Samples of informal Chinese writing in old Penang

[Mark Yong]

To explain the source of inspiration behind this thread:

In 1996, a friend living in the same residential college as me in Melbourne received a letter from her grandmother from Penang. The letter was written in Chinese, and that side of her family is Penang Hokkien. Now, given that my friend was already 25 at that time, I would guess that her grandmother would have been at least in her late 60's, if not pushing 70. That would therefore suggest that she would have lived through the generation that still could read Chinese in Hokkien (even if Mandarin had already been promulgated as the standard by then).

Unfortunately, I did not read Chinese very well at that time, so I did not make an attempt to read the letter. In retrospect, that was a real loss for me, as it would have been a great insight into how a Penang Hokkien educated in Chinese during the 1940's would have read and written Chinese. As a comparison, I once knew an old Penang lady of that generation who read Chinese in Hokkien, but spoke no Mandarin; she once read out-loud a sign outside a restaurant 『滿座』 as mùan cū.

We already have an excellent resource of formal writing in Penang, in the form of the 檳城新報 Penang Sin Poe archives. It would now be great if anyone had access to samples of informal Chinese writing from old Penang, to get a glimpse into how Penang Hokkiens of the first half of the 20th century would have transcribed their thoughts, formulated in colloquial Penang Hokkien in the mind, onto paper in literal or semi-literal form. My guess is that, 本字 punji studies not being in vogue at that time, most of the Chinese characters used would have been the standard ones, simply read as 訓讀 on the fly - e.g. 乾 for tāⁿ.

[niuc]

she once read out-loud a sign outside a restaurant 『滿座』 as mùan cū.

In my variant it is read as buán-cō, and we often use it not only for its original meaning, but also "overflowing". It impresses me that in my variant, if 滿 read as muáⁿ, it means "full" (but not overflow); while read as buán, the usual meaning is "overflow", not merely "full".

My guess is that, 本字 punji studies not being in vogue at that time, most of the Chinese characters used would have been the standard ones, simply read as 訓讀 on the fly - e.g. 乾 for tāⁿ.

That's the situation that I find. Not sure for my grandparents' generation (not many could read anyway), but for my parents' generation, those educated in Mandarin usually write in "Standard Chinese" and either read it in Hokkien or Mandarin.

[Mark Yong]

niuc wrote:
In my variant it is read as buán-cō...

Thanks for this, niuc. Actually, I think it should be buan-cO in Penang Hokkien, I am not sure why this old lady read 座 as cu.

niuc wrote:
...while read as buán, the usual meaning is "overflow", not merely "full".

I suppose by extension, 高朋滿座 would therefore be ko peng buan co in your variant?