Childhood games

[SimL]

Hi Niuc,

Thanks for the explanation on "sēng"/"sīng" (= "indulge, spoil; e.g. a child"), and for looking it up in Hokkien dictionaries for me. IMHO, both 乘 and 倖don't have that many meanings (in Mandarin) which are close to "indulge"... and 乘 has my "other hesitation" that it's (phonetically) "stronger" than the Hokkien. But of course, I bow to the authority of people who know far more about Sinitic languages than I do.

I lost my link to my most important on-line Hokkien dictionary (i.e. it not longer works, and gives "Page not found"). Could you (re-)post a couple of links to on-line Hokkien dictionaries here for me?

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

Wow, great! Now I have a handy consolidated list of these !

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've seen the "h-" and "k-" connection in Mandarin and Hokkien a few times, but the only example I can think of at the moment is 骨 and 滑. They are written with the same phonetic, so apparently they were once reasonably close in pronunciation. If one looks at Mandarin 骨/gǔ and 滑/huá then the connection is not that obvious. But if one looks at Hokkien 骨/kut and 滑/kút then the connection immediately becomes obvious. I can't think of any other "k-" and "h-" connections (either within Hokkien itself, within Mandarin itself, or 'across' Hokkien-and-Mandarin. If you can think of any others, please let me know. [But perhaps it's not this aspect which you find "unique" about 況...?]

[Brief linguistic interlude:

BTW, you are quite right that Mandarin 況 (pinyin "kuàng" sounds like the Hokkien "kh-" (POJ would be "khóang"). I think they are practically identical sounds.

The difference (in the initial consonants) is largely just the "accidental" result of the orthographical conventions used. Hokkien has 3 stops in each position (roughly speaking): p-, ph-, b- (labial); t-, th-, [d- (dental)]; k-, kh-, g- (velar). In each set, there's unaspirated-unvoiced, aspirate-unvoiced, and (unaspirated-)voiced. So, it needs to distinguish all 3, which it does by doing the p-/ph-, t-/th-, k-/kh- thing in POJ. Mandarin only has 2 stops in each position - unaspirated-unvoiced, and aspirated-unvoiced. In the old Wade-Giles system, this used to be written p-/p'-, t-/t'-, k-/k'-. But that left b-, d-, g- unused, and required 2 (alphabetic )characters (the stop itself, and then an apostrophe) for the aspirated series.

So, they solved this "wastage and extra letter" problem by writing the unaspirated stops as b-/d-/g-, and the aspirated stops as p-/t-/k-. So in that way Mandarin (pinyin) p-/t-/k- correspond very well to Hokkien (POJ) ph-/th-/kh-.

But I imagine you probably understood all this already!

End of linguistic interlude.]

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

Oh, thanks for that - I didn't know that about Mandarin teng2.

Yes, for most of my life I did find this odd (and still sort of do). But in some ways, one can see the same connection in English "dear". It means 1. "tender/precious to the heart of someone", e.g. "my dear cousin", and also 2. "expensive, painful", e.g. "that car is too dear; he paid dearly for his foolishness". This parallels the Hokkien/Mandarin situation very well actually. The first English meaning corresponds to "thiàⁿ" meaning love, and the second to "thiàⁿ" meaning "pain".

[FutureSpy]

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.}

That's the first time I see コマ written in kanji. Outside more literary settings, people just write it in katakana, and that's perhaps the most widespread way to write it nowadays (Even most animal names are no longer written in kanji most of the time, which is a shame!). Adding the okurigana (the kana added after kanji along with 訓読み kun'yomi pronunciations to complete the sound) 独楽, it does become 独りで楽のしむ (having fun all alone). As for its origins, no idea. I did a quick research on Google and the first result was this: http://www.tokorozawa.saitama.med.or.jp ... gogenn.htm

They say:

"'獨楽' were the characters used in Ancient China meaning 'koma'. Later in China, the sound '陀螺 (tuó luó)' similar to '獨楽 (dú lè)' started being used as the characters meaning 'koma', and '獨楽' characters meaning 'koma' are thought to have became an obsolete word and have extinguished.

