Hi everyone,
I'm just back from a week-long trip to Germany, where I attended the annual conference of the European Association of Taiwan Studies. It was great - I met lots of really interesting people, listened to some fascinating papers, and practiced Hokkien with some of the Taiwanese participants (and even with 1-2 Western sinologists who had learned Taiwanese).
There I also met a person living in the Hague who comes from Medan. Although I had seen a number of times on this Forum that Medan Hokkien is similar to Penang Hokkien, I was still quite surprised at just how similar they are. Indeed, this person told me that if she goes to Penang, she can pass as a native Penang Hokkien, when she speaks. I felt very relaxed chatting with her, because of the similarity of our variants.
For me, the most striking feature was that the 3 most important Malay loanwords in my Hokkien are also present in hers: "pun2" (for "also"), "ta7-pi1" (for "but"), and "ba7-lu2" (for "just recently"). I've always known that I have to avoid these three words when speaking to Taiwanese. For the first two, I've always known to say "a(-si)" and "tan-si", but I've always had difficulty with finding a substitute for the third. She advised me that "(gam1-)gam1" or "ca1" would be suitable candidates.
Also I think she used "(si(?))-ka-lau" for "if". It took me a day or so to work out what the meaning was from context, and that it's probably from Malay/Indonesian "kalau" (= "if"), but I didn't have a chance to ask her explicitly about this, and also what the first syllable is. It sounded like "si7", which could perhaps just be 是. On the other hand there is also the Malay word "jikalau" (which I think also means "if"), so what I heard as "si" might be an adaptation of the "ji". I can mail her to ask. Perhaps niuc can shed some light on this?
Sorry for starting a new topic, but I wasn't sure where to put this.
Oh, one other hint was that she gave me is that a good native-Hokkien word for "actually", is "sit cai".
Medan Hokkien
Re: Medan Hokkien
Oops! I see from a recent mail from Ah-bin that he uses "ma" and "m-ko" for the first 2 respectively, when speaking to Taiwanese. As he's been there, I imagine these two are better substitutions than the ones I use.SimL wrote:... "pun2" (for "also"), "ta7-pi1" (for "but"), and "ba7-lu2" (for "just recently"). I've always known that I have to avoid these three words when speaking to Taiwanese. For the first two, I've always known to say "a(-si)" and "tan-si", but I've always had difficulty with finding a substitute for the third. She advised me that "(gam1-)gam1" or "ca1" would be suitable candidates.
Re: Medan Hokkien
It's tu-a for ba-lu, I think in Taiwan. Ngaam ngaam is more like Cantonese. I think by ca she meant perhaps chiah in POJ, which means 才 in Mandarin and "ba-lu ka" in some contexts.She advised me that "(gam1-)gam1" or "ca1" would be suitable candidates.
Re: Medan Hokkien
Yes, indeed she did. I checked by writing the character 才 and she confirmed it. I'll ask her about "tu-a" when I next meet or mail her.Ah-bin wrote:I think by ca she meant perhaps chiah in POJ, which means 才 in Mandarin and "ba-lu ka" in some contexts.
Re: Medan Hokkien
It should be Tu Cia or Cui Kin depending on usage.Ah-bin wrote:It's tu-a for ba-lu, I think in Taiwan. Ngaam ngaam is more like Cantonese. I think by ca she meant perhaps chiah in POJ, which means 才 in Mandarin and "ba-lu ka" in some contexts.She advised me that "(gam1-)gam1" or "ca1" would be suitable candidates.
I have compiled the most common malay words used in hokkien here.
http://www.chinalanguage.com/forums/vie ... 33db7d628f
Re: Medan Hokkien
Hi xng,
Thanks for reposting the link.
Anyway, these will be very useful replacements for "balu" as well, so thank you.
Thanks for reposting the link.
Lovely! I knew "tu cia" from my Amoy-speaking maternal relatives in my youth, but had forgotten it until now. Same for "tu a". I'll check with my mother how she uses both of them. From memory, their usage was slightly different from "balu", in that they both are more used for "at that time, a short time ago" or even "at that time, a very short time ago", but still, there is a little bit of distance in time, whereas "balu" can be used up to a millisecond ago, or even something that's just about to happen. E.g.: "wa balu be ka lu kong kong i <blah>" could even mean "I was just about to tell you that he <blah>".xng wrote:It should be Tu Cia or Cui Kin depending on usage.
