Hokkien names?

Discussions on the Hokkien (Minnan) language.
Abun
Posts: 115
Joined: Fri Jun 21, 2013 4:15 pm

Re: Hokkien names?

Post by Abun »

Amhoanna, in case your font problems continue, it's 𢼄 over 山.

I personally don't know that character, but seeing none of the dictionaries I have available here (including Kangxi) knows it, I don't feel that bad about it :mrgreen: Therefore, the only thing I can think of is to guess by analogy from other characters which include 𢼄. Among all the characters I could find (啟/啓, 棨, 晵, 䁈, 䏿, 肇, 綮), every single one of them is pronounced khé (qǐ in mandarin if you need that, too), except for one, 肇 tiāu (zhào in mandarin), so I would think that khé is a fairly safe guess. Can't say for sure though, of course.

[Edit:] They seriously need to add the option to delete your own posts, at least if no one has replied yet. I keep accidently hitting "quote" instead of "edit" and end up with the same post twice :roll:
elmer
Posts: 90
Joined: Fri Feb 01, 2008 10:12 pm
Location: Netherlands

Re: Hokkien names?

Post by elmer »

That sounds fair. If I look to this family, I see that almost all the names contain the character 山. So it may be that this part was actually more for consistency than it had impact on the pronunciation. Thanks!
amhoanna
Posts: 912
Joined: Sat Sep 18, 2010 12:43 pm

Re: Hokkien names?

Post by amhoanna »

I agree with Abun's analysis.

The Kangxi says:

《篇海類編》音寨。又音啓。

http://www.zdic.net/z/8b/kx/21E58.htm

Basically, the character has two completely different pronunciations in Literary Chinese. The second one, the "also" one, would correspond to khé in Hokkien. Even assuming both exist in Hokkien, taking the entire genealogical and sociolinguistic context into account, I think khé would be what Elmer's family actually used.
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