Singapore Hokkien

[ChuaHxiongHaeng]

Hello, my name is Chua Ah Beng. Hxiong Haeng (most lucky) is a silly name given to me by a relative coz I was super lucky when I was fishing with him... Ok, I want to talk about Singapore Hokkien language. Singapore Hokkien is very special. It is not totally Hokkien, there is some Malay in the language. For example, marry (结婚), in Hokkien it is 'kiat-hun' I believe. But in Singapore Hokkien, marriage is called 'gkao-yin' which actually is Malay 'kawin'. And market, in Singapore Hokkien, market is 'bpa-sadt' (巴刹), which is actually Malay 'pasar'. I believe Malaysian Hokkien is also like that. But Indonesian Hokkien I think it's not like that right? Any Indonesian Hokkien here care to tell what Indonesian Hokkien is like?

[SimL]

Hi Ah Beng,

Welcome to the Forum! We're going through a low period at the moment, sadly, because one <expletive deleted> spammer is creating so much pollution, and the mods don't seem to be cleaning it up or blocking him (her?).

Nice to see that you're interested in Hokkien. I'm particularly happy to see that you view the Malay additions to Singaporean Hokkien not as "decline" or "corruption", but as an enrichment of the language - giving it local colour. I think so too (but there are limits, of course).

The main discussion of Hokkien in Singapore took place at: http://movies.sgforums.com/forums/8/topics/356602 (lots of interesting opinions, but the thread is more or less dead). This then spilled over into: http://movies.sgforums.com/forums/2029/ ... st_9203676, but there the discussion is mostly about Penang Hokkien (I'm the main cause of that). Perhaps you would find it interesting to see what other Singaporeans feel about this issue in the first of the links.

Regards,
SimL

[Mark Yong]

ChuaHxiongHaeng wrote:
...marry (结婚), in Hokkien it is 'kiat-hun' I believe. But in Singapore Hokkien, marriage is called 'gkao-yin' which actually is Malay 'kawin'.

In one of the previous posts (cannot recall where ), there was a suggestion that 'kău-ín' could be 交? 姻. A bit of a stretch, though... perhaps someone can comment on the validity of the rising tone for 姻.

[SimL]

Hi Mark,

You've been quiet for a while... Very relieved to see that you're still reading the Forum...

Regards,
SimL

[Mark Yong]

Hi, Sim,

I do stop by from time to time.

In the Forum link that you sent above, an entry by one of the Forumers mentioned that iăn-táu is 緣投. In my copy of Mathews' Chinese-English Dictionary (okay, I realise Mathews is not exactly the best reference!), he has 嫣 yan1 for 'handsome'. Further reference: http://www.chineseetymology.org/Charact ... =Etymology

Also, I do believe 緣 has a rising tone.

Food for thought...

Cheers,
Mark