Penang Hokkien

[niuc]

Sim, as Andrew said, don't hesitate to post any questions / insights. I have been learning a lot from all postings from all friends here.

[tangoloonokongo]

Hi Ladies and Gentlemen

I came across the English word "Tibet" as the name for the western-most province of China. Can anybody guest where it came from? Once you found out the answer, you will be stuipified for sure. Mr Hong, if you are looking, go ask those 'famous' professors in Beijing, they would not be able to tell you at all.

Thanks

Tang Loon Kong
Shanghai, China

[tangoloonokongo]

Tang Loon Kong

From my limited knowledge of Malay language, "kami" (exclusive of people speaking to) and "kita" (inclusive of people speaking to) are different in their usage. This further proves my point of " ԛ Ç " is definitely not "kami" because its usage is like "kita".

Hi Casey, I took a review of our discussions, and found out there there could be a root word for ''kita". It could be again since this is a Hokkien forum "thee tha" which means everydoy else. So the words "kami" and "kita" are now explained.

We can also take a look at origins of the "pisau" and "Tibet". Let us see if anyone could say anything. For me, this expedition requires more than a good dictionary. We could use some "feel the force" like they say in the "STAR WARS" movie.

[ong]

some people in malaysia say kha khu1 =jail.I don't think it means jail .I can find one dict says it means trap 陷井 although khu 臼 is 7 th tone.

[Andrew]

I presume you know Penang Road around Chowrasta market is (documented in a 1900 Royal Asiatic Society journal as being) known as 舊骹拘 ku-kha-khu which means the "old prison". I have posted my street names of Penang on http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Place_and_ ... reet_Names If anyone wants to help correct the hanzi and put tone numbers in the romanisation, I would be grateful.

Barclay has kha-khu-keng, a prison, teng7 kha-khu, to condemn to imprisonment, and khu-liu5, to keep in ward, khu-liu5-sO2, place of detention.

[ong]

It seems unthinkable if kha khu means jail,it can be missing in just a century.However we can expect lai li a ,ling a king to be out of used.
I sent an email to ciangciu expect to ask is it came from ciangciu kha khi ,she said she only know the normal kann.
I just found out japanese dict has kha ku king(戏谑语〕。The hanzi ku is 痀.
ku has the meaning of 隨便 tua ，so I guess it means chhin chhai tua in jail.But 拘 also has the correct meaning.

[Tan Lay-Lynn]

Secondly, the English dictionary describes the 'ketchup' as coming from preserved fishsauce. Well, this tells us two important things. First is that tomatos are very different from fish, and second, the English man may have seen this preserved fish sauce which actually came from salt-water fish and salt, which suggest the observation may have taken place at the coastal area of southern China.

Thirdly, taking the first and second, we approach this dilemma and take a close look at the first syllable of 'ketchup' which is 'ket . . . " Could it mean something else other the fruit or gourd or tomato?

Finally, we can suggest that the first syllable of 'ketchup' which is 'ket . . ' does not represent any fruit or fish, but it could represent taste or texture. Relying on the fact that, it was preserved fish sauce that the Englishman saw, the taste or even texture cold have been thicker and stronger. Therefore it is high probable that the 'ket . . " (or "kit . . ") could mean thick or strong, and hence ketchup means strong or thick sauce rather than preserved fish sauce. Now we undertsnad the root of the confusion - the Englishmen were looking at the raw products, and the Hokkiens were talking about end products which should have thick texture and strong taste, and that should be where the first syllable came from.

Hi there, I'm new to this forum and as my name would suggest, I'm Hokkien too and I speak Terengganu Hokkien which is similar to Penang Hokkien. I have a few things to say about Loon Kong's comment above about ketchup and its connection to preserved fish sauce. The Hokkiens in Terengganu produce a type of thick black sweet sauce made from fish and it tastes a lot like the sweet black sauce in the Indomee Goreng (Asli flavour). Terengganu Hokkiens call this sauce 'kay chiap' as if it's chicken sauce but it is in fact made from fish.

By the way, I don't find many Terengganu Hokkien speakers out there, probably because there are very few Terengganu Hokkiens to begin with. Hope to see a few things on this brand of Hokkien in this forum. Thanks.

[niuc]

Hi Lay-Lynn

Welcome to this Hokkien forum! May be you can share more with us about Terengganu Hokkien too.

[SimL]

Lay-Lynn:

My parents spent a very important part of their lives in Trengganu, so (even though I've never been there), it's a special place for me. They lived in and were connected with Kuala Trengganu, Kemaman, Dungun, and Bisut, and lived for some time in the first two.

Welcome to the Forum. Very nice to see you here.

Niuc:

Hi again. I've started quite a long reply to your posting on fishes. I've already spoken once to my parents about the fishes they remember, but I have to check a few points with them again this weekend before I post the whole thing.

Cheers,
Sim.

[Tan Lay-Lynn]

Hello all! Thank you for your warm welcome.

Sim, I never lived in Terengganu but I had spent most of my holidays there and my family has spoken the peculiar dialect for more than 10 generations now. As in Penang Hokkien, rice is pnui instead of peng (like in Malacca Hokkien), chicken is kay instead of koay, fire is huey instead of her, photographs are siow eng instead of siong and who is chuchui (or chui chui) instead of tiang. I understand that spoon in Penang Hokkien is kau keong or something, but we call it tayng see (a little different from theng see as spoken by southerners).

The big difference between Terengganu Hokkien and Penang Hokkien, I suppose, is the liberal usage of Terengganu Malay dialect in daily speech such as sokmo (which means always), le le or le le ni to mean now (derived from le ning in Terengganu Malay), hok tu for that one, gamok for maybe (as in agaknya or gamaknya in standard Malay). Other more common Malay sounding words like sabun and jambu are also used and I think are present in Penang Hokkien too.

I think the Kelantanese Hokkiens would be able to understand Terengganu Hokkien fairly well. Kelantanese Hokkien tend to borrow from both Kelantanese Malay and Siamese. My friend once told me that if a Kelantanese Hokkien were to invite you to their home, they say, lai gua eh chu teng chay (literally, come and sit on my roof). The more rural Hokkiens in the Malay heartland also tend to incorporate Malay grammar and sentence structure in their Hokkien. In usual Hokkien, if we were to say 'my car', most of us say 'gua eh chia' but rural folks say 'chia gua' as in 'kereta saya'. I've read papers on Kelantanese Hokkien and there were two sentences that I fail to decipher till today, which are: 1) Menantu ee moga baka chong ek, and 2) lang bek khi tong nan, ee bek khi jugok.