xng wrote:SimL wrote: "png1" and "hong1" for the surname 方 (in this case, my maternal Sin-Kheh family's surname). My guess is that the "initial-h" form is the colloquial reading and the "initial-p" form the literary]
No. This is incorrect.
The pronounciation follows the meaning, eg.
方
Surname - Png
Recipe 秘方 - Hng
Direction 方向 - Hong
In your usual self-confident, brusque and arrogant way, you make your inaccurate / incorrect declarations.
Note that I did not say "the "initial-h" form is the colloquial reading and the "initial-p" form the literary". Instead I said "
My guess is that the "initial-h" form is the colloquial reading and the "initial-p" form the literary".
I could be wrong, and I'm willing to be corrected by someone more knowledgeable.
In contrast, you
declare that "Hong" cannot be a surname.
My ji-peh-kong (my maternal grandfather's second eldest brother) was a pastor (of the
Hokkien-speaking Methodist church), and my own maternal grandfather was a headmaster of a Chinese primary school. The former was addressed as both "Png bok-su" and "Hong bok-su" by the congregation. The latter was addressed as both "Png siEn-siN" and "Hong siEn-siN" by the parents of the kids and the members of the school board.
This difference was not "at random". Some people consistently used "Png" and other people consistently used "Hong". (One was much more common than the other, but both forms were used.) Nobody thought this strange, and nobody got confused, because it simply was the case that the surname could be pronounced ("read") in the two different pronunciations.
This is so similar to the time that you declared that Hokkiens
never have 2-syllable names, always 3-syllable names. My maternal family tree has been traced back 5 generations (so, from memory, back to at least 1850). This Hokkien family - living in a backwater village in Hui-oaN*** - has (again from memory, the posting is on this Forum) 1/3 of the members with 2-syllable names, many of them in an early part of the total period.
***: So, how much more Hokkien can you get than THAT
!
I don't know where you get your ideas and opinions about Hokkien from, but they seem to be based on very limited knowledge and background.
A wise person knows how much he knows, and realises that it's very little, and hence is humble and willing to learn from others. An ignorant person is blissfully unaware of how ignorant he is, and thinks of himself as being oh-so-knowledgeable.
Malay has a good phrase for it - "katak dibawah tempurung" = "frog living under a coconut shell". Mandarin has a similar expression too, something about a frog in a well - 井底的青蛙 - right?
