More Chinese characters for Hokkien words

[Mark Yong]

beh/bueh cannot be 必。It could be a baidu of 欲.In old chinese there are no要 but many yu 欲as verb。

Hi, Hong,

I did consider 欲 as a possibility before, However, beh/bueh as the baidu for 欲 seems a bit of a far stretch, as we know 欲 does not have a b-/p-/m-/f- beginning. If anything, I would think that the baidu for 欲 would mostly likemy be 'ai' (want), but that one is most probably 愛.

That is why I thought 必 would be more likely, since (a) it also has a "b-" beginning and (b) it has the exact same meaning. I know it cannot be 卜 - that character is clearly "borrowed" for its sound, nothing more. But if your theory is that beh/bueh cannot possibly be 必, could you provide some insights on why that is the case? Does it mean that 必 only has one pronunciation, i.e. the wendu "pit"?

[Sim]

Andrew,

I did a search on the internet and got these:

cim5:
http://www.nabard.org/roles/ms/fi/mudcrab.htm

Not too bad a pic.

chih2:
http://www.edaff.gov.au/nfpd/atlas/28911005.cfm

This is unfortunately only a drawing, but the spikes are visible if you know what you're looking for.

BTW, I would have thought it would be chih8 rather than chih2?

Sim.

[Mark Yong]

tomorrow is mia/minn a cai 明仔再.

Isn't it more likely that cai is 朝 or a fusion of 早起/朝起? I am sure you have done your homework on this , but I am just curious. Also, I have heard "tomorrow" also referred to as mia-jit 明日.

Note that I have chosen to drop the 仔 for the -a ending in mia. The reason is because I suspect this final ending -a is a typical Minnan feature for the baidu pronunciation of all words ending with -ng, e.g. 長命 (tng mia), 檳城 (peng sia), 定著 (tia tiok), 兄弟(hia ti) - all of which have wendu pronunciations that retain the -ng ending, e.g. 青命 cheng beng.

My opinion is that it is not necessary to add the 仔 suffix to denote this -a ending for baidu reading, since the -a ending is a feature of the pronunciation of one single word, and not really an additional word, like how Mandarin has an additional 子 added to most nouns. For Minnan, this -a ending seems to apply to all words ending with -ng, not just nouns as in Mandarin.

Just an opinion...

[Andrew]

I have also seen 載 used, but as far as I know (from my small Chinese dictionaries) this means year rather than day.

I think it is more clearly pronounced in other variants, which is why dictionaries give it as bin5-a2-tsai3 or bin5-na2-tsai3. Most of the other examples such as bin5-hng1 etc. are Chuanchiu.

In Chiangchiu Hokkien bin5 it is given as mE~5, hence mE~5-ni5 etc. but I don't know if that is used for tomorrow.

Sim: Thanks for the pictures. Yes, it should of course be chih8 (or chhih8 - I have now given up with the second h).

[niuc]

Hi all

I think it's unlikely that 必 pit4 is the character for bue2/be2/ber2 (want). Btw is there any word showing shift of 'p-' to 'b-'? I agree that it's also hard to prove that 欲 iok8 is the character. But sometimes h-/b- could be the older form of "vocal words", e.g. 雨 lit.= u2, col.= ho`7; 務 is wu4 in Mandarin, bu7 in Hokkien.

粥 is pronounced as cok8. We use 糜 ber5 for Hokkien porridge and 粥 cok8 for Cantonese porridge/congee.

Hanji version of Hokkien Bible uses 此 for cit4 (this) and 這 for cia1 (these). It's true that the literary pronunciation of 此 is chu2/chy2. 者 is cia2, not cia1.

As mentioned by Andrew, ko4-kha4-ho2 is most probably 復較好.

Since cim is 蟳, may be chi8 is 蟹?

About e5, e.g. in cit8-e5 (one...), some people pronounce it as cit8-ke5. It's very possible that ke5 is 其 (ki5).

It's great to know that 青 chi*1/che*1 is blue in Classical Chinese. Thanks It still means blue in my dialect (同安 tang5-ua*). Long time ago, I used to argue with my friends from Medan who insisted that che* was green.

[Mark Yong]

Since cim is 蟳, may be chi8 is 蟹?

I doubt it. The phonetic patterns between Min/Yue and the Northern dialects seem to suggest a pattern of Min/Yue words having h-/k- beginnings and -ai endings becoming j-/x- beginnings and -ie endings in Mandarin. Examples include 界,介 and 契. And since 蟹 seems to fit the criterion for Yue and Mandarin, I am hazarding a guess that the Min pronunciation is along the lines of "haai".

Point in context: The Teochews in Singapore refer to 蟹 as "heo" (sorry, it's been a while, I have forgotten the tone), so that further reinforces the theory that the Min pronunciation very likely has a h- beginning.

Regards,
Mark

[Mark Yong]

As mentioned by Andrew, ko4-kha4-ho2 is most probably 復較好.

You may have a point there, Andrew. In Classical Chinese, the character 復 means "repeat, again, to make good".

I suppose that means "ko" (mid tone - meaning "even more", as per above) and "ko" (low tone - as in "ah-bue ko", or "not yet) are two separate Hanzi's altogether.

[hong]

Yes ,the hanzi 蟹 in minnan is started with h. hai 7(wen) and hue/he7.The words are kim-chin-he,moo-hue,etc.about 螃蟹。
Online dict had given chhih8 hanzi 。I can't type it.

[Mark Yong]

Hi, Hong,

What a relief - for once, I got something correct this week!

Per my suggestion in the other forum topic, if you are unable to type out the Hanzi word (tried the Taiwan setting yet?), perhaps you can tell us what the radical and components are, and we figure it out ourselves. I guess the radical is definitely 虫.

Cheers,
Mark

[hong]

Yes,there are two 虫 below.If you have Njstar -go to racidal lookup,you will find it 3 rd from the last.