They also say "獨楽" was recorded in Chinese-Japanese dictionaries from year 931-938 (Middle Heian 平安 era). It's also said to have been recorded on 弁色立成, which is not entirely clear to be a Japanese old document, but it could (but less likely) also be Chinese. The word isn't documented in any old or modern Chinese dictionaries. Anyway, it's a long article and personally, I don't find it that convincing enough to keep on reading

I also found this dictionary "由来・語源辞典" (http://yain.jp/i/独楽), and it says:

Formely called "komatsuburi", "komatsukuri", "tsumuguri", etc. "Tsuburi means the round shape. "Koma" was introduced from Ancient Korea's 高麗 Goryeo. Later, "tsuburi" was omitted and it became simply "koma". '独楽' means originally 'having fun all alone', and is a phonetic character (meaning it's not etymo isn't there) in Japan.

This one (http://www.nihon-buyo.com/2006/02/post_57.html) says:

It's told 独楽売り komauri (seems like it's some kind of dance) from the premises of 浅草寺［sensouji (the name of the temple)］is the origin of the word, and as danced the choreography using 独楽 koma, at some point 独楽売り komauri changed into 独楽 koma.

Three completely different explanations to its origins, with the last two being even less convincing than the first one... There are probably other explanations, but they seem all diverging I apologize in advance for any mistakes introduced due to my poor Japanese abilities.

[SimL]

Hi Niuc,

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.

Wow, your variant uses the internationally known and standardized name!

IImho, the cup beats the sea because the sea cannot prevent the cup from "stealing" its water.

Good interpretation

Btw, hmh means to hit, usually by or against rock or some solid and hard stuff. Do you use this verb in Penang variant?

No, we don't have this verb (phonetically very interesting!), but we have one which could be related: "hám". It's used in a very specific context: "bashing particular spices to make them release their flavour when they are cooked". The normal (only?) way to do this is to put the spice on a cutting board, and putting the flat blade of a knife over it, and then bashing down firmly on the flat surface of the knife with your fist or palm. This then bruises and breaks some of the cells of the spice, so that the flavours will be released. The most common things to "hám" are lemon grass or ginger.

I feel that semantically and phonetically, the Penang Hokkien "hám" and your "hmh" are sort of close. But they might be completely different... It's not that often that ru-tone words and non-ru-tone words are closely related.

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”.

Yes, it's a pity that one forgets these things. I seem to remember in "Cops and Robbers" that if you were caught (i.e. touched on the arm or shoulder or back), then you had to go and stand in a previously agreed rectangle, drawn on the ground. And then others from your "Robbers" team could "rescue" you by coming into the rectangle and touching you. But the details are very vague.

If you happen to speak to any old school friends (or if your mother knows), perhaps you could ask them? It's great to record these historical things here.

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

Yes, I didn't say in the original posting, but we called them "bua-gù-lî". The "bua" is obviously from Malay "buah" (a measure word / classifier for fruit / round objects?), and "gù-lî" the equally obviously from "guli", the Malay word for "marble". (I see from Wikipedia that the standard Indonesian word for this is "kelereng", which I had never heard of.)

I too was more fond of collecting marbles than playing with them. That's related to my abominable physical co-ordination as a child, so I was not particularly good in marble games either (though not really as bad as my general physical co-ordination would suggest - I could actually play marbles and not do too badly).

I remember that up to the age of 9(?) there were only the clear-glass marbles. These are the ones which are just a very nice crystal type glass, and in the centre are 3-4 "swirls" of one specific colour - usually blue, red, yellow or green, sometimes black. Then one day, these "porcelain" marbles appeared. They were not transparent glass at all, but white porcelain, with painted designs on the outside. I found the contrast fascinating, but couldn't decide which type I preferred to collect.

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.

Cool word "hiàu-sen". Do you know the characters? Oh, so boys do actually get cut by the glass on the string! I wasn't sure whether the story I had been told was more an "urban legend". Now at least I know that the guy who told me this was telling the truth.

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.

Wow. Thanks for adjusting my misconception about it being unknown in Chinese culture. I'll ask my Dad if he knows this word "kan-lòh".

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.

Haha! Indeed, I learnt this from Ah-bin. I used to think exactly the same thing.

"pûn-bót" ("pûn-kiû" if I remember correctly)

Cool! You're the first person in my adult life (i.e. in 40 years) who has confirmed to me that they too had these in their childhood.

