"lum" = "dragon"

[patrick]

Hey, does anyone know if "lum" is a pronunciation for "dragon"?

[Dr_aggie]

No, it should be lung (long)

[Sim Lee]

I'm surprised you say this, as I thought that was Mandarin.

In my variant of Hokkien it is "leng" (with an "e" pronounced like the the "a" in "late" - called the "closed-e" in linguistics). In another variant (Amoy?) it is pronounced "lieng" (with the "e" pronounced like the "e" in "bigger" - called the schwa in linguistics). And I believe (though I'm not sure) that it can also be pronounced "liong" (with the "o" pronounced like the "o" in "song").

Sim.

[Niuc]

"Ling" / "Leng" is colloquial pronunciation (pe-ue / bai2hua4); "Liong" is literary pronunciation (bun-gian / wen2yan2).

[Dr_aggie]

Well, I assumed Patrick was asking for mandarin since "lum" makes no sense in Min dialect.