Variants!

[niuc]

wow, those are great, thanks Niuc. Your Hokkien seems quite similar to Taiwanese in some ways. I like the word for police too.

Thank you too, Ah-bin, I also learn a lot from your postings. Yes, my variant is similar to E-mng & Taiwanese. Many Bagan-lang watch Taiwanese tv programs and can understand Taiwanese Hokkien easily. The term 'ching3-ping1' for police is quite unique, I have never heard it in other variants.

In Taiwan khng means "to put", but in Penang it's hE 下, and somewhere else it's pang 放

'khng3' in my variant has connotation of putting a thing at somewhere unseen (藏?). 下 'he7' is usually pronounced as 'khe7' (most frequently used). 放 'pang3' is used also, usually without intention of putting; and also with the meaning "to release" and other meanings as posted by Sim.

I wonder where the "pa" cames from for forest? IN Taiwan I think a forest is called chhiu-na 樹林

Sim told us a wide and interesting usage of 'pa1', thanks Sim. I only know of 'pa1' as meaning "forest", usually as 'pa1-lai7' (lai7 = 內), 'chi*1-pa1[-lai7]' or 'sua*1-pa1[-lai7]'. 樹林 'chiu7-na5' is understood but rarely used in Bagan Hokkien.

a farmer - Taiwanese choe-chhit-lang (forgot how to write it 做[]人 Penang cho-chhan-e-lang 做田e人

做田人 'co3-chan5-lang5' or 'co3-chan5-e5-lang5' is also used in my variant. Usually we pronounce 做 as 'cue3', but in this term 'co3' / 'cue3' both sound OK. Most probably due to Mandarin's influence, I tend to say 農夫 'long5-hu1'. Another term for "to farm" is 種作 'cing3-co4', so "farmer" can be 種作的人 'cing3-co4-e5-lang5' or 種作者 'cing3-co4_e0' ('e' neutralized).

and Taiwanese like to use 烏白 o-peh (they usually write it 黑白) for luan 亂, but not in the sense of disturb, but rather to do something chaotically or wildly, or stupidly., as in o-peh-kong 烏白講 "to talk nonsense" before

Same in my variant. We can combine them as 烏白亂來 'o1-pe8-luan7-lai5', 烏白亂講 'o1-pe8-luan7-kong2' etc.

n Penang Hokkien, I make a distinction between "luan7" (= "noisy", "confused", "chaotic"), and "cha2-luan5" (= "to disturb").

Oh yes, actually I differentiate 'luan7' and 'cha2' (but never use 'cha2-luan5') too. In my variant, 亂 'luan7' is more general and abstract, 吵 'cha2' emphasis more on being noisy.

"pang3-kE2" (= "school holidays")

Is 'kE' there indeed of tone 2 in your variant, Sim? In my variant 'ke2' means "fake", 放假 is pronounced as 'pang3-ke3'. Here 'ke2' and 'ke3' share the same hanji. Interestingly, we say 請假 'ching2-ka2' instead of 'ching2-ka3', meaning "to apply leave" or "on leave".

In my youth, I never knew any other word for "kite", and had no idea that it was not native Hokkien.

Kite: 'au5' or Malay "wau" is unique. It is heard neither in my variant of Hokkien nor in Bahasa Indonesia. Kite is "layang-layang" ("layang" = to float in the air) in Indonesian. In my variant it is 風吹 'huang1-cher1' (literally: wind-blown). I heard it as 'hong1-chue1' in Taiwanese but written with Mandarin term 風箏.

[SimL]

"pang3-kE2" (= "school holidays")

Is 'kE' there indeed of tone 2 in your variant, Sim? In my variant 'ke2' means "fake", 放假 is pronounced as 'pang3-ke3'. Here 'ke2' and 'ke3' share the same hanji. Interestingly, we say 請假 'ching2-ka2' instead of 'ching2-ka3', meaning "to apply leave" or "on leave".

Hi niuc,

I think so, but I'll check with my parents. Indeed, I pronounce the last syllable of "school holidays" to rhyme completely with "fake", including tone, i.e. both tone-2, and both with "-E".