Another traditional one is slingshot (樹奶叉"chiū-ni-che" in my variant). Was it common in Penang also?

Oh, definitely. They were always hand-made - from wire, bent into a Y-shape, or from a suitable branch of a tree which had the right shape. The "stretchy parts" were made of rubber. I think these were often "begged" from a bicycle repair shop, where they had rubber sheets to paatch tyres with.

[SimL]

I originally posted a question here because I couldn't think of a good thread to put it under. In the end, I decided just to start a new topic for it "Chinese (and other Asian) medicinal herbs". Please reply there if you can help.

[niuc]

Hi Sim

I lost my link to my most important on-line Hokkien dictionary (i.e. it not longer works, and gives "Page not found"). Could you (re-)post a couple of links to on-line Hokkien dictionaries here for me?

Now I often use 台文中文辭典 http://ip194097.ntcu.edu.tw/q/THq.asp
台灣閩南語常用詞辭典 http://twblg.dict.edu.tw/holodict_new/index.html
當代泉州音字彙 http://alt.reasoning.cs.ucla.edu/jinbo/ ... graphy.php

[But perhaps it's not this aspect which you find "unique" about 況...?]

It is common for "kh-" in Mandarin being parallel to "h-" in Cantonese but so far I only remember 況 for Hokkien. Your sample of 滑 is the other way around. And I agree with you that Hokkien preserves more "original" relationship between 骨 and 滑 than Mandarin.

Yes, for most of my life I did find this odd (and still sort of do). But in some ways, one can see the same connection in English "dear". It means 1. "tender/precious to the heart of someone", e.g. "my dear cousin", and also 2. "expensive, painful", e.g. "that car is too dear; he paid dearly for his foolishness". This parallels the Hokkien/Mandarin situation very well actually. The first English meaning corresponds to "thiàⁿ" meaning love, and the second to "thiàⁿ" meaning "pain".

Yes, it's interesting to note the "connection". Also in Tagalog, "mahal" means both "expensive" (same like in Malay) and also "love". "Mahal kita" means "I love you", which sounds odd in Malay i.e. "Expensive we (inclusive)".

[niuc]

Hi FutureSpy

どうもありがとう!

They say:

"'獨楽' were the characters used in Ancient China meaning 'koma'. Later in China, the sound '陀螺 (tuó luó)' similar to '獨楽 (dú lè)' started being used as the characters meaning 'koma', and '獨楽' characters meaning 'koma' are thought to have became an obsolete word and have extinguished.

Ah, indeed 陀螺 "tôrlôr" and 獨樂 "tòklòk" still sound quite similar in Hokkien (compare to Mandarin "tuóluó" and "dúlè")! Imho, it's quite probable that both have the same origin!

[SimL]

Hi Niuc,

Thanks very much for the 3 links.

It was the first of these which used to be automatically linked from "Etymology Page": http://www.internationalscientific.org/ ... =%E8%BB%8A. The site itself still works fine, but the link to the corresponding Hokkien pronunciation and compounds is broken nowadays. I like the site you gave very much, so I'm glad to have it again.

The second one looks pretty good too.

The third one is particularly interesting because it has an additional search method based on initial-plus-rhyme, i.e. the old qieyun method. I've not had much time to look at it, but I'm having a bit of difficulty getting that aspect to work the way I think it should. But the character-lookup part of that site is fine.

Gosh, there's now a real feast of things I can check again .

Your sample of 滑 is the other way around. And I agree with you that Hokkien preserves more "original" relationship between 骨 and 滑 than Mandarin.

Oh, you're quite right. My example has nothing to do with the point you were making, not just because it's the other way around, but because it's a "k-"-"h-" connection, not a "kh-"-"h-" connection! [BTW, on the weekend I remembered another example of my point: 寒 "koânn" (Hokkien) vs "hán" (Mandarin). Erm... does anyone know how to get superscript-n on this Forum?]

Also in Tagalog, "mahal" means both "expensive" (same like in Malay) and also "love". "Mahal kita" means "I love you", which sounds odd in Malay i.e. "Expensive we (inclusive)".

Wow, more and more indications that love is associated with pain, deep down in the human psyche!

[amhoanna]

Thanks for the epics, guys.

