zhongxin 小食中心
[04:19] gongcheng? 工程?
[04:40] lingshi? 零食?
[06:21] guocheng 過程
[07:19] bugaolan 佈告欄
[07:22] yijianxiang 意見箱


Hokkien
[00:41] lang2: the famous Penang Hokkien "lang2" for "we/us"
[01:46] tiam-tiam: constantly - spoken about on this Forum before
[03:13] hEhN-kang [also 03:18, and hEhN alone at 03:51] we've spoken about this word "hEhN" on this Forum before
[03:22] wa: the famous Penang Hokkien "wa" [also 04:55, 05:24]
[05:10] cioh-bi: 石米? - apparently the word for "gravel"? It's not a word I know, I infer the meaning from context
[06:36] banciah (also at 06:38): I vaguely recall a "manciah" = "not yet", "only in a little while"

---

PURE CHRONOLOGICAL ORDER

[00:18] support
[00:21] zhuyao? 主要
[00:23] bansan
[00:24] balu
[00:41] lang2
[00:46] yusuanan 預算案
[00:47] budget
[00:54] so
[00:58] so
[01:02] Penang
[01:15] pole-tikut
[01:46] tiam-tiam
[01:52] fanshang?
[01:55] daodi? 到底
[02:12] Mr. Lee
[02:20] architect
[02:24] tender
[02:35] start
[02:40] open tender
[02:51] contractor
[03:13] hEhN-kang
[03:18] hEhN-kang
[03:22] wa
[03:36] shijianbiao 時間表
[03:51] hEhN
[03:59] tiao2 yue1?? 條約??
[04:07] xiaoshi zhongxin 小食中心
[04:19] gongcheng? 工程?
[04:21] toilet
[04:27] car park
[04:35] MPPP e office
[04:40] lingshi? 零食?
[04:55] wa
[04:59] balu
[05:10] cioh-bi 石米
[05:24] pun
[05:24] wa
[05:32] pun?
[05:44] free
[05:49] free e voucher
[06:06] promotion
[06:12] daodi? 到底
[06:21] guocheng 過程
[06:23] pun
[06:29] pun
[06:36] banciah
[06:38] banciah
[06:57] sO-i
[07:01] tansi
[07:06] pun
[07:19] bugaolan 佈告欄
[07:22] yijianxiang 意見箱
[07:27] pole-tikut

---

PS.
I used Mozilla Download Helper to get the mp4 version of the clip on my local disk. And then I used VLC media player to play the mp4-file. VLC media player has the functionality of being able to slow the speed of play, so you can g-e-t t-h-e s--p--e--e--c--h r--e--a--l--y s---l---o---w---e---d d---o---w---n to try and work out what he's saying. It also makes it easier to record the time at which something is said, as things move much more slowly.

Even with the aid of VLC media player, it still took about 6 listenings to compile the above .

[Ah-bin]

Wow! Thanks Sim! I was thinking of doing a transcription myself, but I'm glad you feel up the the task!

There are many "higher register" Hokkien words which I'm completely unfamiliar with. Examples are "gi-guan", "sio-huan", "i-kien", "am-pai" (or "an-pai"). I can guess the meaning of some, like "loh-pio" is probably "to tender". Anyway, they can all be cleared up if I get around to transcribing. I'm sure Mark would do much better than me at understanding this whole passage.

Now I am very pleased with my own level of Hokkien, as I can get three of these straight away!

Bē sió-hoàn 賣小販 – vo. to sell at a stall, to hawk: bē sió-hoàn ê lâng 賣小販个儂 hawkers
Ì-kiàn = 意見 n. (funny how he switched to Mdn when he talked about the suggestion box though)
An-pâi 安排 – tv. to organise or arrange

Is it 議員 gī-goân, (MP) I wonder? I think Mark or Andrew mentioned this a while back.

[Mark Yong]

Ah-bin wrote:
Is it 議員 gī-goân, (MP) I wonder?

Ducking in-and-out quickly, will aim to find time to listen to the entire passage. But in the meantime - yes, 議員 gī-goân is “Member of Parliament”, and I have heard it used among Penangites before.

[amhoanna]

Ciah kú bô lâi, àmhō iáu ũ hāu, hókacài.

Then I only just found out about "tok-tok-mi" - which I guess is the same one. This was in the same podcast as kiEt-la and suiⁿ-kam. John Ong explained the meaning of the name like that it came from the sound of knocking bamboo sticks made by the vendors in former times to draw attention to their food. It must be the same verb, and looks very much as if it is originally an onamatapoeaic word.

They still got that in Vietnam: hủ tiếu gõ. (Tiếu is probably a Teochew loan, and cognate with tiâu as in 粿仔條.)