ka liao lang hou
I am a Penang Hokkien currently pursuing my studies in England.
Having read most of the above remarks, I wish to express some of my views.
First you have to understand the nature of CHinese languages. The 7 major dialects we always refer to, "Jin, gan, wu, yue, nan min, bei min, xiang" are actually different languages from linguistic point of view. Interestingly Nan Min and Bei Min are 2 dialect groups. You can easily spot the reasons if you observe the very distinct difference in pronoiunciation in Fu Zhou and Fu Jian "dialects. Anyway, Chinese is not a phoenetic language. So we will always use the same characters no matter how the pronounciations change over time. There are some exceptions in Cantonese n Hokkien, but overwhelmingly a Hokkein can always understand the writing of a Canton, vice versa.
Look at Indo-European languages, or more specifically, Latin, they are phoenetic languages. When pronounciation change, the spelling will change. Eventually a dialect evolves into a language with completely different prounounciation and spelling. We don't have spelling in Chinese, that's why we mistakenly refer chinese languages to dialects.
So, whenever we find foreign words pronounced similarily to Hokkein / Cantonese, it is safe to say it is related to Chinese, though we can't specifically point out which dialect.
Andrew Yong: The japanese sin-sei is indeed originated from Chinese language. Whether it is Hokkein remains obscure, hokkein and Japanese has existed for thousand years, it would be weird if it was really borrowed from Hokkein, since thousand years should allow some change in pronounciation already.
Hong: I read your comment on Baba language and Singlish/manglish. The purpose we learn English is to communicate with other English speakers. So we should not proud of our fluent Singlish. However, the purpose we learn Hokkein is not to communicate with the South Min speakers, but rather to communicate among our local communities. It is impossible to maintain a unity of speech in the global. People always tend to change to more localised staff. It is never surprising our Penang Hokkein has assimilated lots of Malay / English words (the origin of those words, whether genuinely Malay or borrowed from ancient Chinese is not my concern here) and become a local Penang Hokkien / baba. We should be proud of it. Our ancestors mangage to preserve their tongue and modify it to suit our local need. There is no need to standardise Malaysia Hokkein or Penang Hokkein. We should try to learn the proper pronounciation for pu tong hua and preserve the speech of Hokkein simultaneously. To speak hokkein so that we could have an emotional link to our local society, to learn proper pu tong hua so that we could get more access to the whole Chinese culture and help us understand more about our own culture.
No offense to English educated people, but if you are English educated, you can never properly understand the whole situation of Penang Hokkein, Mandarin, and Chinese language and culture as a whole.
Lastly about Malay words which sound similar to Hokkein @ Chinese. I know that Malaysian Chinese people are always discriminative towards the Malay, vice versa. Though people say that they are not chauvism, they are indeed. Most of the examples quoted above might originate from Chinese (which dialect unverified), but they have been used by the Malays for years already. Our ancestors come here and learn the vocabs back from the Malay. SO the malays should deserve the credits.
However, no one really knows the origin of Hokkein SAMPAN, JAMBU etc. SAMPAN is an obvious Chinese-origin Malay. But it is very obvious too the current Penang Hokkein SAMPAN is the borrowed from Malay SAMPAN, not the original Chinese SAMPAN. So as JAMBU.
Tan Loon Kong: Mouse is not a rare breed in Europe. I don't see any need of the English to borrow a Chinese/Hokkein word to describe this little creature.
Anyway, got to go now. I hope you could response and thanks a lot for reading it.
I have very high level of Chinese language mastering and I am proud of it. But I would rather seperate my Chinese identity from Chinese language when talking about it.
Eng Wai
Penang Hokkien
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hong
Re: Penang Hokkien
Eng wai,
You say you have high level of chinese language mastering but you cannot even understand min bei is jianao not fuzhou.Only mindong is fuzhou.In Malaysia we do have a few min bei people-Jianyang as I saw it in death annoucement in Nanyang daily.
If we are only interested in local malaysian minnan in any area or even Taiwanese minnan,we don't have to spend any time learning minnan any more.Because Minnan language in south east Asia and Taiwan is just a mixed and limited vocabulary as well.If you said that it is impossible to maintain original minnan from our ancestor,this will be the same case for putonghua as well.Many expert of mandarin in singapore and malaysia trying to create new mandarin with words like minnan are views as correct putonghua like Prof Zhouqinghai of Singapore.kongsi is accepted as share is 2007 new putonghua dict as he said.