Anyway, these will be very useful replacements for "balu" as well, so thank you.
Re: Medan Hokkien
Hi Sim
Wow, what a great opportunity! Glad you enjoyed it!
You are right that "kalau"/"jikalau" are Malay/Indonesian words for "if". Interesting discussions here, will write more later, have to run now....
Wow, what a great opportunity! Glad you enjoyed it!
You are right that "kalau"/"jikalau" are Malay/Indonesian words for "if". Interesting discussions here, will write more later, have to run now....
Re: Medan Hokkien
Hi Sim
Hope you can share more about the conference, e.g. what the papers were about.
My variant does have 'tu2-cia4' and 'cia4', but usually become 'tu2-kha4' and 'kha4'. And like what Ah-bin heard in Taiwan, our 'tu2-kha4' is often pronounced as 'tu2-a4'.
About "actually", your Medan friend is right that its native Hokkien term is 'sit8-cai7' 實在. Another term is 其實 'ki5-sit8', which may sound too much like Mandarin. The latter has implied negation, the former tends to be an affirmation. Also 實在 has wider (and slightly different) meaning & usage than 其實, e.g. 實在話 'sit8-cai7-ue7' is "true/sincere word(s)", we cannot use 其實+話 for that meaning.
Hope you can share more about the conference, e.g. what the papers were about.
My variant does have 'tu2-cia4' and 'cia4', but usually become 'tu2-kha4' and 'kha4'. And like what Ah-bin heard in Taiwan, our 'tu2-kha4' is often pronounced as 'tu2-a4'.
About "actually", your Medan friend is right that its native Hokkien term is 'sit8-cai7' 實在. Another term is 其實 'ki5-sit8', which may sound too much like Mandarin. The latter has implied negation, the former tends to be an affirmation. Also 實在 has wider (and slightly different) meaning & usage than 其實, e.g. 實在話 'sit8-cai7-ue7' is "true/sincere word(s)", we cannot use 其實+話 for that meaning.
Re: Medan Hokkien
Hi niuc,niuc wrote:... Hope you can share more about the conference, e.g. what the papers were about.
I'm happy to, but there were more than 30 papers presented, so perhaps it's more sensible for you to have a look here: http://eats-taiwan.eu/wp-content/upload ... 04-051.pdf.
As you can see, it was basically a two-and-a-half-day conference, divided into two main "strands": a politics/economics strand, and an "arts/language/history/culture/anthropology" strand. Because of my own personal interests and inclinations, I go almost exclusively to the second strand (occasionally, there's a political issue which interests me, especially if it's connected to "Taiwanese Identity").
The intellectual stimulation of the entire conference was truly wonderful, but it's a really humbling experience to be completely surrounded by very, very bright people (mostly PhD students, university lecturers, and professors - there was only one other non-academic present besides me). What I mean is that these people are so intelligent that they can get to the heart (or weakness) of a particular argument on initial hearing, without having to ponder upon it. Normally, I keep my mouth shut and just listen / observe, but I slightly made a fool of myself once by saying a "layman" thing and then having the academic point out how silly my observation was. I felt like crawling into a hole in the ground at that point, and resolved never to say anything in the large forum at an EATS conference again! (I can always go up to the academic after the presentation and discuss my thoughts and ideas with him privately).
Perhaps the most embarassing thing for me each year is that I don't speak Mandarin. Of course, every white person (to say nothing of the East Asians) present at such a conference can speak Mandarin fluently. Still, a lot of these academics are quite kind (especially the ones who have known me for some years now), and they always greet me with a smile when they see me.
Re: Medan Hokkien
One of the presentations I went to was "An Archeological View on Bentuhua: Taiwan's Tombstones in a Historical Perspective". I spoke with one of the presenters after that, and he told me that Hokkkiens in general and Taiwanese in particular practice a burial custom called "Second Burial". This is where the body is dug up after some time, and the bones put into an urn and moved elsewhere. He was totally amazed that someone who claimed to be of Hokkien descent (i.e. me) had never heard of the custom.
