Hokkien words in Thai

[niuc]

Hi Amhoanna

Yes, usually just called "Bagan-lang". Bagan Hokkiens may not have much (direct) blood ties with Hokkiens in Klang or Melaka, but linguistically Bagan Hokkien-ue is more similar to Hokkien in Southern Malaysia and Singapore than to Penang (Northern Malaysia). Our variant is basically Tang-ua*-ue 同安話.

O i c, personally I think of Lâm'iûⁿ as to mean South East Asia, especially Indonesia, Malaysia & Singapore. Hoan-a 番仔 in Bagan usually refers to Indonesian natives, so I usually think of huan-pin (Hoanpêng) as Indonesia and Malaysia (since Malaysian Malays are related to Indonesia Malays).

In Sumatra, Medan Hokkien is very similar to Penang Hokkien and they still actively use it. Chinese in Bagan and some surrounding towns & villages (including smaller number of Teochews, Hainanese and Hakka) still speak Hokkien. However, children of those who moved to Jakarta or elsewhere usually are losing their ability to speak Hokkien due to their environments. You can visit Medan or Bagan to see it

[Ah-bin]

and Thai words in Hokkien....

I bought a copy of 泰国的三个汉语方言 (Three Chinese Dialects of Thailand) by 陈晓锦 Chen Xiaoqin on my way through Canton, Like the author's book about Malaysian Chinese it describes Teochiu, Cantonese and Hakka. giving 3800 character readings, 2200 vocabulary items and a section on the grammar of each dialect.

What I found interesting was that she notes the "pa" in "soaN-pa" (jungle or forest) as a borrowing from Thai into Teochiu, Hakka, and Cantonese. I recall this was mentioned somewhere before. I wonder if this word got down as far as Indonesia, and I wonder how it got into Penang Hokkien? It is used there in one of my favourite insults "soaN-pa-kau" - literally a "jungle monkey" referring to a boorish person.

[SimL]

It is used there in one of my favourite insults "soaN-pa-kau" - literally a "jungle monkey" referring to a boorish person.

ROTFL!!!

Your vocabulary is really getting good! I haven't heard this one for years (for me, also has some connotations of the person being a hooligan - i.e. there would be some element of "threat of violence" in the person's behaviour as well; but only a connotation, not a "meaning" which is strictly present).

Excellent, excellent!

[SimL]

... In Sumatra, Medan Hokkien is very similar to Penang Hokkien and they still actively use it. ...

Hi niuc,

You had told us this in earlier postings, so I had known it for a number of years, but it was really brought home to me again when I met this lady from Medan at the EATS conference. With her, I felt 100% comfortable, as I felt that I was simply speaking Penang Hokkien. From memory, there were one or two phrases or terms which were different, and we noticed and talked about them then. Unfortunately, I didn't make notes of that.

Now, thinking back, I recall that I *had* met a guy from Medan in Amsterdam, about 15 years ago. I had forgotten about him until writing this reply. We didn't speak much, but I now realise that when we did say some things to one another in Hokkien, it too was very similar. Somehow it didn't make as much of an impression on me at the time - perhaps because Hokkien hadn't yet become one of my major areas of interest.

[niuc]

What I found interesting was that she notes the "pa" in "soaN-pa" (jungle or forest) as a borrowing from Thai into Teochiu, Hakka, and Cantonese. I recall this was mentioned somewhere before. I wonder if this word got down as far as Indonesia, and I wonder how it got into Penang Hokkien? It is used there in one of my favourite insults "soaN-pa-kau" - literally a "jungle monkey" referring to a boorish person.

Ah-bin, excellent term indeed! Yes, 'pa1' is very "natural" in my variant, in fact we usually say 'sua*1-pa1' 山芭 or 'pa1-lai7' 芭內 rather than 'chiu7-na5' 樹林. Around Bagansiapiapi there are islands/villages named 'si3-kak4-pa1' 四角芭 rectangular/square forest, 'chau3-ta1-pa1' 臭乾(焦)芭 scorched forest, 'tua7-pa1' 大芭 big forest.... I think I had posted last time, but no harm to repeat here , interestingly 'pa1' in Bagan context itself can mean part of the town (which was a forest), we have 'pa1-lia4/jia4' (not sure what is lia/jia here) for the downtown/centre, 'ting2-pa1' 頂芭 southern (upstream) part and 'e7-pa1' 下芭 northern (downstream) part of Bagansiapiapi.

I didn't know 'pa' is a Thai word. Thanks for the info.

You had told us this in earlier postings, so I had known it for a number of years, but it was really brought home to me again when I met this lady from Medan at the EATS conference. With her, I felt 100% comfortable, as I felt that I was simply speaking Penang Hokkien. From memory, there were one or two phrases or terms which were different, and we noticed and talked about them then. Unfortunately, I didn't make notes of that.

Sim, it must be a very happy occasion to meet someone who speak very similar variant, especially in a place like Europe! It would be great should you have taken note of that, but I think you are still in contact with her, so next time you still can find out more and share with us!

