"Busybody" in Hokkien

[Niuc]

Hi Sim,

Nice to hear from you again. Quite busy nowadays?

'Ki tiah' seems to be the naturalized Penang version of Malay word "ketiak". It should sound very natural to you & Penang people, right?

This site http://netcity6.web.hinet.net/UserData/ynlin/Word-A.htm http://netcity6.web.hinet.net/UserData/ ... .htm#AQ-AR has the word 'kue4 e7 khang1' romanized as "koeh'e khafng" for armpit. Unfortunately no corresponding 'hanji' provided.


Best Regards,
Niuc

[%sig%]

[Sim]

Niuc,

Thanks for telling me that.

I left Malaysia when I was 14, in 1972 (before the medium of instruction switched to Malay), so my Malay vocabulary is VERY limited. Indeed, a word like "ki3-tiah1" is completely natural to me, and as I didn't happen to know it's a Malay word too, I have always just assumed it was normal Hokkien!

Sometimes, the sound in the word will betray that it's not a native Hokkien word, like (saucer) "pi3-ring1" (which my family pronounce with an actual "r"). Then, even if I don't know it's a Malay word (though in this case, I *do* know), I can guess, because "r" does not occur in native Hokkien words. Or (dragonfly) "b@3-la1-lang3", where the "@" is a "schwa", which also doesn't occur in native Hokkien words.

But the vast majority of Malay words in Penang Baba Hokkien, like (animal) "bin3-na3-tang1", (help) "to'3-long2", (quarter) "su3-ku4", sound completely natural to me. As I have tried to indicate, the individual syllables even have their assigned tones, which have to be correctly pronounced.

In fact, this doesn't only apply to Malay words. In my family it's quite common to say: "i1 kong4 e3 mih1 bo3 mi3-ning1 e2" (literally: he talk "e" things don't-have meaning "e" = the things he says are not logical). [ Note the slight change in meaning: "bo3 mi3-ning1" DOESN'T quite mean "doesn't have meaning", but means in fact "is not logical". ]

Let me close this note with a repeated apology for the incorrect marking of the Hokkien tones. This is just the way I associate Hokkien tones to the roughly equivalent sounding Mandarin ones. One of these days, I *promise* I will put my nose to the grindstone and try and learn the correct system for writing Hokkien tones. As you gathered, I've been very busy lately. Until then, please bear with me. My one consolation is that Mandarin speakers not familiar with but vaguely interested in Hokkien will be able to (roughly) read my tone marks, because everyone knows the 4 Mandarin tones.

Cheers,
Sim.

[%sig%]

[Casey]

Niuc
My expression of "armpit" is "koh4 e7 khang1" in Hanzi as "胳下空".

Sim
I used to be quite lost in quoting the tone marks in Hokkien but thanks to Niuc who taught me an easy way to remember them. I called this the "animal rule". Just remember the tones of these animals and you can remember the tone marks without any difficulties at all.

Tone mark Animal
1 lion sai1
2 tiger hoo2 ( "oo" as the "o" in "hot")
3 rabbit thoo3 ("oo" as the "o" in "hot")
4 duck ah4
5 cow gu5
6 horse be2 (tone6 and tone2 are the same)
7 elephant chhiu*7 ("*" = nasal)
8 deer look8 ("oo" as the "o" in "hot")

Try it, Sim! It is easy. Thanks again to Niuc.

[Casey]

Sim
I did this with proper spacings without realizing that all of them would be omitted after posting. Hope you could make it out.

[Sim]

Casey,

Thanks. And thanks to Niuc too.

I remember seeing a reference to these animals once, but I must have missed the original posting, and have been wondering about it.

Very useful. I'll start a new note about how in my version of Penang Hokkien many other tones are also similar to one another, so I end up with only 4.

Hopefully some Penang Hokkien speaker can point out to me how some of the tones which I consider similar are actually different.

Cheers,
Sim.

[Niuc]

Sim & Casey,

Casey, thanks a lot for 胳下空 the 'hanji' for armpit in Hokkien. Douglas' XiaYing Dacidian indeed has "koh4 e7 khang1" but without 'hanji'. I was focusing on looking for "kue4"/"koeh4" hence missed the entry "koh4". May be "koeh4" is a variation of "koh4" or formed from "koh4 + e7".

Sim, thanks a lot for sharing your linguistic experience with us. The tonal "animal rule" is not invented by me, it's taken from http://edu.ocac.gov.tw/language/taiwanese/ .

