ransek wrote:
It was amazing that you could pick up Hokkien in six months. I guess you might have some exposure to Hokkien even before you went to Penang.
Okay, admittedly I did have some exposure to Hokkien before I went up to Penang.
But it was limited to a smattering of basic words -
大 toa ,
細 se,
淡薄 tam-poh,
熱 joah,
冷 leng,
會使 e-sai. Hardly enough to string a sentence more than five words long, and absolutely no way that I could have carried out a conversation. And at that time, partly due to limited exposure, I looked upon Hokkien with disdain, seeing it as crude, lexically-limited, and unconnected with the Chinese language as a whole. That all changed when I went up to Penang (partly because it also coincided with a period of renewed interest in the Chinese language for me). As to how I picked up the dialect quickly, there really are no two ways about it. Listen hard and absorb words like a sponge. And here’s the next crucial step: You must
constantly use what you have learnt, at every possible opportunity. This takes a bit of thick skin (and unfortunately, some people are just too darn proud to risk making mistakes), but it has to be done. Then you get to experience the language ‘at work’.
That said, it is not impossible to learn the language outside of its native environment. We have
Ah-bin on this Forum who is a prime example of one who has pretty much mastered the intricacies of
閩南 Minnan without having had the advantage of spending an extended period of time immersed in a
閩南 Minnan-speaking environment.
ransek wrote:
Finding 本字 is a tough task. I've been frequenting linguistic forums for some years but there are still so many Wu words that I had no clue what their 本字 are.
It’s a similar challenge for
閩南 Minnan, too. The more difficult ones come in the form of:
1. Grammatical particles and functional words （
虛詞）. E.g. where
閩南 Minnan has
tsit7-
e5 ‘this’,
吳 Wu has
ɡə.tɐ.
2. Words of non-Sinitic origin (probably less of a challenge with 吳 Wu). These I do not even try to artifically-impose
本字 on them, as I feel there is no point in denying their non-Sinitic roots.
That is the reason why my primary focus are on content words （
實詞） - nouns, verbs, adjectives - as those are the ones more likely to have
本字. That way, I amass more characters right off the bat (sort of like quickly completing all the easy questions on an examination paper first, before flogging yourself to death with the more difficult ones!), thus making the exercise a lot less discouraging.
To ease the exercise somewhat, I normally approach it from two directions, and in the process, see if I can meet halfway:
1. Identify the word(s), and then search for the
本字.
2. Identify the Chinese character, and then find out how it is pronounced (both in
文讀 and
白讀).
By this method, every now and again I find that (2) leads me to identify a
本字 in (1), via word combinations or cross-references to related words.
This is part of the reason why I generally commence
本字 analysis via
文言文 Literary Chinese texts. In the past, they must have been recited using the standard
文讀 readings of the region, with each character mapped to a known regional standard pronunciation. And
吳 Wu should be no exception. I realise it imposes a somewhat artificial structure, as the spoken vernacular would correspond to
白讀, but if the
文白 patterns can somehow be established, it forms a pretty good guide (imperfect though it may be).
Regarding the similarities between
閩南 Minnan and
吳 Wu, one aspect that comes to mind is the consistent pattern in the dropping of the consonant -n endings and replacing them with nasalised endings in the
白讀 colloquial readings. E.g.
看 is
khoaⁿ3 in
閩南 Minnan and
khuə in
吳 Wu;
安 is
uaⁿ3 in
閩南 Minnan and
uə in
吳 Wu. Vocabulary-wise, the most obvious example that comes to mind is
伊 as the 3rd person pronoun.
One aspect that intrigues me about
上海話 are the dual readings - as in, I am not sure if they are simply
文白 pairs, or different readings depending on context. E.g.
人 is
zeng in
人民 zeng-ming, but is
ning in
人家 ning-ka. And there again,
家 can be either
ka or
jia. Somehow, I get the feeling that the
zeng reading for
人 and
jia reading for
家 is a stratum from Northern influence.
Since you have now renewed my interest in
吳 Wu, I just downloaded an old book
『蘇州方言誌』(plus a couple of others). Chapter 8
『蘇州話標音舉例』 has example texts with each character marked with its pronunciation and tone mark, totalling close to 100 pages. As to why I am focussing on
蘇州話 rather than
上海話, what little I have read seems to point towards
蘇州話 as the “orthodox”
吳 Wu, rather than
上海話 which is more of a “
Wu-eclectic” dialect that has - as
amhoanna pointed out - suffered the onslaught of
北方語 influences. I realise that I am swimming upstream, as
上海話 is the
de facto standard for
吳 Wu today - but then again, isn’t all dialect study and preservation?
By the way, thanks for the YouTube link - most interesting. I had to rely on the subtitles to get through the dialogue, and even that took three viewings!
ransek wrote:
...he went to 尊孔獨中 and said they needed to pay fines if caught speaking Cantonese...
Yes,
尊孔獨中 Confucian Private High School and
中華獨中 Chung Hwa Independent High School are two of the more well-known Chinese Independent High Schools in Kuala Lumpur (there are currently a total 60
獨立中學 across the whole of Malaysia; it is the only country outside of mainland China and Taiwan where a fully Chinese language-based education system all the way to the end of upper secondary still exists. As I did not attend Chinese school (yes, I am part of the estimated 30% minority in my generation of Chinese Malaysians who are bananas - yellow outside, white inside!), I am not entirely familiar with the strict rules in regards to the use of dialect within the school compound, though I recall hearing of such a rule being imposed at the
檳城鍾靈國民型中學 Chung Ling High School (Penang).
] thang hE-loh wa-e a-ma e a-ma e bong e foto ti cit-peng. 
But be fore-warned: Download speed can be painfully slow if you are doing it from outside of China.