Hokkien Literature

[FutureSpy]

Just wondering: does anyone know any literature in Hokkien? Any specific authors you could recommend me? What dialect do they use? If so, where can i find these books? I remember someone mentioned "Wuxia" on another thread, but what's that exactly?

[Ah-bin]

The easiest and cheapest book to get hold of is The Bible, printed entirely in Romanised Hokkien, based on the Amoy dialect as it was spoken 100 years ago.

If that is not to your taste, you can try looking for something at Taiuan e tiam.

http://www.taiouan.com.tw/catalog/

Under 母語天地

http://www.taiouan.com.tw/catalog/index.php?cPath=50&osCsid=e51b3cd55fc1297a390d127d50864c0d

You'll see that there are many collections of 台語文學 and Taiwanese translations of famous books, such as Alice in Wonderland. I used to own a copy of Orwell's 'Animal Farm' in Taiwanese, but I lent it to someone and didn't get it back.

Publishing written prose in Hokkien in the PRC is illegal, so hardly anything is printed there other than textbooks, collections of proverbs, and dictionaries.

Somewhere earlier I posted a link to a free collection of Taiwanese folk stories in the Chiang-chiu-type dialect spoken on the north-east coast of Taiwan. Okay, just found the link again, I'll post it here again.

http://www.tyccc.gov.tw/_admin/_upload/readbook/artpublic/58/file/56%E9%BE%9C%E5%B1%B1%E9%84%89%E9%96%A9%E5%8D%97%E8%AA%9E%E6%95%85%E4%BA%8B%28%E4%BA%8C%29.pdf

looks like it is still online.

[FutureSpy]

Thanks! What about other dialects? (any in Southeast Asia?)

I bought my Taiwanese "The Little Prince" in Han-lo at 台灣ê店 too. I find it hard to guess how to pronounce some characters, 'cos hanji usage depends on the person who translated/wrote it. I saw some books with CD tho, I'll see if I can get any of them. Do they use literary pronunciations for hanji? My guess is that my edition of "The Little Prince" was translated into spoken Taiwanese rather than literary Taiwanese, but I still don't know enough Taiwanese to judge...

As for the Bible, well, I'm a learner, I think I'm not in position of complaining... haha Any ideas if I can find an exact edition of it in hanji too? So I can read them side by side... There seem to be multiple Taiwanese translations of it, and one in "modern" Taiwanese as well...

[EDIT]
Just read at Wikipedia that "Sin-kū-iok ê Sèng-keng" (1933) and 聖經台語漢字本 (1996) are respectively romanized and hanji editions. So I'll try to get both. Again, according to Wikipedia, there's a more modern edition of New Testament "Hiān-tāi Tâi-gú Sin-iok Sèng-keng", but unfortunately it's all romanized...

[amhoanna]

I used the Amoy Bible a lot when I was first learning Hoklo. It turned out that there were big differences in the Hoklo in the Amoy Bible vs the Hoklo spoken in 21st century TW. A few yrs ago, though, I spoke to a lady who'd immigrated to TW from Amoy as a kid, then mostly hung around Mandophones -- meaning that her Hoklo didn't really keep pace with the times, nor Taiwanize. I was amazed at how easily and completely I could understand her. It made me realize that I hadn't been as bad at learning Hoklo as I'd thought. It's just that my learning materials had been out of step with the language.

The 紅皮聖経, published in the 1970s and immediately banned by the Chiangs, can be found on the 信望愛 FHL website. Hands down the best choice for learning Taiwan Hoklo. Not sure, but it may actually be closer to modern M'sia/China Hoklo than the old Amoy Bible.

One of my favorite writers in any language is 陳雷 Tân Lûi. I have w/ me a collection of his short stories entitled 無情城市. His "great work" is 鄉史補記, which would be a famous book if he would've "sold out" and written it in Mandarin. Historical fiction. A work of staggering imagination. 台湾个店 is the best place I know of to buy his stuff. The FHL website also carries some of his stories.

