Hokkien books, anybody?

[Aurelio]

Hi:

Does anybody know about books in Hokkien that are still available? I do not necessary mean language training books, but things a native speaker might want to read - and some ang-mo.s might try ?

Best regards,
Aurelio

[Niuc]

If there are books in Hokkien, it's extremely rare. Most books about Hokkien or written by Hokkiens are in Mandarin or other major languages (e.g. English). May be there are some written using romanization. Aurelio, I believe you have more information than me. Your inquiry does confirm that they are really rare.

I'd recommend the Holy Bible in Hokkien using Church Romanization. But I don't know whether it's still available in any bookstores. I got it from second-hand book seller in Jakarta.

Sin-Ku-Iok E Seng-Keng (Amoy Vernacular Bible)
Seng-Keng Hoe (Hongkong Bible House)
Hiong-Kang (Hongkong)
1954

I ever saw the Holy Bible in Taiwanese (using Chinese Character) in a Christian bookstore. I'll look for it.

There's also Church Hymn in Amoy Hokkien used in a few church services in Singapore. Unfortunately almost all attendants are old people.

Aurelio, are you Italian? Are you in Italy or Taiwan/China? (It's ok if you prefer not to tell.) Your knowledge about Chinese languages are so good, bravo!

[Aurelio]

Hi Niuc:

I'm really happy that you like the dictionaries. I was overjoyed myself when I found them because I had already spent several weeks searching for books on/ in Hokkien in both Malaysia and Singapore and had found virtually nothing.

Luckily this seems to change: When I entered "Hokkien" into the search engine three years ago, only one or two short word lists would come up. This has improved dramatically, mainly due to the efforts made in Taiwan.
Yesterday, I found some references to modern books in Hokkien on the edutech website, maybe they are interesting to you, too:

http://www.edutech.org.tw/January-2001-T.htm
http://www.edutech.org.tw/Publn/Liim-KH-2.htm

I do not have a Chinese web-browser yet, so I cannot say anything about the quality of the material presented there (the romanization is kind of queer but you can't be too picky). There are also some links from the taiwanese course at Berkeley:

http://www.ocf.berkeley.edu/~taioanoe/

I share your hope that efforts like these will one day lead to Hokkien receiving the same appreciation as Mandarin and Cantonese, not necessarily confined to Taiwan. ":-)" is definitely right that the strong economic advantages that speaking Cantonese, Mandarin or English offer, will prompt a lot of Hokkien to give up their language. I think, however, that this might be even more so because a lot of native speakers (I might be wrong there) don't even seem to regard Hokkien as a proper language in the first place (in the sense of a heritage that you would be proud of). Whenever I indicated that I wanted to learn Hokkien I got this deeply puzzeled expression accompanied by the invariable: "You want to do WHAT?". I personally think that Hokkien is not only a proper language but also a very intersting one ...

This disdain for Hokkien, however, is not too surprising, as it has never been taught in schools (at least that I know of) and most people would not know how to write it, at least outside of Taiwan. This might not necessarily be a recent problem: I once read a very interesting book by a German translator who had travelled all over China in the mid 1800s and spoken to many people (including the emperor himself). He gives a detailed description of the different fangyan and if I remember correctly he notes that in all Xiamen area he had not found "two scholars who would agree on how to write Hokkien in Chinese characters" ... Whether pinyin or Hanzi or whatever, a solid stock of written materials might change that negative perception of Hokkien.

Niuc, my name is indeed Italian but I was born in Germany (my father is South-American). Right now, I live and work in the United States. I'm afraid my knowledge of Chinese is nowhere close to where you think it is but I'll keep on trying What kind of business line are you in?

Best regards,
Aurelio

[Niuc]

Hi Aurelio,

Thanks for sharing your happiness I felt the same!

Today I am really happy to get the Taiwanese Bible. Actually it's the Amoy Vernacular Bible in Chinese character.

聖經台語漢字本 (The Holy Bible - Taiwanese Han Character Edition)
中華民國聖經公會 (The Bible Society in the R.O.C.)
ISBN 957-99771-4-3 & ISBN 957-99771-5-1

It's all in Han Character. It's real nice to see Hokkien fully written using Hanzi.

I share your opinion that most Hokkiens don't appreciate their own language as a proper language, also lack of writing convention in Hokkien. May be because of the nature of Hokkien having literary & colloquial reading, dialect variation, history, etc....causing this writing problem. Hopefully there'll be convention for its writing soon. May be those in Taiwan can take pioneer step.

About the browser, Internet Explorer & other browsers usually have option to show other languages including Chinese traditional & simplified. In IE, it's View>Encoding. If you install the option, you can easily read Chinese web pages.

Edutech site is very informative & good. But indeed the romanization used there is strange & confusing. The Berkeley link is also very interesting. Thanks.

Your info about the German translator is a valuable information. I feel very happy that you have appreciation for Hokkien. Your interest & knowledge in Hokkien can really be a great help in preserving the language.

