Childhood games

[SimL]

Hi Niuc,

Your list brings back to me lots of "forgotten" memories! Thanks a ton! It'll take longer time for me to write them, so let me answer your questions first and share my memories later.

I was hoping it might. It's amazing how much one forgets, but remembering one thing triggers another. I look forward to your future input on this topic.

Glad that you ask for 唐人字 of "caúsaliàp", [...]

Thank you! Your replies solved several mysteries for me:

1. I have been wondering for a couple of weeks about the difference between 掠 and 獵.

For Mandarin, I found:
掠 lüe4/lüe3 : rob, ransack, plunder; pass by
獵 lie4 : hunt; field sports

Because 掠 seemed "negative" and 獵 seemed more "neutral", I felt that 獵 was closer to the meaning to Hokkien "liáh" (which isn't "negative"). But I had no other (firm, rational, known historical) reason for associating "liáh" with 獵. The Mandarin meanings could easily have diverged from the Hokkien meanings, so my reluctance to associate 掠 with Hokkien "liáh" was not really justified.

I mean, if I have two characters X and Y which sound roughly the same in Mandarin, and X means "kill" and Y means "save", and I have a Hokkien word Z which I could write as either X or Y (based on similarities in sound), but Z means "damage", then I would be very tempted to associate it with character X rather than with character Y. In such a situation, the Mandarin meanings should influence my decision.

But in the case of 掠 and 獵, the meanings (in both Hokkien and Mandarin) are not as dramatically different. So, as you apparently are quite sure of the respective Hokkien words, and their characters, then I will happily accept this (for example, I was totally unaware of "láh" and "liáp" as Hokkien words, so I wasn't able to "feel" anything about other possible associations.)

---

2. Since my very young days, I have been aware that when my maternal Amoy grandmother said "saN-kap-chiN", it corresponded to Penang Hokkien "sio-chEN". I instinctively always knew that Amoy "chiN" was the same morpheme as Penang Hokkien "chEN" (which I later associated with the character 爭, when I started learning Mandarin), but I never ever dreamt that my grandmother's Amoy "saN" was the same morpheme as Penang Hokkien "sio"! [I totally don't hear any nasalization in the latter.]

Learning Mandarin, and knowing 相/xiang, with its nasal final consonant, and knowing that 相 occurs in so many places in Mandarin that my Penang Hokkien "sio" occurs in (and the closeness in meaning), I grew to accept that Penang Hokkien is definitely 相, and probably lost its nasal (or retains it, and I don't notice). But now, your explanation has helped me make the final connection to my Amoy grandmother's "saN".

---

3. Thanks for all the TLJ.

Most of it makes total sense, so there's little for me to comment on. Perhaps I could express my slight surprise that Mandarin "m-" in 蜢 corresponds to a Hokkien "n-".

>> Haw flakes "sian-ca-phìⁿ" is 仙楂片. I believe you ever saw it before
>> (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haw_flakes).

Thanks for this. Actually, a few hours after I had asked about this, I searched for (and found) it on English Wikipedia - because you had been kind enough to provide the "English term" for it. I never knew either the English or (as far as I can recall) the Hokkien term, but I certainly remember eating them. They left the surface of your tongue quite a bright red . I don't know if I'm remembering correctly, but this is probably another one of those common things which my health-conscious parents were a bit suspicious of!(Because of the bright colour...)

>> water pistol is 水銃. 槍 in Hokkien is chiuⁿ (tshiuⁿ) and it means spear in my variant.

This was also very helpful for me, as I had simply associated 槍 with Hokkien "chhèng" (= "gun"), when I first came across it when learning Mandarin. I teaches me (yet again) that I should be very careful about just "assuming" that two syllables which sound similar (in Hokkien and Mandarin), and which have similar meaning, can immediately be associated as cognates, and written with the same character. I was quite aware that (in Mandarin) 槍 can also mean spear or lance, but because it can mean gun or rifle, I simply equated it with the Hokkien equivalent.

I know it's quite risky to do this. For years, I simply assumed that Hokkien "chíah" (= "eat") was 吃. I think it was only after quite a few years of reading this Forum, that I learnt about 食. [BTW, does Mandarin 吃 have a Hokkien equivalent?]

