hokkienese Characters

[SimL]

Hi Ong,

Thanks very much for this information. Yes, I found quite a lot of Hokkien poems on the internet where the word 鵁鴒 is used. One of the pages (http://www.kses.km.edu.tw/share/upload/ ... 1%C132.doc) gives the information that "鵁鴒" = "八歌鳥".

This is funny poem: 台灣出甜粿

1. 喂、喂、喂，台灣出甜粿。
2. 甜粿真好食，台灣出木屐。
3. 木屐真好穿，台灣出鵁鴒。
4. 鵁鴒會講話，台灣出棉被。
5. 棉被甲會燒，台灣出芎蕉。
6. 芎蕉真大枇，台灣出蕃薯。
7. 蕃薯會止飢，台灣出飛機。
8. 飛機真爻飛，台灣出鼓吹。
9. 鼓吹真爻陳，台灣出炸彈。
10. 炸彈真厲害，歹人唔敢來。

Entering the title gives 300+ hits, with a number of slightly different versions of the poem.

In line 8, I’ve corrected the first two characters from 台灣 to 飛機. It's so saddening to see that over and over again, the same typing mistake "台灣 真爻飛" is reproduced, on so many different sites.

I was very pleased to see that in line 4, it says "鵁鴒會講話". I had a vague memory from childhood that myna birds could be taught to talk, but I wasn't sure any more.

Regards,
Sim.

[casey]

We call sparrow chek4 ciau2 a 粟鸟仔

[SimL]

Hi Casey,

Thanks for your input. Presumably because rice grains is one of the things the sparrow eats.

I'm very glad you posted that, because I've been wondering for several years what the Chinese character for "ch(h)ek4" was. I've always liked the fact that Hokkien has 3 distinct single words (i.e. single characters, not character compounds) for the 3 forms of rice: unhusked rice (chek4), husked and polished rice (bi2), and cooked rice (png7/puinn7).

I have always assumed that the characters for the last two are 米 (bi2) and 飯 (png7/puinn7), and this turned out to be correct (I checked on the internet), but I've never known the character for "chek4". Thanks to your posting, I now know it.

Regards,
Sim.

[ong]

I think the hanzi for chhek is 雀,a baidu of it。We have another hanzi to prove it 斮.