Philippine Hokkien

Discussions on the Hokkien (Minnan) language.
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danteferry
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Joined: Thu Feb 03, 2005 3:53 pm
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Re: Philippine Hokkien

Post by danteferry »

I also have a copy of the facsimile of the first book published in the Philippines (16th century), printed in Chinese, containing Catholic prayers. I am curious if it can be read today as it was then. A Chinese teacher once told me it seems like it was in the "Swatow" dialect or language.

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danteferry
Posts: 9
Joined: Thu Feb 03, 2005 3:53 pm
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Re: Philippine Hokkien

Post by danteferry »

It's me once again. I have solved my previous problem. I found several Philippine Hokkien speakers who could read the texts. My new question now may not be relevant to Hokkien in the Philippines, but rather to Cantonese in the Philippines. Does anybody know where the supposedly very few Philippine-born Cantonese speakers live in Metro Manila? I remember them being called "Makaw" by the Filipinos. - Dante Ferry

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stifven--

Re: Philippine Hokkien

Post by stifven-- »

Hello Dante!
Congrats on your project!
Philippine-born Cantonese are spread all over the Philippines, but I think most of them are concentrated in Cebu, Manila, and Baguio.

=)
wng

Re: Philippine Hokkien

Post by wng »

Hi, am Philippine Hokkien and I just came across this forum. I am learning Peh-oe-ji. However, this all got me confused, especially with the tones. I hope some people here can help. Most of the resources are based on the Taiwanese dialect, but having talked to some distant relatives from the Xiamen-Quanzhou area, I didn't feel that my Hokkien is that different from theirs. I would therefore like to confirm with other Hokkien speakers if they read these characters the same way as I do (so I might assign the correct tones to the romanization accordingly). I know Philippine Hokkien has some quirks of its own, so please indicate how your dialect differs:

Tone---Character---Phrase 1---Reading 1---Phrase 2---Reading 2
1--------三-------------三個---------saN7---------拜三----------saN1
2--------我-------------我的---------gua1---------給我----------gua2
3--------看-------------看見---------khoaN2------好看----------khoaN3
4--------七-------------七個---------chit8--------十七----------chit4
5--------黃-------------黃色---------ng7-----------姓黃----------ng5
7--------想-------------想念---------sioN3 --------我想----------sioN7
7--------字-------------字畫---------ji3-------------寫字----------ji3
8--------白-------------白色---------peh4---------很白-----------peh8

Here are the specific observations I have. Hope someone can comment if their dialect does the same or not:

1. In Philippine Hokkien, there are different contours for tone 3 and tone 7. And I can't seem to see any pattern. It seems to be that characters ending in e or i with tone 7 such as 字 are read only in their sandhi form (tone 3, a low falling tone) even if in final position. Those ending in o or u are read using a mid-flat tone.

2. Also, regarding tone 7, it seems that the sandhi form of those ending in o or u such as 想 is a low flat one like having a 11 tone contour, but those ending in e or i like 話 and 字 have a slight falling tone in our dialect somewhat like a 21 contour. From observations 1 and 2, it seems that we have two pronunciations of tone 3, one being low flat (11), one low falling (21).

3. Tone 2 (falling tone) for 我 is only reserved for the final position (with characters before). In isolated form, such as when answering "I" or "me" to a question, I pronounce it using tone 1. Am wondering if it is only in our dialect because I do not recall hearing someone giving it a falling tone in isolated form. If it has cognates in other dialects, then Hokkien sandhi may be more complicated that I think it is!

4. What is your tone for fire (火). It is given tone 2 in most online resources I found but I personally pronounce it using tone 1.

Hope people here can help. I am wondering if there are sandhi rules that I actually left out. I am also trying to figure out whether Philippine Hokkien is a merger of several Fujian dialects making us pronounce certain characters using a different dialect.
Andrew Yong

Re: Philippine Hokkien

Post by Andrew Yong »

I can't comment about the 3/7 distinction because I can't distinguish it in my dialect (Penang). It might be my ear, but other people like Sim have mentioned it also.

I haven't come across your example of goa in isolation being pronounced 1 before. To me it sounds as if the speaker was going to say something after it but decided not to.

Also in my dialect the sandhi form of 3 sounds more like 1 than 2.

AY
Niuc

Re: Philippine Hokkien

Post by Niuc »

Hi Wng

In our dialect, fire 火 is her2. It's very interesting to know that you pronounce it with tone 1. her1 is cement in ours.

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wng

Re: Philippine Hokkien

Post by wng »

Thanks for the replies, Andrew and Niuc.

I just did some research and it seems that we somehow speak a kind of mixed Hokkien here. I looked at http://www.fjsq.gov.cn/showtext.asp?ToBook=27&index=216& and it seems that our pronunciation are more like the Xiamen, Jinmen, or Tong'an area but the tones used are more similar to those of Quanzhou, Jinjiang, Nan'an area. Am trying to see if we can map things up, but not sure if there's some kind of pattern. Seems like people here borrowed tones from more than one dialect.
hong

Re: Philippine Hokkien

Post by hong »

prof Chiu from china already said you guys in phillippine and every minnan in South east asia speak a mixed minnan because we don't have informal education like living in jinjiang to speak jinjiang only which is the same with shishi only but not other chuanchiu.We don't have formal education like dict to learn it properly.
Chuanchiu people are not supposed to use the word SUI for pretty but another word thek,
casey

Re: Philippine Hokkien

Post by casey »

Hi, Guys!

Let's not confuse ourselves about the tone number. The same tone number indicates different intonation in different subgroup of dialects. Perhaps we should refer to
http://www.glossika.com/en/dict/tones/min.php
to refresh our memory about the relationship between tones and tone numbers.
hong

Re: Philippine Hokkien

Post by hong »

there is article from china put no.5 as no.2 ,no.6 as no.3 which is not the same with normal yin in 1,2,3,4 and yang as 5,6,7,8.l
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