The Coxford Singlish Dictionary and Singapore Hokkien

[Ah-bin]

I've had a look at this before, but I never realised what a good reseource it is for Hokkien slang terms. Although the dictionary is about Singlish, and not Hokkien in particular, it is full of wonderful Hokkien expressions that Singaporeans could not find replacements for in English, so they did the only decent thing and left them as nice nuggets of Hokkien in Singlish.

The author has been kind enough to put the whole thing online too, although I'll definitely support him by buying a copy or two if I get to Singapore before the Lees ban it for encouraging impure speech habits.

http://www.talkingcock.com/html/lexec.p ... &op=LexPKL

The thing I have found most useful is the definitions of some difficult terms in Hokkien. Here are some examples of things we have discussed before

KANG TAU
A Hokkien term which is similar to "lobang", but may also be used in the sense of a "secret work technique".
"Don't scared, Uncle here got kang tau one. I show you how to do OK?"


MM TZAI SI
Hokkien admonishment meaning "ignorant of death". Used when someone is audacious and cavalier about consequences.
"Why you go and make fun of Ah Beng's tattoo? Mm tzai si!"

TUA KEE (1)
Hokkien for "big shot". Literally, "big stick".
"You lan copler only, what! Why you act so tua kee?" (You're only a lance corporal. How dare you act like such a big shot?"


There are many more, some of which I know from Penang Hokkien.

There is a actually a dictionary of Singapore Hokkien published in China 新加坡闽南话词典, in which I have found quite a few words that are used in Penang, but are not in my Taiwanese or Chinese Hokkien dictionaries. Unfortunately some terms that I have found in the Coxford site are not in the dictionary, which makes me think the author neglected to include slangy terms.

[SimL]

Don't know if you already know the term "tua-liap lang" (liap = measure word for round objects). It means "VIP".

Perhaps it can't be used in Singlish, but it can in Hokkien, in the same sense as your example with "tua-ki".

[niuc]

I think 'khang-thau' & 'm-cai-si' are common for all Hokkien variants. 'tua-ki' sounds rude in my variant, we usually use 'tua-liap-lang' (same as Sim's, or simply 'tua-liap'), still "rude" but better... to be more polite, the term 大人物 'tai-lin-but' is used.