Malaysian/Singaporen Hokkien foreign malay words

[niuc]

Hi Sim

As you most probably remember, although roughly I think I can understand about the glottal stop thing, it doesn't differentiate the meaning for me. In my variant e.g. 'si2' and 'si4' sound exactly the same, but having different sandhi. But it's great that for you (and others), glottal stop does differentiate the meaning!

[SimL]

Hi niuc,

I understand your point, but my tone contour for tone2 and tone4 are very different anyway (tone2 = high or high very slightly falling; tone4 = low, abrupt termination), so the issue is very different for me.

However, here I'm talking about *initial* glottal stop. The difference between 'ia' (with initial glottal stop) and 'ya' (with initial glide). The latter is (I think) only in the word "ka-ya" and only because it's a borrowed Malay word. I think all my native Hokkien words with initial "i-" have a (very light) initial glottal stop. For example, I pronounce "print" or "to answer" as "in" as IPA [ʔin], not [in] or [jin]. In this particular situation, the absence or presence of the initial glottal stop is also not a distinction in meaning: it's just that it's more normal for me to pronounce it with.

[niuc]

Hi Sim

Probably I misheard, apparently in Singapore it is 'ka1-ia1', same as Penang.

[amhoanna]

Worked on my Malay a little yesterday and it occurred to me, could Hokkien "cim" come from or be related to Malay "cium"?

[xng]

Worked on my Malay a little yesterday and it occurred to me, could Hokkien "cim" come from or be related to Malay "cium"?

No, because it is also used in Taiwan. I saw a chinese character for it but have forgotten.

[aokh1979]

Worked on my Malay a little yesterday and it occurred to me, could Hokkien "cim" come from or be related to Malay "cium"?

"Tsim" is widely used in China and Taiwan but there was no absolute character for it. Some use 唚 to record it, and some 斟. It is very likely a loanword from Malay. Have you checked indigenous languages in Taiwan and see if it also exists ?

[Ah-bin]

Chiu Tiang-ip notes chim (to kiss) as a Malay loan into Hokkien - and it's a mainland dictionary. BTW, I can't recommend this dictionary enough.

[niuc]

If cim1/tsim1 is from Malay (which is possible/probable), i wonder what was "previous" Hokkien word for "to kiss"? And Mandarin usage of 親 for this meaning (beside 吻), is it influenced by tsim1/cium?

Btw, "cium" in Indonesian has 2 meanings: to kiss and to smell.

[Ah-bin]

Hmm...that question led me to look a little deeper

Chim is in Barclay and MacGowan without any comment on a foreign origin. I'll have to look in a Hokchiu or Hainanese dictionary (just tried) can't find it in the Haikow one, also couldn't find it in my Lui-chiu dictionary.

BUT C.C. Baldwin's Manual of the Foochow Dialect (p.247) Has ching choi 烝嘴 (does final -ng in Hokchiu correspond to final -m in Hokkien? Looks like it does ching is "deep" 深 in Hokchiu!)

So it looks like there is a "native" origin for this word after all, and it is used in some other types of MIn.

[amhoanna]

So maybe it's a coincidence ... or a "deep cognate", for the Austric/Austro-Tai set.

My go-to source for Austronesian vocab doesn't list KISS, but it does have SNIFF/SMELL. Malay "cium" comes in under this gloss. Nothing doing, Formosa-wise.

http://language.psy.auckland.ac.nz/aust ... d.php?v=29

I read that some coastal Formosan languages, like Siraya and Amis, loaned a lot of words from Malay. I don't know if this was via Luzon languages or, hey, maybe even Cham. It's funny, but maybe in the old days (say, 1400) if a Formosan met a Hokkien in a bar in Pattani, they might've spoken Malay.

Hokkien: Lu dari mana?
Formosan: Dari Taiwan.
Hokkien: Taiwan di mana, tak tahu lah.
Formosan: Lai, lim!
Hokkien: Ha? Lu pun cakap Hokkien?

Interesting points brought up by everyone. If there's no proto-Sinitic word for KISS, but there is one for proto-Ban (Min), does that mean that the proto-Bans kissed people, but the ancient Sinas didn't?