Superscript n? Easy. Install and use a Hoklo Latin input. I can find the links if anyone is interested.

but I'm having a bit of difficulty getting that aspect to work the way I think it should.

Mr 黃晉波's kanjictionary basically uses Pinyin, expanded for Hoklo. Yeah, Pinyin for Hoklo sucks. But the kanjictionary is excellent.

"Mahal kita" means "I love you", which sounds odd in Malay i.e. "Expensive we (inclusive)".

独楽

Interesting...

But (apparently) she never felt confident about speaking Dutch, so her solution was to just speak English.

U're talking about two languages here that share no intelligibility. Penang Hokkien and Taiwanese are plenty intelligible, although with some hardship. Perhaps it's the habit of falling back on European languages like English in Europeanized settings that's throwing U off, Sim... Maybe also the ever-present risk that the Taiwanese speaker will make a face, like, "What the hell kind of Hoklo is this?" Personally I wish all Penang Hokkien speakers would speak it with me. I wouldn't have it any other way. One time on Orchard Rd in Singapore I went up to this guy to ask directions and he answered in Penang/Medan Hokkien. It took me two or three seconds to recover from the shock of hearing Penang/Medan Hokkien. Actually, even though I asked him in Hokkien, I was kind of surprised he spoke it b/c he didn't look like a speaker, he looked "stereotypically SE Asian".

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.]

I'm not convinced that they are, even though they are functionally identical. "-ize" and "化" are functionally almost identical, but not cognate.

奶 is also nE in Penang when it means mother, as in what Douglas would call "certain forms of vile scolding".

Niûlé / niûné is fairly general term for MOTHER -- not used much these days, as far as I can tell. The matching term is niûpẽe (open e) for FATHER. Niû is 良, apparently. Some of the sages with pages on Facebook have been going over this lately.

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

The tone and the initial are both off. Overall, way off. Just going by correspondences btw Mandarin and Hokkien, though, it's a solid guess.

寵 of old had the same initial as 徹. In Hoklo, this initial tends to be expressed as th-. Indeed, 寵 = théng, thióng.

U will notice that Niuc's Hoklo s-, Mand. ch- examples are all in tone 5. This probably tells us more about Mandarin than it tells us about Hokkien. Cantonese also has s- on these.

Thanks for the discussion, y'all.

[SimL]

Hi amhoanna,

Superscript n? Easy. Install and use a Hoklo Latin input. I can find the links if anyone is interested.

I meant specifically on this Forum actually. I've tried pasting a superscipt-n which I made in Word, and it just appears as a normal n. I looked around for some markup like [sup]n[/sup] or something like that, but I haven't managed to find it.

Mr 黃晉波's kanjictionary basically uses Pinyin, expanded for Hoklo. Yeah, Pinyin for Hoklo sucks. But the kanjictionary is excellent.

This isn't one of niuc's 3 links, is it? If not, could you post it here?

Perhaps it's the habit of falling back on European languages like English in Europeanized settings that's throwing U off, Sim... Maybe also the ever-present risk that the Taiwanese speaker will make a face, like, "What the hell kind of Hoklo is this?"

You're right on both counts, plus another factor (which I've mentioned before): I'm very shy in real-life when it comes to languages which I don't speak well. Andrew is very modest about his speaking abilities in Hokkien, but I too don't really feel that my Hokkien is "that good". But hey, you say that you're Hokkien is learned later in life too (but then, you're a very self-confident person, as we know from your stories!).

Actually, even though I asked him in Hokkien, I was kind of surprised he spoke it b/c he didn't look like a speaker, he looked "stereotypically SE Asian".

I'm wondering why you feel that a "stereotypically SE Asian" person might not speak Hokkien... [Oh, wait! I got it! You mean a stereotypically non-Chinese S.E. Asian person, right? Because I grew up in S.E. Asia, to me, Chinese are (also) stereotypically S.E. Asian!]