Now, thinking back, I recall that I *had* met a guy from Medan in Amsterdam, about 15 years ago. I had forgotten about him until writing this reply. We didn't speak much, but I now realise that when we did say some things to one another in Hokkien, it too was very similar. Somehow it didn't make as much of an impression on me at the time - perhaps because Hokkien hadn't yet become one of my major areas of interest.

My experience with Medan Hokkien speakers was typical that I could understand their Hokkien more than they mine. Many of them "complained" that Bagan Hokkien was too "heavy", most probably referring to our accent (lower pitch). My sister can speak Medan Hokkien as she lived there for several years. So far I only could try to highlight (repeat) certain words in Medan variant for them to understand me better. If we still couldn't communicate well, we switched to Indonesian or Mandarin.

In Singapore, some of my colleagues speak to me in Hokkien, often mixed with Mandarin, Teochew, Cantonese and surely English. Rojak!

[amhoanna]

Thanks, SimL. It's great to be here. I must've stumbled across some of you guys' comments as far back as 2006. Good stuff! I promised myself I would come over and do some reading as soon as I had time.

When I lived in N America, I knew a good number of people from the same background as your acquaintance. No offense intended, but I would describe them as refugees from an imaginary country (the old ROC) which doesn't really exist anymore... The "fusion" ROC that exists today, or even as it existed in the 70s, falls way short of their vision, and I think they've always held it against Taiwan for that. It's true that in the US, esp, you'll meet proto-Blue aSoaⁿ (some prefer "goāséng") emigrées with "unadulterated" viewpoints which reflect the state of the discussion at the time they left. They feel out of touch with modern Taiwan. Gún lāupē tō sī ánne. Since they don't speak Holo, I think they feel naked w/o martial law. In the US, you also find hardline proto-Green emigrées holding on to a vision of Taiwan which, although arguably better than the status quo, is pretty deluded. But both groups of emigrées live in the US, will probably die in the US, and vote Republican all the way.

Hi, Niuc. I've been wanting to go to Sumatra for a long time, esp the Minangkabau area to see if I can get cio'd (as in "hō͘'n̂g cio", "hō͘ lâng cio") by a Minang family But it seems like bahasa Hokkien doesn't go far on that side of the island.

[amhoanna]

Here's a closely related thread over at Thai Language dot com:

http://www.thai-language.com/forums/t/l ... tion/t2170

Interesting discussion of land-based loans vs sea-based loans.

Thai Language hosts probably the best Thai-English-Thai dictionary on the web. Somebody compiled a page of Teochew loanwords:

http://www.thai-language.com/id/589976/

From reading the thread, I'd suspect that the list is the tip of an iceberg...

Based on tone contours, it's "probable" that some of the words on the list were loaned from a Coanciu-type dialect of Holo.

ก๋วยเตี๋ยว = 粿條 koétiâu: second syllable is low-rising (like Hokkien), not high-rising (like the high-flat in Teochew)

บุ๋น = 文 bûn ... has a low-rising tone also.

So on and so forth for anything that comes from 阳平, this is where Hokkien and Teochew differ.

บู๊ = 武 bú ... has a high-rising tone, likely an approximation of the high-flat 阴上 citation tone in some Coanciu dialects. Teochew tone would be high-falling (citation) or high-rising (non-citation), just like in Lo̍kkáng.

หุ้น = 份 hūn (share of stock) ... is high-falling, like the 41 去聲 contour in those same Coanciu dialects... Teochew 份 would be low-level or low-falling at all times.

Then again,

เถ้าแก่ / เถ้าแก่เนี้ย = 頭家/頭家娘 has the expected high-rising approximation of Teochew niâ, but where did they get high-falling and low-level for thâukE? Unsolved mysteries

[amhoanna]

"Hokkien Chinese Loanwords in Tagalog", 1977

http://www.sil.org/asia/philippines/sip ... 17-049.pdf

The list is incredibly long. A lot of them "look" Austronesian, e.g. "huwana", which means Huili̍ppin lâng.

[amhoanna]

Back to the Thai list, I noticed the word ซี้ซั้ว /si:45 swa45/ (schwa-ish a)

This has got to be the same word as the one that shows up on http://sisuahlai.blogspot.com/ as the name of the blog. Sisoa or sisoaⁿ (no tones)? I don't think this word is used in Taiwan. Are you guys familiar with it?

[Ah-bin]

I'm very grateful to have Amhoanna here to sort out these questions. It's just wonderful to have you able to go into a scientific analysis like this.

Those loanwords that arrived by land, are they from southwestern Mandarin?

It's also fascinating to read about the political background to some of these things. I think I often identified myself with the "Old" ROC. Of course, I put it in perspective by remembering (among other things) that they were much more effective at stamping out non-Mandarin languages in Taiwan than the communists were in China at around the same time. The result is people in Amoy who speak Hokkien to each other are still noticeably younger then those who spoke it to each other in Taiwan - and there were teenage girls who speak it too.

Now that I hear pa is used in Indonesia, I'm beginning to doubt its Thai origins. I know it is a word used in Tai languages in the southwest of China, but if it is not attested in Taiwanese, Amoy, Chiang-chiu or Choan-chiu, it is very unlikely that it is a loan from the original pre-Sinitic languages of southern Fukien. I wonder how it got as far south as Bagansiapiapi?