I've heard that some Hoklo professors in TW assign a book by 蔡培火, published in the 1930s and written in romanized script. It's also online now. He was an official under the Japanese and the book is mostly about public policy and the future. His dialect is very different from modern Mainstream TWnese and some of his usages are things I would associate with M'sia/Sg today. I can post a link if anyone needs it.

Future Spy--

On a different thread, you bring up something about the non-standardization of kanji, etc. I strongly recommend using the 台日大 (http://taigi.fhl.net/dict/) and the 台語白話小詞典--must buy at 台湾个店 or www.atsiu.com. These two dictionaries are both meticulously accurate. They don't assign a kanji unless it's either etymologically established or "socially proofed".

The 台華綫頂 is useful b/c it's so flexible and comprehensive, but it can be inaccurate and its definitions have no depth -- it's just a big wordlist. The 台閩常用 is useful too, but they "force" every Hoklo element to have a kanji, and their methods are somewhat Sino- and Mando-centric. They aren't as "realist" as the 白話小詞典. I use all four dictionaries together. Other foreros swear by Douglas and Campbell as well. Apparently a new dictionary will be coming out for Penang Hokkien. Much anticipated.

[FutureSpy]

Thanks amnoanna.

Actually, by coincidence I found FHL a few days ago and have been organizing things to get print both Amoy Romanized Bible/聖經台語漢字本 and 紅皮聖經. Nice thing is that they got audio for 聖經台語漢字本, so even though I can't understand a thing of it, it's great to practice pronunciation as well.

And thanks for your recommendation. I've written down 陳雷's name. Hope I'll able to read some of his books someday

By now, I'll try to get some children books with CD and hanji + zhuyin. There are some nice book series that introduces basic vocabulary such as "細漢囝仔學台語" and "細漢囝仔學台語" (and possibly "咱來講台語", but I couldn't find any sample pages of it) and then simple sentences which I might give a try. After some time I could try to jump to 三字經 or 囡仔詩 books...

Thanks for your advices about dictionaries. I actually have finished rewriting all lessons from the textbook I'm studying now using 台華綫頂. I'll recheck everything against 台日大. Do you know a 3-books series called "Introduction to Chinese characters in Taiwanese" by Chen Hsieh Li-ying originally edited by Taipei Language Institute, and now re-printed by Maryknoll? I'd like to learn both literary (some do arise in daily conversations so it's easy to pick them up) and colloquial pronunciations. Any practical reference for that?

[amhoanna]

No, never heard of that series. Sounds like it could be interesting.

U ask if I know any good sources for learning the readings of many kanji in one go. I'm guessing U're not looking for a 字典? .

The first book I used for the purpose was an 厦門方言志. It had a section where it listed each combination of initial and rhyme, along with the various kanji associated with that sound, or a big square for kanji-less words and elements. These lists are usually published in academic papers and they're a dime a dozen. There might be a few online if U know where to look. Ah-bin would be the man to ask.

Otherwise I would pick mixed-script texts with relatively high proportions of Latin script, and start by learning the kanji U see in there. Having a lot of Latin script is not necessarily good, but it does mean that the text is not likely to contain lots of contested kanji or bullshit kanji. Eventually, U may need to get to know the contested kanji. I would leave those for later if poss. The 教育部台閩詞典 lists common alternatives for each contested kanji...

Whatever it is U need, U may find it on 林建輝's site.
http://www.hokkienese.com/?p=715

He comes from 龍海 or around there, and spent a lot of time in Amoy, so his Hoklo is almost indistinguishable from Taiwanese. He also uses mostly Trad. characters. He offers a 1000 Sentences Jap-Mand-Hok resource which I could've definitely used had it existed when I was starting out.

[FutureSpy]

Yep, I wasn't looking for a dictionary, but perhaps getting a good dictionary would do it. I don't know how accurate those hanji books would be, so perhaps it's a waste of money considering I can't see in advance what's inside I guess I'll stick with my dictionaries by now. Having to rewrite textbooks before using them is tedious and daunting, but then I just think how frustrating it is seeing how every author seems to have a different hanji for beh. I'm using 欲, but no idea if that's the better choice...