"-ize" and "化" are functionally almost identical, but not cognate

The one which still surprises me (going off-topic for a while) is (the Mandarin) 主義/义. I mean, I'm not a purist, so I'm certainly not objecting to borrowing (words, concepts, even grammatical structures) from another language... But for me, the Mandarin 主義/义 still feels very much like "-ism" when it is an ideology: " 社會主義/socialism", "資本主義/capitalism", "共產主義/communism", "自由主義/liberalism", "帝國主義/imperialism", etc, all sound perfectly fine to me (as words, I mean, not necessarily as concepts). Even "人道主義/humanism", 國家主義/nationalism" sound ok (but perhaps a bit more 'forced'). But "悲觀主義/pessimism", "樂觀主義/optimism", "失敗主義/defeatism", "機會主義/opportunism" sound really odd to me. Even more so with the borrowed "-er" prefix after them: 樂觀主義者 = a person who subscribes to the ideology of looking on the happy side of things?!?! [But perhaps these are now perfectly normal Mandarin words, and this is just a backward foreign-language learner displaying his gross ignorance to the whole of the internet!]

BTW - FutureSpy: Does Japanese have "主義" for "-ism" and "者" for "-er" too?

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

The tone and the initial are both off. Overall, way off. Just going by correspondences btw Mandarin and Hokkien, though, it's a solid guess.

Wow! Thanks for the benefit of your much greater knowledge. It shows how wrong my "gut feeling" can be. Especially in Chinese. If one doesn't have a real understanding of the tone and sound changes, then there are so many syllables which one can incorrectly associate with one another, across the Sinitic languages. As I said before, my "gut feeling" made me perfectly sure that "chiáh" was 吃!

[niuc]

Hi Sim

Wow, your variant uses the internationally known and standardized name!

Your comment made me reading Wikipedia and doubting if it was really 紙. My mom says it is 布. It's harder to remember because the name 石頭hmh鉸刀 does not explicitly mention paper or cloth. I kind of remember both now (if my memory doesn't play trick on me!).

No, we don't have this verb (phonetically very interesting!), but we have one which could be related: "hám". It's used in a very specific context: "bashing particular spices to make them release their flavour when they are cooked". The normal (only?) way to do this is to put the spice on a cutting board, and putting the flat blade of a knife over it, and then bashing down firmly on the flat surface of the knife with your fist or palm. This then bruises and breaks some of the cells of the spice, so that the flavours will be released. The most common things to "hám" are lemon grass or ginger.

Thanks for bringing this up. I seldom hear this but my mom confirms your usage. Her sample is to "hám" onion.

I feel that semantically and phonetically, the Penang Hokkien "hám" and your "hmh" are sort of close. But they might be completely different... It's not that often that ru-tone words and non-ru-tone words are closely related.

They indeed sound quite close, because in my variant "hm2" and "hmh4" sound exactly the same (but have different sandhi). However, according to my mom the meanings are quite different. I still think that they are somehow related.

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”.

Apparently only three fingers are used, according to my wife. The other is index finger, representing man. I guess we all know what beats what by now.

I seem to remember in "Cops and Robbers" that if you were caught (i.e. touched on the arm or shoulder or back), then you had to go and stand in a previously agreed rectangle, drawn on the ground. And then others from your "Robbers" team could "rescue" you by coming into the rectangle and touching you. But the details are very vague.

Ah, I vaguely remember this game also!

(I see from Wikipedia that the standard Indonesian word for this is "kelereng", which I had never heard of.)

"Kelereng" is standard Indonesian. In Jakarta (Bahasa Betawi), it is often called "gundu". "Gundu/goondu/goondoo" is used to mean "idiot" in Singlish.

I remember that up to the age of 9(?) there were only the clear-glass marbles. These are the ones which are just a very nice crystal type glass, and in the centre are 3-4 "swirls" of one specific colour - usually blue, red, yellow or green, sometimes black. Then one day, these "porcelain" marbles appeared. They were not transparent glass at all, but white porcelain, with painted designs on the outside.

I had the same types, which are quite different from Wikipedia's pictures.

Cool word "hiàu-sen". Do you know the characters?

"Hiàu" means "to fall away". Online dictionary (1st) lists 2 entries, one with POJ and the other one written as 翹 (also "khiàu"). My mom says that it is "hiàu-san", which is more logical because "sen" is not a proper Hokkien word (in my variant). However, I only remember hearing and saying "hiàu-sen" as a young boy back then. For "san", may be it is 山, so the kite "fall away into the mountain", sort of...

Oh yeah, did you play with yo-yo?