Finally, just a random question (but related to this topic). Should Hokkien "sēng" (= "indulge, spoil; e.g. a child") be written 寵? The possibility suggests itself, because of the meaning in Mandarin. The two meanings are the same, and there is some phonetic resemblance, but the general rule is that Hokkien stops correspond to Mandarin affricates (氣,去,江,叫; 浮,佛,房,飯; 中,沉; etc ), and Hokkien affricates correspond to Mandarin fricatives (象,笑,石,食, etc). Of course, you get Hokkien stops corresponding to Mandarin stops too (貴,跪,開,關; 平,變,皮,拜; 大,天,鐵,地; etc), and Hokkien affricates corresponding to Mandarin affricates (出,初,赤,唱, etc), and Hokkien fricatives corresponding to Mandarin fricatives (送,上,順,四, etc). But it is quite uncommon that a Hokkien fricative corresponds to a Mandarin affricate - as it would, if we associate Hokkien "sēng" with Mandarin 寵 "chǒng". [I remember being surprised at one or two others, but I can't think of them now.]

What I'm trying to say is that if we see stops as "strongest" (=1, maximum blockage of air), and affricates as "slightly weaker" (=2, medium blockage of air), and fricatives as the "weakest of all" (=3, minimum blockage of air), then the most common patterns we see is that Hokkien "1" matches Mandarin "1" or "2", and Hokkien "2" matches Mandarin "2" or "3", and Hokkien "3" matches Mandarin "3", i.e. the Mandarin equivalent of a Hokkien word is never "stronger", it can be the "same strength", or "weaker", but never "stronger".

But associating Hokkien "sēng" with Mandarin 寵 "chǒng" would have the Hokkien consonant "weaker" than its Mandarin equivalent.

[BTW, all this "stronger" and "weaker" stuff has nothing to do with "Hokkien chauvinism", or trying to prove Hokkien superiority or anything. It's just connected to linguistic processes, where consonants "naturally" (in the course of time) go from "stronger" to "weaker" - because people are lazy to make a full blockage (a stop), and so let some air leak through (=> an affricate), and after a while, if the affricate becomes the "normal" sound for that word, then they get even lazier, and let even more of the air leak through (=> a fricative). Some "dialects" move along this path faster than other "dialects", so you frequently see this pattern. E.g. English vs. German: "pepper/Pfeffer", "water/Wasser", "make/machen" (and hundreds of other such pairs). In each case the "strong" stop in English "-p-", "-t-", "-k-" has "weakened" to the corresponding fricative "-f-", "-s-", "-ch-". It's got nothing to do with German being a "weaker" language, culture, etc; simply with German consonants having gone through this (natural) weakening process at a faster rate than English.]

Anyway, to get back to the original point - from examining large sets of cognate words in Hokkien and Mandarin, one can see that Mandarin consonants have weakened more rapidly than Hokkien, so whenever I see a pair of syllables (Hokkien/Mandarin) where the relationship is the other way around, but I would like to associate them because of the strong connection in meaning, then I get suspicious.

So, can you (or any other readers) throw any light on the validity of 寵 as the 本字 for Hokkien "sēng"?

[AndrewAndrew]

Hi Andrew,

Cool! Thanks a lot. I really value your input on these matters, because you're a Penang Hokkien speaker whose Hokkien is far better (so your vocabulary is far bigger), you have remained there for longer (so your vocabularly is more up to date), and you speak Mandarin (so you have a better feel for meanings, punji, etc).

I checked with my relatives in Penang, and indeed, there is no word for the Western "lemon", and suiN-kam is the larger of the limes, with a thicker skin, and kiet-la is the smaller of the limes, with the thinner skin. One of the reasons I got confused is that I call the larger of the limes suiN-kam-a, with diminutive, but the relative confirmed that and siuN-kam are interchangable terms / both mean the larger lime.

Thanks Sim, you are too kind. In reality, I am still mainly an "e-hiau thiann, be-hiau kong", someone who is not comfortable speaking and expressing oneself in Hokkien.

[SimL]

Thanks Sim, you are too kind.

You're welcome! I'm really glad you picked up my mistake on the "lemon" thing. I'm a bit embarassed about it!

Looking back and trying to re-construct, I guess my mother started using the word "suiN-kam" for lemon, when we migrated to Australia, when I was 14. This makes sense, as (certainly in the primitive and isolated Darwin of the 1970's) there were no limes available (let alone kiet-la), but heaps of lemons, shipped up from the Southern states.