Whatever it is U need, U may find it on 林建輝's site.
http://www.hokkienese.com/?p=715

OMG, that's awesome! I knew the website, but I didn't take much time to explore it as there's no English at all on it... I'm sure that phrasebook will be very useful. Besides, having Japanese instead of English seems to make it much easier to me (maybe it's just psychological; take in mind my Japanese is much worse than my English). BTW, I'm pretty sure the Japanese (and perhaps Mandarin too) voice is a voice synthesizer. Fortunately, Minnan voice is a nice real speaker

[Ah-bin]

Having to rewrite textbooks before using them is tedious and daunting,

But it's actually an excellent way to learn very well. Every time you rewrite you are doing good memorising work that will prove useful in the future.

I'll see if I can get any of them. Do they use literary pronunciations for hanji? My guess is that my edition of "The Little Prince" was translated into spoken Taiwanese rather than literary Taiwanese, but I still don't know enough Taiwanese to judge...

"Literary Taiwanese" would just be ordinary Classical Chinese read out completely according to the Hokkien literary pronunciation system i.e. jîn and jiók for "person" and "meat" (人 and 肉). I the whole thing is written in characters it is a bad choice for a beginning text, i think. Best to start with romanised text and convert back into characters later when you are more advanced. The only books I know which use literary forms exclusively are Taiwanese copies of Three Character Classic and Thousand Character Essay, both of which can be found here:

I have the sound files as well if you want them, in Taiwanese, but I changed the text a bit so it is pronounced according to Chiang-chiu Hokkien, so the sound files are slightly different (some -iang endings are -iong inTaiwanese

http://www.chinalanguage.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=6&t=10902&sid=1d02cd8c4091087747a90d9df3c37b9f

http://www.chinalanguage.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=6&t=10957&sid=1d02cd8c4091087747a90d9df3c37b9f

These won't help a shred with spoken Hokkien to start with, but they will train you to accurately read out simple literary Chinese in Hokkien.

[amhoanna]

Another book I recommend is 鹿港仙講古, written or edited (can't remember which) by 洪錦田. This is a book of short stories published in the 90s, written by a blue-collar guy from Lokkang but living in Taipak who hadn't been over-Manducated, yet applied himself to learning how to write in Hoklo. The editor holds him out to the audience as a rare breed capable of writing in an uncontaminated Hoklo vernacular...

but I changed the text a bit so it is pronounced according to Chiang-chiu Hokkien, so the sound files are slightly different (some -iang endings are -iong inTaiwanese

I would use Ah-bin's text with confidence. Lots of TWnese say -iang, at least sometimes. Even Gilan -uinn is intelligible to all TWnese, whereas many hardcore Coanciu features tend to go over TWnese heads.

[FutureSpy]

But it's actually an excellent way to learn very well. Every time you rewrite you are doing good memorising work that will prove useful in the future.

Well, I can't really deny it's helping me to memorize stuff!

Ah-bin, it would be nice if you could send me these audio files So 三字經 is basically written in Classical Chinese? Even those for children?

I found some great sites with texts/audio in Taiwanese.
http://www.taibun.tw/ (POJ)
http://210.240.194.97/nmtl/DADWT/pbk.asp (POJ + Hàn-lô)

If you look patiently, you can even find 小王子 (Le Petit Prince):
http://210.240.194.97/nmtl/DADWT/thak.asp?id=1857
It's a different translation from 台文1001譯 edition tho...

There are some many texts I'll probably not need to buy books in Taiwanese for years in the future. But by now I'll have to stick with books for children (they're enough challenging for me)

[Ah-bin]

You'll have to send me a private message with your e-mail address, then I can send it to you. I have broken it up into four sections of about equal length.

Yes, before the 1930's (1920's in the big cities) even children had to learn literary Chinese if they wanted to be able to read, and written Mandarin was looked upon as a vulgar style of writing the same way as most Chinese teachers look upon written Cantonese and Hokkien now.

[FutureSpy]

Thanks Ah-bin. I've just PM'ed you.

Thanks for your suggestions, amhoanna.