While many Hokkien native speakers are neglecting their own heritage, to find that you share the passion for Hokkien really encourages me, it really means a lot for me. Thanks a lot!

I like linguistics really much but I didn't study it formally. I am working as an IT staff (software) for an insurance company. And you? Are you working in linguistics?


Best Regards,
Niuc

[Aurelio]

Hi Niuc:

I took your advice, dug for my Office XP CD and finally installed global IME + language pack so I can read/ write Chinese - 感謝你!

Tried to contact the bible society to see whether I could order the Hokkien Bible from the States - haven't gotten any answer yet, though. Think I'll try via one of the Taiwanese associations around here. Are they really using 漢字 only? What do they do about the words that do not have standard characters? Do they use bopomofo or other characters or romanisation? If it's romanisation - which one? {real curious }

I'm not working in linguistics, either, it's just a hobby of mine. I'm a physicist and work for a company that builds analytic instruments for chemistry and biochemistry. It's really fun (lasers, high voltage, high vacuum, 等). The other big hobby would be literature (of all times and languages). Right now I'm struggling with the old Anglo-Saxon in the Beowulf . What languages do you feel comfortable in?

Regards,
Aurelio

[Niuc]

Hi Aurelio:

Glad that your computer can read & write Chinese now. 免客氣!

Yes. All words of the Taiwanese Bible are in 漢字. I'm really glad that they can write all words using 漢字 and also give pronunciation (Church Romanization) for 'non-standard' characters and context dependent pronunciation. Although may be not all characters used are accurate, it's indeed a great improvement to have a complete Hokkien Bible in 漢字, beside the earlier version in Church Romanization.

I do not really master any language thoroughly. Although I can communicate well in Hokkien, Mandarin, Indonesian & English; there are terms that I know in one but not in other, etc. I likes to know many languages but am not persistent enough to learn them. I tried to learn Biblical Greek but didn't master it because was too lazy to remember so many inflections . Later I thought that it'd be better for me to focus on my ancestral language i.e. Hokkien.

I believe that you are good in a lot of languages, tell us ok! It's great to be a physicist! You may win Nobel next time!


Best Regards,
Niuc

[Johan]

This one is for Niuc,

Glad to hear someone trying to learn his ancestral language.
I can't trace my family root. I was born in a small town in North Sumatera, Indonesia and I can say all Chinese descent in town speak Hokkien.
It's nice to know that everyone is trying to keep the culture alive yet I see the assimilation causes some changes to Hokkien, we tend to mix some Indonesian words into our spoken language.
One thing I would like to find out is whether it happens in your family (mixing non Hokkien words when you're speaking)?


Cheers

Johan

[Niuc]

Hi Johan,

I share your gladness. Thanks a lot

I believe that if you keep trying, you can trace your family root. May be it won't be wholly clear at once but progressively. Firstly, do you know what is your ancestral language? Or in term used in Singapore: what is your "dialect group"? Usually it's reflected in how you pronounce your (& your parents') Chinese name. After that may be you can trace which area/town/village in China your ancestors came from.

Most Chinese in North Sumatra are Hokkiens but there are also Teochews, Hakka, etc. If all Chinese in your birthplace speak Hokkien, it's more likely that you are a Hokkien also. Usually overseas Chinese living in small town are from same area in China.

Absorbing local words into one's ancestral language is quite common for all overseas Chinese, yet differ in extensiveness. Some local words may enrich our original vocabulary, but too much local words will create a new hybrid which is barely original. Bilingual is better that mixed language.

We (my family) also use some local words, whether we aware of it or not. But our Hokkien is still quite close to Hokkien used in China & Taiwan. We don't use local words as extensive as Hokkiens in North Sumatra (Medan). Hokkiens in Medan, especially youngsters usually use a lot of local words, some of them even don't know simple word like 石頭 'ciou thau' (stone), they simply use "batu". Nowadays I try to be aware not to use mixed words when I speak Hokkien, unless I don't know the original Hokkien for the word. Same goes for other languages.

Do you live in Netherlands? If not mistaken, there are many Chinese there including Hokkiens. May be you & fiends there can have cultural grouping to encourage Hokkien speaking, either as second or third language is still ok. Although it's not economical nonetheless a kind of cultural identity.


Cheers

Niuc

[Andrew Yong]

Most people know the Hokkien words for batu (stone), loti (roti=bread), etc, but I have yet to meet a Malaysian Hokkien who can tell me the words for tuala (towel) and sabun (soap). (Yes, I have read the discussion on sabun)


andrew

[Niuc]

towel = 浴巾 'ik kun'
bathroom = 浴間 'ik king'
bath = 'cang ik', some write it as 沖浴, it 廈門方言詞典 as (水on石) 浴.

I don't know if there is another word for soap except the loan word 'sap bun'. Both 廈英大辭典 and 廈門方言詞典 have 'sap/sat/siap/suat bun', written as 雪文 or 澀文.