You say you have high level of chinese language mastering but you cannot even understand min bei is jianao not fuzhou.Only mindong is fuzhou.In Malaysia we do have a few min bei people-Jianyang as I saw it in death annoucement in Nanyang daily.
If we are only interested in local malaysian minnan in any area or even Taiwanese minnan,we don't have to spend any time learning minnan any more.Because Minnan language in south east Asia and Taiwan is just a mixed and limited vocabulary as well.If you said that it is impossible to maintain original minnan from our ancestor,this will be the same case for putonghua as well.Many expert of mandarin in singapore and malaysia trying to create new mandarin with words like minnan are views as correct putonghua like Prof Zhouqinghai of Singapore.kongsi is accepted as share is 2007 new putonghua dict as he said.
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Eng Wai
Re: Penang Hokkien - classifiers
Hi Hong,
So nice to have an unexpected quick reply to my post!
About the Fu Zhou issue, this is a disputable classification. Some scholars devide Min into 2 languages, some 3/4, some regard the whole min as 1 language. I stand by 2 languages side and in this classification Fu Zhou is put into Min Bei directory. You might have different views, prefering to devide Min into 3. That's your opinion, I am not a professional linguist, I don't have any academic background to rebut you.
The situation of Minnan and Mandarin is different. Mandarin has been made the national language of China, thus the Chinese language every Chinese (China or oversea) could understand. The imposition of Mandarin as the Chiinse Lingua Franca is to make every Chinese intelligible to each other.
You must be aware of the history of southern Chinese diaspora. If we standardise the Minnan language, the obvious diaspora charecteristic of Minnan/Hokkein would have to fade and sooner or later we will simply speak Minnan like the Minnan people in CHina, or wherever. We won't have any local language that suits our local idendity.
I very much oppose to creating Minnan origin Mandarin vocabulary. It is silly for me, comparable to Singlish. Do you want us to learn Mandarin which other Madarin speakers could not understand easily? Then whta is the purpose of learning Mandarin? Why not just forget about it and start learning Penang/Singapre Hokkein in school???
We the Chinese in Malaysia have lots of culture and language burdens. It is not a problem for fast learning and gifted people. But for most people, to learn Mandarin, Hokkein, Malay and English simultaneously is very demanding and at the end we will end up mixing all 4. English is the international language, we should learn it. Malay is the national language, we have to learn it. Mandarin is the CHinese officail dialect, we should learn it. Penang Hokkein is a language that reflects our emigration history, its flexibility is its greatest advantage. To fix it is not only to erase its trait, it is to alienate the language itself from the grassroot less educated people as well.
So, why not let our Penang Hokkein develope naturally?
Got to start working already.
Ciao
Eng Wai
[%sig%]
So nice to have an unexpected quick reply to my post!
About the Fu Zhou issue, this is a disputable classification. Some scholars devide Min into 2 languages, some 3/4, some regard the whole min as 1 language. I stand by 2 languages side and in this classification Fu Zhou is put into Min Bei directory. You might have different views, prefering to devide Min into 3. That's your opinion, I am not a professional linguist, I don't have any academic background to rebut you.
The situation of Minnan and Mandarin is different. Mandarin has been made the national language of China, thus the Chinese language every Chinese (China or oversea) could understand. The imposition of Mandarin as the Chiinse Lingua Franca is to make every Chinese intelligible to each other.
You must be aware of the history of southern Chinese diaspora. If we standardise the Minnan language, the obvious diaspora charecteristic of Minnan/Hokkein would have to fade and sooner or later we will simply speak Minnan like the Minnan people in CHina, or wherever. We won't have any local language that suits our local idendity.
I very much oppose to creating Minnan origin Mandarin vocabulary. It is silly for me, comparable to Singlish. Do you want us to learn Mandarin which other Madarin speakers could not understand easily? Then whta is the purpose of learning Mandarin? Why not just forget about it and start learning Penang/Singapre Hokkein in school???
