It's a different sound to U?the sound of "-saí" in bàk-saí is inconsistent with phī-saí 鼻屎 i.e. dried nose mucus / bogeys / boogers and hī-saí 耳屎 (usually dry) ear wax. That's why some, including at least one of my Hokkien friends in Singapore (may be influenced by Teochew), understand bàk-saí as gound / "sleep" / eye-boogers (which is bàk-saí-ko 目滓膏 in my variant)
What's the SingaHokkien word for TEARS?
Good to know. 流鼻 is what I've heard in the TWnese context, but I wouldn't have known the finer distinctions.What is the criteria for establishing a cognate? ...
Btw, in my variant we call "running nose" 流鼻 laû-phī (this is what I think everytime I heard the name 劉備 Laû-pī). 流鼻水 laû-phī-cuí is running nose with transparent watery mucus. For "bleeding nose", we never say 流鼻血 laû-phī-huih, but laû-phī-làk. If anyone knows what is làk there and its TLJ, I'd be very glad to know!
How to establish a cognate? There should be a hypothetical story or sound change rule of some kind... And it should be at least probable, but probably more than just probable.
In this case, the first question would be whether there's a lot of words that begin with c- in Coanciu, but s- in Amoy. Or whether there are word families in the language that go between c- and s-. (I may not be using all the right terminology here.)
To use another example, what about Malay "orang" vs Hoklo "lảng"? Cognates, or coincidence? At this pt, not knowing all there is to be known, I'd hv to pass on calling them cognates. I think it's better to err on the side of saying nothing's going on.