Ang-Mor Knee

[James Campbell]

Dear Mark,

I think I somewhat follow you there. Basically it's an English pronunciation type of Minnan, which is kind of strange because English spelling is quite irregular.

Remember that pronunciation of Roman letters aren't like Japanese romanizations, but rather the other way around. Roman letters a, e, i, o, u are pronounced the same in almost all the European languages with few variance. English (and perhaps others like Portuguese) are the ones that have undergone vowel shift.

I can only assume that Malay was recorded and given Roman writing based on these Roman letter features, and perhaps was a romanization itself after Jawi. And Japanese romanization was given these features as well, although some of their vowels are slightly different than those found in European languages. The IPA also uses these features. Most languages that are recorded and introduced to writing for the first time are given these vowel features, such as African languages. I can only assume it natural then to find that Minnan 'i' is equivalent to a European 'i', an 'a' like a Euro 'a', an 'e' much like a Euro 'e', and so on.

In most Minnan I've seen online, that 'o' and 'oo' used to distinguish the schwa from the /o/.


James

[KDLim]

ppk,

Precisely, 'knee' is breast or chest to the salegirl presumably because she understands only Hokkien.

[Mark]

阿蓮: 有袂stocking到knee無?
店女: 到奶? 到腰, 有. 無到奶ㄟ!
阿蓮: 毋是有人ㄟ'奶'... 是紅魔ㄟ'knee'!

[Mark]

Somehow I think I've used the wrong hanzi for tnglang...

Also for loo...

[Mark]

阿蓮: 有袂stocking到knee無?
店女: 到奶? 到腰, 有. 無到奶ㄟ!
阿蓮: 毋是唐人ㄟ'奶'... 是紅魔ㄟ'knee'!

:/

[Mark]

in C.M. leomanisation;

Ah Lian: lu wu voei STOCKING gau KNEE veo?
Salesgirl: gau ni? gau yau, wu. veo gau ni e!
Ah Lian: mm si tng leng e 'ni'... si ang mo e 'knee"!

[nokko]

I am not sure if this reply will still get read (since the last post was before 2003) but just wanna point out that, as a Malaysian who receives Singaporean hokkien jokes, I would interpret 'ni' in the above conversation as 'breast', as in the position of the human body where stockings can be stretched to. 'ni' is also used for 'milk', like 'gu ni' = cow milk, 'teh ni' = tea with milk.

However, I don't really hear this in Malaysia where ppl 'pronounce' milk/breast as 'ni', instead I often hear 'leng', 'gu leng', etc... just wondering are these variants still hokkien or mixed from teochew?

using freeform romanisation here, pai se pai se. . .

regards
sukii

[Guest]

Ah Lian:
Loo ooh-buay "stocking" kao "knee" boh ?

khia-tiam cha-bo:
Kao "nee" ?
Kao yeo, ooh.
Boh-kao "nee" eh !

Ah Lian:
Mm-si Tng-lang eh "nee"...
si Ang-mor eh "knee" !


vocabularies:
Ah Lian 阿蓮 (a name of woman)
loo (Chiang-chiu style) you
li 汝 (E-mng and Choan-chiu style) you
ooh-buay 有賣 sold
tng-thang-beh 長統襪 stocking
kao 遘 reach
kha-thau-hu 骹頭伕 knee
boh 無 have not
kia-tiam ca-bo 徛店 查嫫 Salesgirl
nee 奶 breasts
yeo 腰 waist
ooh 有 have
boh-kao 無遘 do not reach
eh 奚 used at the end of a declarative sentence or a word, a phrase for emphasis
mm-si 毋是 is not
Tng-lang 唐農 Chinese people
eh 兮 used after a word or phrase to indicate which is an adjective
si 是 is
Ang-mor 紅魔 Dutchman, Dutchwoman

SL

[tantg]

I wish to differ from SL's translation somewhat -

kao 遘 - can't see why it's 遘, which means "to meet". I think it's like 到, but can't find the Hokkien word.

eh 奚,兮 - it's not 奚 and not used for emphasis in the Salesgirl's words. It's a possesive like the Mandarin 的, or Cantonese 嘅, as in 我的,紅色的.

Tng-lang 唐農 - Chinese farmer? No. How about 唐郎.

Ang-mor 紅魔 - I prefer 紅毛. Since this joke came from Singapore, 紅毛 means a white person, not just Dutch.

[吉李&]

lang5=儂
From Kangxi Zidian 儂: 吳人謂人儂 即人聲之轉
The people of 吳 call human "儂", a mutation from 人's sound.