We the Chinese in Malaysia have lots of culture and language burdens. It is not a problem for fast learning and gifted people. But for most people, to learn Mandarin, Hokkein, Malay and English simultaneously is very demanding and at the end we will end up mixing all 4. English is the international language, we should learn it. Malay is the national language, we have to learn it. Mandarin is the CHinese officail dialect, we should learn it. Penang Hokkein is a language that reflects our emigration history, its flexibility is its greatest advantage. To fix it is not only to erase its trait, it is to alienate the language itself from the grassroot less educated people as well.
So, why not let our Penang Hokkein develope naturally?
Got to start working already.
Ciao
Eng Wai
[%sig%]
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hong
Re: Penang Hokkien
The reason I reject the idea of including more cantonese and min language into putonghua is that there are many china's northen languages and beijinghua itself are not included into putonghua.Many Malaysian and Singaporean have no idea at all about this.The population for Henan is 100 m which make them the largest .Cantonese and minnan with population from Taiwan , hongkong and South east asia are no match for henan people.But yet henan language is not accpcted at all .Word like an俺 for me is not putonhua. So I don't think we can complain not many cantonese ,minnan words in putonghua.
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hong
Re: Penang Hokkien
I am not going to wasting time arguing with anyone.For those who think that Penang Hokkien is so great ,he can stop leaning minnan because there are nothing to learn in it.Just like we cannot sit in a class to learn manglish or singlish.Everthing just *hantam sahaja* with any english ,malay and cantonese words you like.I have minnan friends even using the cantonese word mai for too,also.How crazy she is!
When we start buying the minnan dict ,everything is about learning the correct minnan sect grammar,sound and special word choice for each sect.For any Penang Island minnan people the first lesson will be each one get a copy of their fangyanzhi from China.The matter of how much we can say it correctly is another matter .One thing for sure, they can at least have a wider vocabulary after everyone is giving a dict like W.Campbell's version .Many penang minnan I know are interested to learn more correct minnan ,regardless what sect it is.They don't want to speak with too many mandarin ,eng and malay words in it.
It is not correct to say malaysian don't need to use minnan with outsiders.In my trip to Bangkok,I have to use min/teochiw mix with thai to speak to those thai monks.And many malaysia/singaporean started to take minnan from china as wife .
When we start buying the minnan dict ,everything is about learning the correct minnan sect grammar,sound and special word choice for each sect.For any Penang Island minnan people the first lesson will be each one get a copy of their fangyanzhi from China.The matter of how much we can say it correctly is another matter .One thing for sure, they can at least have a wider vocabulary after everyone is giving a dict like W.Campbell's version .Many penang minnan I know are interested to learn more correct minnan ,regardless what sect it is.They don't want to speak with too many mandarin ,eng and malay words in it.
It is not correct to say malaysian don't need to use minnan with outsiders.In my trip to Bangkok,I have to use min/teochiw mix with thai to speak to those thai monks.And many malaysia/singaporean started to take minnan from china as wife .
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hong
Re: Penang Hokkien
I should type Jian O for minbei.Since this language is too different from fuzhou,we should give another name for this language.We still don't have another name for putian/xianyu hua.
Having Penang hokkien only give not nice impression compare to minnan people in taiwan because it will mean our ancestors are not educated as minnan who moved to taiwan.In taiwan for centuries they have good education in class reciting text in minnan.Some oldman still alive from this period.Compare to those who move to malaya we cannot read and write resulting true minnan words are lost follow by grand children who have to use malay borrow words which all are already exist in minnan.
My friend can get a good part time job in New York China town because he can speak fuzhou.So learning good min languages is surely not restrited to local use.
Having Penang hokkien only give not nice impression compare to minnan people in taiwan because it will mean our ancestors are not educated as minnan who moved to taiwan.In taiwan for centuries they have good education in class reciting text in minnan.Some oldman still alive from this period.Compare to those who move to malaya we cannot read and write resulting true minnan words are lost follow by grand children who have to use malay borrow words which all are already exist in minnan.
My friend can get a good part time job in New York China town because he can speak fuzhou.So learning good min languages is surely not restrited to local use.
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eng wai
Re: Penang Hokkien
I can't agree with you, Hong.