In reality, I am still mainly an "e-hiau thiann, be-hiau kong", someone who is not comfortable speaking and expressing oneself in Hokkien.

Well, different people can be shy in different areas of human interaction. I mentioned before that I'm completely tongue-tied when someone speaks to me in Mandarin (the incident I posted about wasn't the only time!).

But... I've been invited to the birthday party of my first (and only) Mandarin teacher here in Amsterdam, later this month. I got to know her when she first came to study in the Netherlands, as a young woman, straight from Beijing, about 10 years ago. We remained in touch over all those years (I was only in her class for 3 years), and I've been to a number of her parties. This time however, (for the first time) her parents are here on a visit from Beijing. And I don't think they speak any English... I've already asked her if she could avoid emphasizing the fact that I have been studying Mandarin since 2004!

As for speaking Hokkien, I'm constantly surprised how tongue-tied I am when I'm speaking to Taiwanese. Their variant is so unfamiliar to me, that I feel quite at a loss. I was always aware of this, but it was brought home to me very dramatically once, in one Taiwanese Studies Conference I was at, where there was a Medan Hokkien speaker (this was the only time I have ever comes across a North Malayan / North Indonesian Hokkien speaker at a Taiwanese Studies Conference). Suddenly, my tongue was set free! I could just speak so confortably to her. As this was my 4th or 5th conference, I knew how tongue-tied I was in interacting with the Taiwanese speakers, so the contrast was really brought home to me.

A parallel situation occurred when a North-Malayan Hokkien speaker visited me in Amsterdam. A friend I've known for a long time had never before seen me interacting with such people. He had been to a number of Taiwanese Studies Conferences too, so he had already formed an image of my speaking abilities in Hokkien as being "incredibly limited". He probably thought that my mastery of Hokkien was barely beyond the level of a non-native speaker after 6 months of evening classes in a foreign language. So, he was quite astounded when he watched me interacting with this visitor to Amsterdam. He had to revise his image of my Hokkien mastery after that ("Amazing! You can actually have a whole conversation in Hokkien!".)

[AndrewAndrew]

A parallel situation occurred when a North-Malayan Hokkien speaker visited me in Amsterdam. A friend I've known for a long time had never before seen me interacting with such people. He had been to a number of Taiwanese Studies Conferences too, so he had already formed an image of my speaking abilities in Hokkien as being "incredibly limited". He probably thought that my mastery of Hokkien was barely beyond the level of a non-native speaker after 6 months of evening classes in a foreign language. So, he was quite astounded when he watched me interacting with this visitor to Amsterdam. He had to revise his image of my Hokkien mastery after that ("Amazing! You can actually have a whole conversation in Hokkien!".)

I should have thought that you would be able to get by fine if you just stuck to Penang Hokkien and let them reply in Taiwanese Hokkien. I don't see any point trying to speak Taiwanese Hokkien unless you are actually going to live there, and I'm sure they would be interested in hearing your dialect..

[SimL]

I should have thought that you would be able to get by fine if you just stuck to Penang Hokkien and let them reply in Taiwanese Hokkien.

Indeed, this is a possibility, but I find it "psychologically" very difficult to do.

Some people here in the Netherlands do it. I had a colleague in my previous company who was an ex-pat English woman who had lived here for more than 15 years. She was married to a Dutchman, and had 1-2 children, born and raised in the Netherlands. So, she understood Dutch perfectly well, and could follow everything which was said at work meetings and at parties. But (apparently) she never felt confident about speaking Dutch, so her solution was to just speak English. This led to situations in the canteen, in entire conversations with another colleague, where the colleague would speak and reply exclusively in Dutch, and she would do the same exclusively in English. I always found this very odd.

So, what I end up doing is trying to speak the Amoyish variety of my grandmother, under the (perhaps mistaken!) belief that it sounds much less different to the Taiwanese.

You're absolutely right that there's no reason for me to do this. AFAIK, there are Chiangchiu-derived or Chiangchiu-influenced variants on Taiwan as well. So, if those people and the Amoy-derived or Amoy-influenced ones speak to one another, they would do exactly what you recommend. For that matter, that's exactly what my two sets of grandparents did with one another, whenever they met up: my Penang Baba paternal grandparents would just speak and reply in Penang Hokkien, and my Amoyish maternal grandparents would just speak and reply in Amoyish Hokkien. And I never found it odd as a child.

