I would like to learn Hokkien

Discussions on the Hokkien (Minnan) language.
Eng Wai

Post by Eng Wai »

Hong, "Hokkien transcription" means Hokkien "pin yin". I haven't learnt Church romanisation or peh o ji. I m trying to learn now, starting from learning tone.

Mei Xian is current;y the capital of Hakka. Shanghai is the capital for Shanghainese. Xia Men might be the capital of Hokkien in mainland, but entertainment and language wise, Taiwanese might be the more appropriate capital, Like HOng Kong for Cantonese.

Anyway, this is somehting unrealted to tone. Can you help me put up some examples for diffeent tones? I would appreciate if your examples are of Penanag Hokien.

Eng Wai
hong

Post by hong »

Most Taiwanese are speaking a minnan language which is very close to xiamen by throwing away cuanchiu and ciangchiu vowel now.Except for some old guys who retain cuanchiu vowel,the rest keep on pushing their minnan towards xiamen.If you learn taiwanese minnan,you are learning xiamen as well except for some borrowing words.xiamen use agak from malay but not taiwanese.
Not every penang speak same minnan.People like the late Loke Boon Siew speaks huian style with 6th tone.A freind of mine from penang just told me his father use seh for speak instead of kong in penang.You can't set up a table with the exact pitch for penang minnan unless you have used a meter to get the real pitch from at least 100 local people.
The web site from taiwan with sound are good enough to learn some minnan very close to xiamen.I already told you about 3 and 7.
Guest

Post by Guest »

Eng Wai wrote:...
I haven't learnt Church romanisation or peh o ji. I m trying to learn now, starting from learning tone.
...
Hi Eng Wai,

I'm very busy at the moment, but perhaps in a few weeks time I'll be able to give you a hand...

In the meantime, here are 3 links. The first 2 give a bit of historical background into peh-oe-ji, the 3rd gives an introduction to the script.

Unfortunately this last link doesn't cover 2 essential points which you wanted: 1) tones (well, not much anyway), 2) examples from real Hokkien words.

But it's a start.

One of the two links on the history of peh-oe-ji is an article by Henning Klöter. Henning has posted to this Forum. His book "Written Taiwanese" (based on his PhD thesis) has just come out, and it's *BRILLIANT*.

I've mentioned the book before, but only lately have I been able to see a copy of the definitive version. I hope to get some time to post a review of it here in the next few weeks.

Cheers,
Sim.

History of POJ:

http://203.64.42.21/iug/ungian/POJ/siau ... loeter.pdf

http://home.kimo.com.tw/de-han/pehoeji/lomaji/3.htm


Intro to POJ:

http://www.coastalfog.net/languages/xiarom.html
Eng Wai

Post by Eng Wai »

Tones
-------

Examples by Aurerio

(1) tiong1 中, yi1 伊=他
(2) gua2 我, lu2 汝=你, hou2 好
(3) khi3 去, ai3 爱 = 要
(4) kok4 国, beh4 = 要

(5) bou5 无, lai5 来 lang5 人
(6) = 2nd tone
(7) u7 有 si7 是 m7 = 不
(8.) chiah8 食 - the most important of all

Original Contour (http://www.coastalfog.net/languages/xiarom.html, supplied by Sim)
1) 55
2) 51
3) 11
4) 32
5) 24
6) 51
7) 33
8) 5

Why there is only one number in the 8th tone? What does it mean? Can someone please give more examples on 7th tones? It is because I pronounce u7 as u3, si7 as si3.

Eng Wai
Eng Wai

Post by Eng Wai »

Andrew wrote: ...

Sim and I also cannot tell apart 3 and 7. I think in Penang, like Chiangchiu, it is almost identical. However, the trick is to find out the sandhi form, e.g. chhau3 (smelly) is clearly 3 because in chhau3-bi7 it is high, whereas bi (smell) is clearly 7 because in bi7-sO3 it is low.

...
I pronounce smelly (chou4 wei4 in Mandarin) as chhau7 bi3, not chhau3-bi7 !! :(

Eng Wai
Andrew

Post by Andrew »

Eng Wai, do you understand the concept of tone sandhi? Tones change when words are combined, e.g. 很好 in Mandarin is written in pinyin hen3hao3 but pronounced hen2hao3

Peh-oe-ji, like hanyu pinyin, marks the original tones. So chhau3-bi7 is written thus, but pronounced chhau2-bi7.

The 4 and 8 tones are clipped, so some people show their tone contour as being only one number. The basic thing to remember is that in Pg Hokkien, like Amoy Hokkien, 4 is low (becomes high in sandhi), and 8 is high (becomes low in sandhi). Contrast 十七 and 七十 and decide which is 4 and which is 8.
Andrew

Post by Andrew »

Eng Wai: if you speak the same Hokkien and Sim and I it is possible there is no distinction between the sound of the 3 and 7 in your dialect.
Guest

Post by Guest »

Andrew wrote: ...
The 4 and 8 tones are clipped, so some people show their tone contour as being only one number. The basic thing to remember is that in Pg Hokkien, like Amoy Hokkien, 4 is low (becomes high in sandhi), and 8 is high (becomes low in sandhi). Contrast 十七 and 七十 and decide which is 4 and which is 8.
...
What do you mean exactly, 'the 4 & 8 tones are clipped'?? Is the original contour chart I copied from the website applicaple on general Pg Hokkien? (aside from 7 and 3 tone)

Eng Wai
Andrew

Post by Andrew »

Obviously when you say bah4 or bak8 it is a lot shorter than ba5 or ba1. So there is not enough time for much tone variation.

Have you read http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Penang_Hokkien ?
Eng Wai

Post by Eng Wai »

Hi Andrew, big salutation to you!! Good piece of work, I have to say. Last time it was still in its rudimental form, a big change indeed.. :D

But I have something reagrading the tones to ask for your futher teachings.

PG Hokkien (wikipedia)
1. 陰平 Yin-ping |55|
2. 上聲 Shang-sheng |51|
3. 陰去 Yin-qu |21|
4. 陰入 Yin-ru |2|
5. 陽平 Yang-ping |25|
6.
7. 陽去 Yang-qu |21|
8. 陽入 Yang-ru |5|

Can you give more examples for each tone? If it is in Sandhi form, can you state it clearly? And since 3 & 7th tone are identical, how could I konw it should be 3rd tone or 7th tone? Eg pui7 (rice), se3 (smalll).

On hwat basis these tones are called 陰陽上? I konw in Mandarin 陰陽上去 are tone 1,2,3,4 respectively. 入 seems to be used for "short" tone (4, 8).

Thanks a lot, Andy. Others who can help me please knidly help me as well. Just try to refrain yurself, I don't like abusive language, and I don't really like to talk about irelevant stuff on my own thread (even it is interesting).

Eng Wai
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