Our ancestors emigrating from Min Nan were indeed not highly educated. It was the results of history and there is no shame about it. In contrast, it would be embarrassing if we do not recognise the history and tried to potray our ancestors as highly educated people who came to Penang/Malaysia to find jobs!
And if you learn Min Nan / Fu Zhou because you would be able to find a job, a good proper job or a good part time job in New York China Town, then I suggest you to migrate to Singapore and learn Mandarin there because China is a big market!
Penang Hokkien is our local identity, reflecting our history and our social environment and our local trait. We borrowed Malay or English words not because we try to emulate the Hua Na or the Ang Mo, but because we are assimilating foreign words to enrich our limited communications. Instead of demeaning ourselves, why not we take pride of its flexibility?
I don't like Singlish/manglish because we are to learn proper English, instead we can't achieve it and have to end up with Singlish. Singlish is indeed a language that reflects the failure of the education, and the ill basis refered to make English a compulsory everyday language.
Penang Hokkien is the results of natural developement, not a forced and directed developement.
[%sig%]
Our ancestors emigrating from Min Nan were indeed not highly educated. It was the results of history and there is no shame about it. In contrast, it would be embarrassing if we do not recognise the history and tried to potray our ancestors as highly educated people who came to Penang/Malaysia to find jobs!
And if you learn Min Nan / Fu Zhou because you would be able to find a job, a good proper job or a good part time job in New York China Town, then I suggest you to migrate to Singapore and learn Mandarin there because China is a big market!
Penang Hokkien is our local identity, reflecting our history and our social environment and our local trait. We borrowed Malay or English words not because we try to emulate the Hua Na or the Ang Mo, but because we are assimilating foreign words to enrich our limited communications. Instead of demeaning ourselves, why not we take pride of its flexibility?
I don't like Singlish/manglish because we are to learn proper English, instead we can't achieve it and have to end up with Singlish. Singlish is indeed a language that reflects the failure of the education, and the ill basis refered to make English a compulsory everyday language.
Penang Hokkien is the results of natural developement, not a forced and directed developement.
[%sig%]
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hong
Re: Penang Hokkien
I can only say engwai you have double standard view about minnan ,engslish and putonghua.You say singlish /manglish are failure of education.But why not saying poor minnan standard in Penang is due to the lacking of minnan education in school with few people in penang has at least a 1000 pages minnan dict at home?In your mind putonghua and english must be learnt properly but not the case for minnan .I cannot accept this view.
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hong
Re: Penang Hokkien
Why minnanhua can adopt malay words but not putonghua speaking in malaysia and singapore?One thing for sure we must know that minnan people or any other chinese in malaysia lacking knowledge of chinese words.
malay words for batik is la ran in mandarin.
rojak is zaban in mandarion.Not many people know that.Still no chinese newspapers around using these hanzi correctly.
So I think it is not the case of adopting malay language but just the case of unfamiliar about chinese words for it until malay words have to be used.
I don't know who the hell invented hami .Why na become mana?Anyway for those who think that baba minnan is proper ,any kind of minnan language material are not for them.They can speak whatever they like.I can only accept 10% of malay words in nouns but not adjective,adverb and verbs because all those are found in min languages
malay words for batik is la ran in mandarin.
rojak is zaban in mandarion.Not many people know that.Still no chinese newspapers around using these hanzi correctly.
So I think it is not the case of adopting malay language but just the case of unfamiliar about chinese words for it until malay words have to be used.
I don't know who the hell invented hami .Why na become mana?Anyway for those who think that baba minnan is proper ,any kind of minnan language material are not for them.They can speak whatever they like.I can only accept 10% of malay words in nouns but not adjective,adverb and verbs because all those are found in min languages
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eng wai
Re: Penang Hokkien - classifiers
The discussions will go on and on because you are quite constructed into what you think and only refer to the conclusion I typed, never try to understand why I come to that conclusion.
The purpose we learn English is to communicate with the rest of the word who don't speak our languages. The Singaporean government enforced the English education, not to create a new language for Singapore, but to force increase their competitiveness. The results of this, as we are witnessing now, is the Singlish with heavy Singaporean accent which for other English speakers, as if a creole or a not-easy-to-understand English dialect. They can write and comprehend very good English, but when it comes to speaking, they are not much better than others who learn English as a second language or third language. They pay heavy price for this, their Chinese / Malay standard had severely deteriorated. What a good example for enforced language education on the basis of market demand.