[Though my paternal relatives did admit to me (years after my parents had got married) that in the initial stages, they had very little idea what my maternal relatives were saying ! My maternal relatives never had any problems the other way round though. I've always attributed this to the fact that "Mainland Peninsular" Chinese are much more exposed to other "dialects", whereas Penang Chinese (if they are Hokkien) tend to be only exposed to Penang Hokkien. That was my explanation for the relative linguistic ability/talents of my maternal relatives, and the relative linguistic incompetence of my paternal relatives. But perhaps it had less to do with this sociolinguistic background, and more to do with simple "genetic" predisposition to and ability in language.]

[SimL]

I continue to be amazed at the power of the Internet to spread knowledge!

The tree was the "Malaysian native wild cherry" tree. I have no idea of its official English or scientific name, and it's completely unrelated to the normal/standard "cherry".

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Muntingia

Apparently, it's Muntingia calabura, and native to South America.

"In Malaysia this tree grows very easily and is widespread. With enough sun and water it grows with little or no tending. The Malaysian common name "Ceri Kampung" means "village cherry" in English. In Malaysia, the muntingia tree is found in many urban areas lining the sides of streets in front of row houses. [etc]"

Google Image search on "Muntingia calabura" produces heaps of hits.

[SimL]

Hi Niuc,

掠 "liàh" means to catch, while 獵"liàp" can mean to hunt (but in daily conversation 拍獵 "phah-làh" is used). So, "caúsaⁿliàp" most probably is 走相獵.

It seems to me that 走相掠 would still be a good rendering of your game. What is the reason that you prefer 獵?

相 is usually pronounced as "saⁿ" and seldom "sio" in my variant (col.; lit. is "siong"). So for 相拍, 相罵, 相疼 I say "saⁿ-phah", "saⁿ-mā", "saⁿ-thiàⁿ", instead of "sio-~".

I guess "saⁿ-thiàⁿ" is "mutually love one another"? It's very interesting that "pain" and "love" are so closely associated in Hokkien.

IFAIK, this use of "thiàⁿ" to mean love is completely lost in Penang Baba Hokkien, where "sa-iang" is used for "love" instead, leaving "thiàⁿ" with only the "pain" meaning.

This makes Penang Baba Hokkien a variant which distinguishes the 5 concepts "want to", "like", "happy", "love", "pain" most clearly (some simplification and glossing over of details here, but I think the basic point is valid):

Mandarin: "yào" = "want to", "xǐ​huan" = "like" or "happy", "ài" = "love", "tòng" = "pain".
Amoy Hokkien: "ài" = "want to" or "like", "huaN-hí" = "happy", "thiàⁿ" = "love" or "pain".
Penang Baba Hokkien: "ài" = "want to", "su-kah" = "like", "huaN-hí" = "happy", "sa-iang" = "love", "thiàⁿ" = "pain".

[No, no; no chauvinism here, of couse! ]

[SimL]

This led to situations in the canteen, in entire conversations with another colleague, where the colleague would speak and reply exclusively in Dutch, and she would do the same exclusively in English. I always found this very odd.

Again I'll mention the Chinese TV series which was quite popular in the 1960's: 汝苦無我苦 or "Empat Sekawan" / "The Four Friends". There were 4 friends who were each a speaker of a Sinitic language, and they just spoke their own language in interacting with the other 3 friends.

The fact that this program was quite popular in Malaysia shows that a considerable number of Malaysian Chinese in those days not only spoke their own Sinitic language, but one or more others. For that matter, my mother spoke Mandarin, Cantonese, Hockchew, Hakka - all only at the level of basic conversation - and even with that limitation, to varying degrees of competence - but still... [And she was hardly unique for her generation and backgrond (I.e. "Peninsular Malaysia".]

