Some more videoclips

[SimL]

Hi Everyone,

I was just looking through youtube and came across these clips. Perhaps they should be posted in an existing thread, but I couldn't really find one which was completely appropriate (perhaps there is one, I didn't really look very hard).

The first two are language instruction in Taiwanese; the last two are of younger people speaking Taiwanese - (perhaps Ah-bin will take heart that it's not just oldies who still speak it in Taiwan - particularly in the last clip, the whole family seem to be taking a lot of pleasure in the fact that the little boy is speaking it).

A few related clips from these are also interesting, but I won't post them all here - readers can just try clicking on a couple, if they're interested. (Please post any which you find particularly interesting.)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1jytHN13hvA
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iclMHW26 ... re=related

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=06gMIBj5 ... re=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tEgu0J5y ... re=related

PS. The last clip might not be co-incidentally just "an average happy family speaking Taiwanese". Briefly - from 04:06 to 04:11 - a man appears with some POJ text written on his dark blue t-shirt, so this could be a clip of a particularly "pro-Taiwanese" family. (There's nothing wrong with that, of course (quite the contrary!), but I'm just speculating that it might not be just a "random" clip of people who happen to speak Taiwanese.)

[aokh1979]

Listen to 2 siblings arguing in Taiwan Hokkien. Have fun.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b2hTtipdnZ0

[niuc]

Sim, thanks, it seemed to be a group of "pro-Taiwanese" having gathering. Glad that the kid can speak Taiwanese Hokkien...

Aokh, thanks, funny kids. If only many more kids can argue like that...

[SimL]

Hi niuc,

Were there any other clues besides the blue t-shirt? I couldn't understand everything the kid said (and even more so, the adults), but it seemed to be mostly about the cicada.

Could you understand some of the text of the t-shirt, or were you basing your judgement on gut-feeling, like I did. Or perhaps you came to this conclusion based on how much the adults emphasized what a positive thing it was that the child spoke Taiwanese...?

[niuc]

Hi Sim

Yes, it was mostly about cicada... yup, based on gut-feeling. I just noticed part of POJ text on the t-shirt is "... oan e chu lang", i guess it is "tai oan e chu lang" -> owner of Taiwan. I suspect they or at least the guy was DPP supporter.

[amhoanna]

I think it's safe to say that this family votes Green and is Presbyterian. I mean, Holo lômájī are considered "kooky" even by the average Holo-speaking Green voter. It's cool that the kid is so articulate in Holo. Most educated people in Taiwan——and this family seems like a family that tha̍kcheh——have a deep-seated belief that "kids ... just can't speak Holo, and that's a known fact".

Some videos from "the other straits":

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5k9FIqYVQ9c
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pKgDbOvyWmI

I can't really understand the Medan rapper. Also, I can't catch a lot of what the Penang aliân is saying, but it's probably b/c they tuned out the vocals too much.

[AndrewAndrew]

The Ah Lian one is too irritating to watch for long. The Medan one starts

三號八月koh八三年
生出來加囡仔疕
喙垃儳講著屎話
[人拺bē停寫？？話]
看藍戲[怗怗是]看藍戲
看查某水水[嚷嚷真渴]
[真]koh有按呢濟翁公仔無hiú[咱]人講的話...

Clearly not the most sophisticated of rhymes.

[niuc]

I think it's safe to say that this family votes Green and is Presbyterian. I mean, Holo lômájī are considered "kooky" even by the average Holo-speaking Green voter. It's cool that the kid is so articulate in Holo. Most educated people in Taiwan——and this family seems like a family that tha̍kcheh——have a deep-seated belief that "kids ... just can't speak Holo, and that's a known fact".

Oh, so POJ is only popular among Presbyterians there...

That is a stupid belief, right? It reminds me of a joke: 'Ho2-chai2 gua2 bo5-chut4-si3-ti7-Jit8-pun2, lang5-gua2 bue7-hiau2-kong2-Jit8-pun2-ue7 lai0." (lai0 is a contraction of ly2 cai1 = "you know"/".., right?")

Hokkien is perceived to be "outdated, lower class, etc" but that is a self-fulfilling prophecy if Hokkiens themselves think that way. I can understand those who give up (meaning they have opportunity to learn or pass down but they choose not to) their ancestral language because of financial & political gains (which actually means they think of themselves as not clever enough to be multilingual, well fair enough, right?), but I despise those who despise their own heritage (which actually means they despise themselves, so lets do them some favor by despising them)!

This news is about Hokkien used in "getai" 歌台 (ko1-tai5), also touches on youth people's mastery (or mostly lack of) of it:
"Hokkien is just like Greek"
http://www.asiaone.com/News/Latest%2BNe ... 33326.html

[SimL]

Hi niuc,

Thanks for posting this. A very interesting article indeed. While the "first half" is sad news, because of explaining how many young people don't speak Hokkien at all (but we already knew this), I take heart at the "second half", which describes the survival (indeed, even flourishing) of Hokkien in this particular area of the arts.

'TODAY, getai and Hokkien go together like butter and bread. One is virtually inseparable from the other.'

and

"Rediffusion was so hot in Singapore that almost every household owned a Rediffusion set. People would tune in to the Hokkien storytelling segments without fail," said Liu. "In that environment, Hokkien continued to blossom and that popularity translated onto the getai stage as well."

and

'Another veteran getai artiste Zhuang Qingyu, 42, believes that "Hokkien just has the unique ability to bind people together".'

[amhoanna]

三號八月koh八三年
生出來加囡仔疕
喙垃儳講著屎話
[人拺bē停寫？？話]
看藍戲[怗怗是]看藍戲
看查某水水 [嚷嚷真渴]
[真]koh有按呢濟翁公仔無hiú[咱]人講的話...

Thanks, Andrew. It would be cool to be able to understand that "Northern Straits" Hokkien so effortlessly. I still don't get the 2nd and 4th lines, all I can catch is gínnáphí in the 2nd line. The 4th line seems to end in 特别特别大.

藍戲 means porn flicks? Could the end of the 6th line be 尖尖真闊?

And what is an 翁公仔?