Now the Singlish has become their identity. But this identity is built on the loss of other more indigenous and appropriate identities. It is not surprising their former prime minister publicly critisise Phua Chu Kang and Singlish.
Why do we learn Mandarin? It is simple, the mandarin is the official language of China. Every Chinese (cantonese, hokkien, hakka etc) can speak Mandarin. A Hokkien in Malaysia and a Cantonese in KL can speak to each other in Mandarin. That is the courtesy of mandarin as the official language. Unless you want them to communicate with each other in Malay or English or Manglish !! Chinese culture as a whole is quite consistent. Hokkien, Cantonese, Hakka are all ethnically Chinese/Han. What a shame if no one can understnad each other!
How about Penang Hokkien? How much burdens are the Penang Chinese bearing already? We have to learn Malay, we have to learn English, we have to learn Mandarin. If you add another language education, Min Nan, the outcome is inevitably that everyone is poor is everything. Everyone is speaking campelak, and a new creole would emerge. Would you want to see this results? Or do you want to replace Mandarin education with Min Nan education for Penang, with Cantonese education for KL, Fu Zhou education for Kuching?? In China, there are still room of discussion fo implementing bilingual Chinese education, ie Min Nan and Mandarin are learnt simultaneously. After all, they don't need to speak Malay.
The particular paragraph above is written on the logic basis. The paragraphs below is written on the emotional link basis.
Penang/Malaysia Hokkien is our identity already. Why do we speak Penang Hokkien and not the proper Min Nan? First and foremost, what is the standard Min Nan??? Zhang Zhou? Amoy? Ho Lok? Teow Chow? Xing Hua? What is the standard Min Nan? There is no one. The standard one will be the one which is picked by the authority, like Mandarin. Currently there is no standard Min Nan, so if we were to impose a Min Nan education, which accent should we learn? Zhang Zhou?
To be more specific, I am a Xing4 Hua4 (emotion melt) Hokkien, not Zhang Zhou Hokkien. When I say uncle, I say A Pa, not A Pek. BUt because I grow up in Penang, mingle with people who speak Penang Hokkien, I will say A Pa only to my proper uncle, but A Pek to uncle on the streets for polite purpose. In everyday Hokkien I am speaking Penang Hokkien with English and Malay words springkled around. Why? Because our ancestors were indeed not well educated. They didn't leave a rich Zhang Zhou/Xing Hua Hokkien heritage for us. Can we deny that? No. Meantime, they were versatile. They borrowed words from Mandarin, Malay and English to ensure their survival. We never had Zhang Zhou/Xing Hua education.
You are very funny to say "Anyway for those who think that baba minnan is proper ,any kind of minnan language material are not for them.They can speak whatever they like.I can only accept 10% of malay words in nouns but not adjective,adverb and verbs because all those are found in min languages", Hong.
Can proper Minnan education tolerate 10% of Malay words? If it can, then Penang Hokkien will easily qualify as a proper Min Nan. English and Malay vocabs are sparingly used in Penang Hokkien. Assume we use 1000 Minnan words in daily communication (1000 is really very little, we know 3000 Chinese Characters if we can understand a Chinese newspaper withoutt hassle), isn't that hte idea of borrowing 100 English/Malay words a very ridiculous assumption?
What is Penang Hokkien? Penang Hokkien is a sect of Minnan spoken with Penang accent, with the characteristic of using foreign vocab, not least Malay vocabulary, for some essential words, due to the fact that our ancestors didn't know the discourse of them in Hokkien, or the influence of our neighbouring Malay and English speaking community.
Penang Hokkien is the a sect of Min Nan. Shame to those who want to abolish it and replace it with a proper min nan that never existed for our Penangite/malaysian. It is like those who want us to write wen yan wen which is never applicable and in conformity with current social language environment.