[niuc]

Hi Sim

Interesting to know that in Penang you didn't use "rock-paper-scissors". It is 石頭, 紙, 鉸刀, but usually called 石頭hmh鉸刀 "tsiòh-thaû hmh (hermh) ka-to" in my variant, meaning the rock hits the scissors. Actually this name comes from its "slogan/chant", parallel to your "one, two, sóm". This name also explains why rock beats scissors, i.e. the latter will become out of shape. You are right that paper beats rock because the former can wrap up the latter. Imho, the cup beats the sea because the sea cannot prevent the cup from "stealing" its water. Btw, hmh means to hit, usually by or against rock or some solid and hard stuff. Do you use this verb in Penang variant?

Sometimes we used a version of your "la la li la tam pong" but I don't remember the name. Another one is using 5 fingers, where thumb is elephant and little finger is mouse, and the rest I forget. I think this is Malay or Javanese way of "rock-paper-scissors”.

From your list, now I remember marbles. I was more fond of collecting beautiful marbles ("ko-li" in my variant) than playing them.

I seldom flew kites "huang-cher". Even so, it didn't prevent me from cutting my sole (foot) once while wildly chasing for a "hiàu-sen" (falling) kite. Like you, I also didn't like glass-covered string. I have seen some other boys bleeding because of it.

I don't think (spin)top is from Malay per se. Big spinning top ("kan-lòk" 干/矸轆, "kan-lòh" in my variant) is quite common in Taiwan. My mom says that big tops could be found in Bagansiapiapi many decades ago. The Mandarin term is 陀螺. Interestingly, according to Wikipedia, it is written as 独楽 in Japanese (but read as こま"koma"). Coincidentally, "kan" (干?) in Hokkien is somehow related to 独 (獨), e.g. "kan-taⁿ"; and 楽 (樂) can be pronounced as "lòk" in Hokkien (for happiness, but "gàk" for music)! May be FutureSpy and all who know Japanese can read and explain to us more about the origin of this name (独楽). According to Wikipedia: {The top is one of the oldest recognizable toys found on archaeological sites. Spinning tops originated independently in cultures all over the world.}

Btw, sundry shop is 雜貨店. 雜 is "càp" (c=ts, sounds exactly like 十, col.), meaning complicated, sundry, various, mixed. I used to think of "càp-chài" 雜菜as十菜.

Pop-gun, cap-gun, hopscotch, "pûn-bót" ("pûn-kiû" if I remember correctly) and soap bubbles ("pûn-sap-bûn-pèrh" if I remember correctly) were popular at Bagansiapiapi too. Another traditional one is slingshot (樹奶叉"chiū-ni-che" in my variant). Was it common in Penang also?

[niuc]

According to online dictionaries, "sēng"/"sīng" (= "indulge, spoil; e.g. a child") is written as 乘 or 倖. They may be more probable than 寵 "thióng" but I am not sure whether they are really the "original" TLJ.

Btw, 乘 can also be pronounced as "sîng" (multiply).

About a Hokkien fricative corresponds to a Mandarin affricate, the samples are 成, 城, 誠, 承, 乘, 臣, 晨, 辰.

May be there are other words, but I always find 況 as "unique" because it is "kuang4" (sounds to my ears like "khuang8" if using Hokkien romanization) in Mandarin but "hóng" in Hokkien.

I agree that Mandarin is "weaker" or "softer". In fact many people think of Mandarin as "nicer" because it is "softer" than Hokkien which is "stronger" or even perceived as "ruder".

About 走相掠 or 走相獵, the latter's pronunciation exactly fits "caúsaⁿliàp". And either "catching" or "hunting" are equally probably for a game, I think. That's why I now prefer 走相獵 but may be I am wrong.

Yes, it's "amazing" that "thiàⁿ" means both pain and love, actually also in Mandarin (teng2) but more obvious in Hokkien.

Mandarin: "yào" = "want to", "xǐ​huan" = "like" or "happy", "ài" = "love", "tòng" = "pain".
Amoy Hokkien: "ài" = "want to" or "like", "huaN-hí" = "happy", "thiàⁿ" = "love" or "pain".
Penang Baba Hokkien: "ài" = "want to", "su-kah" = "like", "huaN-hí" = "happy", "sa-iang" = "love", "thiàⁿ" = "pain".

It's great that Baba Hokkien is that specific! I think in Amoy and my variant, the meaning can be overlapping but it is still possible to clarify if purposely done so.
Want to: 欲 berh
Like: 合意 kah-ì
Love: 疼惜 thiàⁿ-sioh