In my youth, I never knew any other word for "kite", and had no idea that it was not native Hokkien.

Kite: 'au5' or Malay "wau" is unique. It is heard neither in my variant of Hokkien nor in Bahasa Indonesia. Kite is "layang-layang" ("layang" = to float in the air) in Indonesian. In my variant it is 風吹 'huang1-cher1' (literally: wind-blown). I heard it as 'hong1-chue1' in Taiwanese but written with Mandarin term 風箏.

Yes, "layang-layang" is also common in Malaysia. It was in fact the standard word we learnt in school. I should have been more explicit and said that "wau" was totally new to me when Ong told us about it. BTW, thanks for the correction of my original spelling, niuc - the "-w" was a contamination from Dutch, which spells IPA [au] as "-auw" .

[SimL]

Hi All,

This question came up between me and Ah-bin yesterday.

In Douglas, "thau1-bih8" is given as "to hide oneself". In Penang Hokkien, I use it in this way, e.g. "wa thau-bih ti tu e lai-bin" (= "I hid in the cupboard"). But I also use it to mean "to hide any object", for example: "i thau-bih i-e lui ti i-e e-e lai bin" (= "he hid his money in his shoe"), or "wa thau-bih hi(t)-pun chEh ti phue-tuaN e-te" (= "I hid that book under the blanket").

Is this just a contamination from English, where hide can mean both hiding oneself and hiding other objects? In other people's varieties of Hokkien, does "thau-bih" only mean "hiding oneself", as Douglas implies?

[SimL]

to throw away: ha-kak (Penang), kok-sak (Amoy)

dirty: la-sam (Penang), lap-sap (Amoy)

night-time: am-mE (Penang), am-mi, mi-si (Amoy)

handkerchief: pan-jiu (Penang), chiu-kun (Amoy)

10-cents: ci(t) puat (Penang), ci(t) kak (Amoy)

cheap: pan-gi (Penang), piN(?) (Amoy)

to vomit: au (Penang), tO (Amoy)

neck: am-a-kun (Penang), am-kun (Amoy)

all: ka-liau (Penang), cong (Amoy)

dishes to go with rice: sam-phue (Penang), mi-phe (Amoy)

spirit medium: ki-tong (Penang), tang-ki (Taiwan)

a little bit: tam-poh (Penang), sio-khua (Amoy)

rice gruel: moi (Penang), be (Amoy) [might just be two pronunciations of the same word]

to wear glasses: cheng bak-kiaN (Penang), kua bak-kiaN (Amoy) [this is probably influenced by English "to wear", and might be considered "sloppy" usage]

to stop, pause for a moment: hEnh (Penang), hioh (Amoy) [this one I'm a bit unsure of, maybe they mean two different things]

to shut the door: kam mui (Penang), kiuN mng (Amoy) [mentioned endless number of times here already ]

to touch: bong (Penang), mOh (?Amoy) [might just be two pronunciations of the same word]

great-grandfather/mother: a-cO (Penang), thai-kong/thai-ma (Amoy)

[On the subject of kinship terms, the following may be of interest. Amoy Hokkien distinguishes the husband of one's father's sister from the husband of one's mother's sister: "kO-tiuN" vs "i-tiuN", whereas on my paternal side, this distinction is totally unknown - both are just "tiauN". I don't know to what extent this is Penang Hokkien usage, or only Penang Baba Hokkien usage.]

fast, quick: khuai (Penang), kin (Amoy)

spoon: khau-kiong, thau-kiong (Penang), tng-si (Amoy) [1. I've always pronounced it "khau-kiong" (perhaps an association with "scraping"), but I believe many people say "thau-kiong" in Penang. 2. Perhaps a "tng-si" is a different sort of spoon from a "khau-/thau-kiong", I'm not sure. There's the metal spoon with the long stem - the "European" spoon, and there's the Chinese spoon, which is sort of a (bent) L-shape, made of porcelain. Perhaps these two terms distinguish these two types, but I'm not sure. The metal, European one is what I call a "khau-kiong", I don't have a word for the porcelain, Chinese one.]