Eng Wai
[%sig%]
The purpose we learn English is to communicate with the rest of the word who don't speak our languages. The Singaporean government enforced the English education, not to create a new language for Singapore, but to force increase their competitiveness. The results of this, as we are witnessing now, is the Singlish with heavy Singaporean accent which for other English speakers, as if a creole or a not-easy-to-understand English dialect. They can write and comprehend very good English, but when it comes to speaking, they are not much better than others who learn English as a second language or third language. They pay heavy price for this, their Chinese / Malay standard had severely deteriorated. What a good example for enforced language education on the basis of market demand.
Now the Singlish has become their identity. But this identity is built on the loss of other more indigenous and appropriate identities. It is not surprising their former prime minister publicly critisise Phua Chu Kang and Singlish.
Why do we learn Mandarin? It is simple, the mandarin is the official language of China. Every Chinese (cantonese, hokkien, hakka etc) can speak Mandarin. A Hokkien in Malaysia and a Cantonese in KL can speak to each other in Mandarin. That is the courtesy of mandarin as the official language. Unless you want them to communicate with each other in Malay or English or Manglish !! Chinese culture as a whole is quite consistent. Hokkien, Cantonese, Hakka are all ethnically Chinese/Han. What a shame if no one can understnad each other!
How about Penang Hokkien? How much burdens are the Penang Chinese bearing already? We have to learn Malay, we have to learn English, we have to learn Mandarin. If you add another language education, Min Nan, the outcome is inevitably that everyone is poor is everything. Everyone is speaking campelak, and a new creole would emerge. Would you want to see this results? Or do you want to replace Mandarin education with Min Nan education for Penang, with Cantonese education for KL, Fu Zhou education for Kuching?? In China, there are still room of discussion fo implementing bilingual Chinese education, ie Min Nan and Mandarin are learnt simultaneously. After all, they don't need to speak Malay.
The particular paragraph above is written on the logic basis. The paragraphs below is written on the emotional link basis.
Penang/Malaysia Hokkien is our identity already. Why do we speak Penang Hokkien and not the proper Min Nan? First and foremost, what is the standard Min Nan??? Zhang Zhou? Amoy? Ho Lok? Teow Chow? Xing Hua? What is the standard Min Nan? There is no one. The standard one will be the one which is picked by the authority, like Mandarin. Currently there is no standard Min Nan, so if we were to impose a Min Nan education, which accent should we learn? Zhang Zhou?
To be more specific, I am a Xing4 Hua4 (emotion melt) Hokkien, not Zhang Zhou Hokkien. When I say uncle, I say A Pa, not A Pek. BUt because I grow up in Penang, mingle with people who speak Penang Hokkien, I will say A Pa only to my proper uncle, but A Pek to uncle on the streets for polite purpose. In everyday Hokkien I am speaking Penang Hokkien with English and Malay words springkled around. Why? Because our ancestors were indeed not well educated. They didn't leave a rich Zhang Zhou/Xing Hua Hokkien heritage for us. Can we deny that? No. Meantime, they were versatile. They borrowed words from Mandarin, Malay and English to ensure their survival. We never had Zhang Zhou/Xing Hua education.
You are very funny to say "Anyway for those who think that baba minnan is proper ,any kind of minnan language material are not for them.They can speak whatever they like.I can only accept 10% of malay words in nouns but not adjective,adverb and verbs because all those are found in min languages", Hong.
Can proper Minnan education tolerate 10% of Malay words? If it can, then Penang Hokkien will easily qualify as a proper Min Nan. English and Malay vocabs are sparingly used in Penang Hokkien. Assume we use 1000 Minnan words in daily communication (1000 is really very little, we know 3000 Chinese Characters if we can understand a Chinese newspaper withoutt hassle), isn't that hte idea of borrowing 100 English/Malay words a very ridiculous assumption?
What is Penang Hokkien? Penang Hokkien is a sect of Minnan spoken with Penang accent, with the characteristic of using foreign vocab, not least Malay vocabulary, for some essential words, due to the fact that our ancestors didn't know the discourse of them in Hokkien, or the influence of our neighbouring Malay and English speaking community.
Penang Hokkien is the a sect of Min Nan. Shame to those who want to abolish it and replace it with a proper min nan that never existed for our Penangite/malaysian. It is like those who want us to write wen yan wen which is never applicable and in conformity with current social language environment.
Eng Wai
[%sig%]