It's really interesting to notice how loan words from Malay, English, etc are naturalized in Hokkien, particularly Penang Hokkien. In our dialect, in lesser degree, we also use some naturalized Malay words like 'pa2 sat4' (pasar) although we also use its Hokkien counterparts like 'chai3 chi7', 'chi7 tiu*5'.

It's also interesting to notice the shifting of meaning of loaned words as in "b@3-la1-lang3" (dragonfly) and "mi3-ning1" (logical). In Malay, "belalang" means grasshopper, dragonfly is "capung". Schwa is found in Cuanciu (Quanzhou) accent but not in E-mng, Ciangciu & Penang accents.

Two of the examples given by you i.e. 'to5 long5' & 'su5 ku2' are also heard in our usage as variations. The former is more often used, the latter is rarely used.

* saucer -> 'phiat8' ['phiat4' in E-mng?] ('石+匹' in 廈門方言詞典)
* dragonfly -> 'chan5 ni1' (田..?) -> 'an7 chan5 ni1 a0'
* grasshopper -> 'chau2 ni4' ['chau2 me4' in E-mng?] (草蜢?) -> 'chau2 ni4 kong1 a0'
* animal -> 'cing1 si*1' (牲牲 in 廈門方言詞典)
* help -> 'tau3' (鬥), 'pang1 co7' (幫助), 'kiu3 mia7' (救命)
* quarter -> 'si3 hun7 cit8' (四分一), 'si3 hun7 ci1 it4' (四分之一) -> are there any more colloquial?

Casey, please help to find and confirm the 'hanji' for those words above. And how do you say "bo3 mi3-ning1" (not logical) as in Sim's example? I think of 'bue7 jip8 nau2' ('勿+會' 入腦) but don't know if it's suitable.

[%sig%]

[yisheng]

Hi Niuc,

seing you write about pa2 sat4 reminds me of the term we Penangnites use for it, we use the term ban3 san1 or could be ban7 san1, I'm not sure because the 3rd and 7th tone sounds the same to me.

Also, with regards to the insect discussion, grasshopper = chau2 me4 kong1 and dragonfly= be3 la1 lang3 in Penang Hokkien. The strange thing is that both are actually the same thing, as belalang means grasshopper in malay. That's why some people say that Penang Hokkien is actually a corrupted form of the original Baba Hokkien dialect.

I would say bo3 mi1 ning3 as bo3 i1 su3 as in mei2 yi4 shi4 in mandarin but I guess that would isn't correct.

One last question, what is turnip in hokkien? I call it bang3 kuang1, which is borrowed from the Malay word, mangkung.

yisheng

[Niuc]

Hi Yisheng,

'ban7 san1' may be from Malay word "basar" (similar to "pasar"). This word is originated in Persian i.e. "bazar", also loaned into English "bazaar".

'bang3 kuang1' (we call it 'pang7 kuan1') is "bengkuang" in Indonesian. I don't know its Hokkien word. How to say it in Mandarin and English? Turnip is another kind of plant.

There are many plants (and things) that are not native to China and were unknown to our ancestors hence there are no native Hokkien words for them. E.g. potato, Hokkien people in China & Taiwan should know how to name it in Hokkien but the word might not be known, let say, 200 years ago. Its Mandarin word (馬鈴薯 ma3ling2shu2) also was unknown before. Btw, what's potato in Hokkien? We usually just call it 'kan1 tang1' [Malay "kentang"].

I once read that there are a lot of aloe vera in Hokkien/Fujian province. It's 蘆薈 (lu2hui4) in Mandarin. Is it called 'lo5 hui7' in Hokkien?

Casey or any friends here, may be Kaiah, can help? Thanks.

[%sig%]

[Niuc]

Sorry, 馬鈴薯 should be 'ma3ling2shu3' in Mandarin.

[%sig%]

[Miles]

I'm sorry I don't know the proper way to write words in Hokkien. I don't know how to spell properly or place the correct accent. I am a Filipino-Chinese and unfortunately, I know very little about my Chinese roots. One day a friend of mine and I were discussing Hokkien words and I found that he doesn't know what "lau siong" means and that he only knows "an tsam". I know both to mean the same thing: "dirty". I wonder if this is due to us coming from different parts of China and using a different version of Hokkien or if these two words have slightly different usages or meanings? If so can anyone explain why this is so? Are we using different kinds of Hokkien or does this further demonstrate our simple ignorance in Hokkien words? Because admittedly we know only very few and simple words. I myself cannot speak straight Chinese and I have a terrible example. I hope someone could enlighten me. I apologize if this is an off-topic discussion. I would appreciate any help anyone can give me!