ear: hi-a (Penang), hi (Amoy)

aeroplane: pue-cun (Penang), pue-ki (Amoy)

rubber: chiu-leng (Penang), chiu-ni (Amoy) [already mentioned]

itchy: ga-tai (Penang), ciuN (Amoy) [Penang word is borrowed from Malay "gatal", so perhaps should be on a different list]

[Andrew]

"pang3-kE2" (= "school holidays")

I think so, but I'll check with my parents. Indeed, I pronounce the last syllable of "school holidays" to rhyme completely with "fake", including tone, i.e. both tone-2, and both with "-E".

I think it should be either 3 or 7.

[SimL]

cheap: pan-gi (Penang), piN(?) (Amoy)

Oops, I think this should have been "phiN".

[Andrew]

all: ka-liau (Penang), cong (Amoy)

We also say long, long-cong, though ka-liau is more common.

[On the subject of kinship terms, the following may be of interest. Amoy Hokkien distinguishes the husband of one's father's sister from the husband of one's mother's sister: "kO-tiuN" vs "i-tiuN", whereas on my paternal side, this distinction is totally unknown - both are just "tiauN". I don't know to what extent this is Penang Hokkien usage, or only Penang Baba Hokkien usage.]

In my family they are both "a-tiauN" in the second person, but of course in the third person you can differentiate them as necessary as described above.

spoon: khau-kiong, thau-kiong (Penang), tng-si (Amoy) [1. I've always pronounced it "khau-kiong" (perhaps an association with "scraping"), but I believe many people say "thau-kiong" in Penang. 2. Perhaps a "tng-si" is a different sort of spoon from a "khau-/thau-kiong", I'm not sure. There's the metal spoon with the long stem - the "European" spoon, and there's the Chinese spoon, which is sort of a (bent) L-shape, made of porcelain. Perhaps these two terms distinguish these two types, but I'm not sure. The metal, European one is what I call a "khau-kiong", I don't have a word for the porcelain, Chinese one.]

I think we say thau-kiong for both types.

Sim - are you able to add tones to your list? Some of the words are unfamiliar to me.

[SimL]

spoon: khau-kiong, thau-kiong (Penang), tng-si (Amoy)

Gosh, I'm sloppy today! This should have been "thng-si"

[SimL]

In my family they are both "a-tiauN" in the second person, but of course in the third person you can differentiate them as necessary as described above.

Ah ic. So these terms were known in Penang Hokkien.

I'll check with my dad how this was in his youth. As far as I remember, "kO-" and "i-" were never (in my family) prepended to "tiauN", not even in the third person. As in Andrew's case, to address the relative in question, we would say "a-tiauN", or "tua-tiauN", "ji-tiauN", "saN-tiauN", etc, but to actually say whether this was your a-i's or or a-kO's husband, I imagine we would have said "i si wa-e a-i e ang", rather than "i si wa-e i-tiauN". But I'll check.

[Andrew]

Penang Hokkien uses "pang3" in a number of very specific ways. Basically, its most general meaning is "release". So, to release a bird from a cage would be "pang he-le ciau". Even letting a dog out of the yard, for it to run around on the streets (and have it come back home) would be "pang": "tong kim wa khi pang kau hO i cau ti gua-bin" (= "I'm now going to let the dog out, for it to run around outside"). I guess this sense of "release" fits in with the Penang Hokkien usage "pang3-kang1" (= "(the official time) to finish work, at the end of the day"), and "pang3-kE2" (= "school holidays"). It even fits in with "pang-sai" / "pang-jio" (= "to pee / shit") [of course, being Hokkien, this had to come up ].

We also use pang (is it not pang7?) in the sense of drop me off, e.g. "pang wa ti ban-san" (drop me off at the market). I think you would have to be in the car already, if not you would say "cai wa khi ban-san"

p.s. I see it is indeed pang3, in which case the above in my mind's ear is in the citation, not the sandhi tone.