He then explained that this was called "khioh-kut" (= "picking up the bones"). I in turn had to explain that this term was indeed very familiar to me, but (in my cultural background), it meant something quite different. Namely, after the body of the deceased has been cremated, the larger bones are broken up into smaller pieces. The bone fragments and ash are (in the case of my grandmother) placed in a large, shallow enamel tub/pot/wide-mouthed bowl on the ground. Then, the family line up in 4 rows: one row for the sons and sons-in-law of the deceased, one row for the daughters and daughters-in-law of the deceased, one row for the male grandchildren of the deceased, and one row for the female grandchildren of the deceased. In each row, the people line up from eldest to the youngest*. Then in turn (starting with the eldest son and ending with the youngest granddaughter), each will step forward to the tub and pick some of the bones up with a pair of chopsticks and transfer them to a much smaller container. In my grandmother's case, the contents of the resulting smaller container with bone fragments and ash were then scattered in the sea, at the same spot where my grandfather's bones and ashes had been scattered many years earlier. In the case of other people, the contents of the resulting smaller container might then be put into an urn and then stored in some shrine or temple.
I explained to the academic that that was what "khioh-kut" meant in my family background, i.e. the transferring of the bone fragments from the larger tub to the smaller container, using the chopsticks. He seemed quite surprised to learn this.
*: The order of the four rows - first male adults, then female adults, then male grandchildren, finally female grandchildren - and the order of age in each row - show the "standard" hierarchy of traditional Chinese society, namely: men above women and older above younger. I'm no longer sure (I was 16 at the time) whether all the sons lined up first in order of age, and then the sons-in-law, or whether all the adult males were in order of age (I suspect the former). Similarly, I'm no longer sure whether all the daughters lined up first in order of age, and then the daughters-in-law, or whether all the adult females were in order of age (again, I suspect the former, to distinguish actual children of the deceased from the sons- and daughters-in-law).
PS: I would be happy to hear what other Forum members know about "khioh-kut" and/or "second burial".
He then explained that this was called "khioh-kut" (= "picking up the bones"). I in turn had to explain that this term was indeed very familiar to me, but (in my cultural background), it meant something quite different. Namely, after the body of the deceased has been cremated, the larger bones are broken up into smaller pieces. The bone fragments and ash are (in the case of my grandmother) placed in a large, shallow enamel tub/pot/wide-mouthed bowl on the ground. Then, the family line up in 4 rows: one row for the sons and sons-in-law of the deceased, one row for the daughters and daughters-in-law of the deceased, one row for the male grandchildren of the deceased, and one row for the female grandchildren of the deceased. In each row, the people line up from eldest to the youngest*. Then in turn (starting with the eldest son and ending with the youngest granddaughter), each will step forward to the tub and pick some of the bones up with a pair of chopsticks and transfer them to a much smaller container. In my grandmother's case, the contents of the resulting smaller container with bone fragments and ash were then scattered in the sea, at the same spot where my grandfather's bones and ashes had been scattered many years earlier. In the case of other people, the contents of the resulting smaller container might then be put into an urn and then stored in some shrine or temple.
I explained to the academic that that was what "khioh-kut" meant in my family background, i.e. the transferring of the bone fragments from the larger tub to the smaller container, using the chopsticks. He seemed quite surprised to learn this.
*: The order of the four rows - first male adults, then female adults, then male grandchildren, finally female grandchildren - and the order of age in each row - show the "standard" hierarchy of traditional Chinese society, namely: men above women and older above younger. I'm no longer sure (I was 16 at the time) whether all the sons lined up first in order of age, and then the sons-in-law, or whether all the adult males were in order of age (I suspect the former). Similarly, I'm no longer sure whether all the daughters lined up first in order of age, and then the daughters-in-law, or whether all the adult females were in order of age (again, I suspect the former, to distinguish actual children of the deceased from the sons- and daughters-in-law).
PS: I would be happy to hear what other Forum members know about "khioh-kut" and/or "second burial".