Andrew,
>> Regarding the Penang pronunciations (ui as opposed to ng) ...
>> .. I was visiting Kinmen this past summer I found out that they
>> too speak in that fashion.
Thanks very much for this information. I'll look out for people from Kinmen.
Sim.
An obcure variety of Hokkien?
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Sim Lee
Re: An obcure variety of Hokkien?
Does any one know how to get hold of the email addresses of either of these two linguists?
Their paper suggest that they _might_ be able to shed light on the history of Penang Hokkien.
Reference:
http://www.ling.udel.edu/pcole/MalayInd ... racts.html
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
A Preliminary Investigation of the Phonology of Baba Hokkien of Penang
Boon Seong Teoh and Beng Soon Lim
The genesis of the Baba or Peranakan Chinese community of Penang dates back to the establishment of Penang as a British colony by Sir Francis Light in 1786. Penang is situated to the north-west of the Malaysian peninsula and as a focal point of commerce attracted an influx of Chinese, particularly those from southern Thailand and Northern Sumatra. The host language of this variety Baba Hokkien of Penang investigated in this paper is the Southern Min dialect of the Standard Amoy variety spoken on the Chinese mainland. Based on a corpus of about 400 Malay loan words in Baba Hokkien of Penang we find these words undergoing phonological restructuring. Some of these words mimic the phonology of the north-east Malay dialect of Penang and Kedah but retaining the underlying tones of Hokkien ; e.g. [kawen] ’to marry’ as having a Hi and a Low tone superimposed on the loan disyllabic word. In the word "sanggul", ‘hair bun’ the loan Malay word undergoes restructuring and surfaces as [saNgOl ] with the lateral /l / deleted word finally, and the final closed syllable /u/ lowered to mid [o] and which subsequently diphthongizes to [oi]. This form [saNgOl ] is the Penang Malay dialect rendition of the word. This paper presents a preliminary investigation to the restructuring innovations of sound of such loan words in Baba Hokkien of Penang.
Their paper suggest that they _might_ be able to shed light on the history of Penang Hokkien.
Reference:
http://www.ling.udel.edu/pcole/MalayInd ... racts.html
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
A Preliminary Investigation of the Phonology of Baba Hokkien of Penang
Boon Seong Teoh and Beng Soon Lim
The genesis of the Baba or Peranakan Chinese community of Penang dates back to the establishment of Penang as a British colony by Sir Francis Light in 1786. Penang is situated to the north-west of the Malaysian peninsula and as a focal point of commerce attracted an influx of Chinese, particularly those from southern Thailand and Northern Sumatra. The host language of this variety Baba Hokkien of Penang investigated in this paper is the Southern Min dialect of the Standard Amoy variety spoken on the Chinese mainland. Based on a corpus of about 400 Malay loan words in Baba Hokkien of Penang we find these words undergoing phonological restructuring. Some of these words mimic the phonology of the north-east Malay dialect of Penang and Kedah but retaining the underlying tones of Hokkien ; e.g. [kawen] ’to marry’ as having a Hi and a Low tone superimposed on the loan disyllabic word. In the word "sanggul", ‘hair bun’ the loan Malay word undergoes restructuring and surfaces as [saNgOl ] with the lateral /l / deleted word finally, and the final closed syllable /u/ lowered to mid [o] and which subsequently diphthongizes to [oi]. This form [saNgOl ] is the Penang Malay dialect rendition of the word. This paper presents a preliminary investigation to the restructuring innovations of sound of such loan words in Baba Hokkien of Penang.
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Sim Lee
Re: An obcure variety of Hokkien?
Oops, forgot to add:
They work at the National University of Singapore.
Sim.
They work at the National University of Singapore.
Sim.
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xxxx
Re: An obcure variety of Hokkien?
wish to add somethin here...... Penang Hokkien is not unique to the region... many Indonesians Hokkiens speak similarly too (as opposed to rest of Malaysia and Singapore)
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Niuc
Re: An obcure variety of Hokkien?
Hi all 
It's really nice to find a wonderful forum like this. I enjoy very much learning more about Hokkien from all of you. Thanks.
Some additional info that I know:
Indonesian Hokkiens from North Sumatra Province, especially from Medan (a city just across strait west of Penang), speak like those in Penang.
But those from Riau Province (eastern part of Sumatra, just across strait from Southern Malaysia) speak like those in Melaka.
My paternal grandparents were from 金門 Kim-Mng (Jinmen) and they spoke like Southern Malaysia/E-Mng/Taiwan Hokkien instead of Penang/Medan Hokkien. Hokkiens in Sinaboi (Cia*-Cui-Kang) are from Kim-Mng and they also use the '-ng' instead of '-ui*'. Since I haven't visited Kim-Mng yet, I can't verify nor deny what Andrew Lee wrote.
People in my hometown Bagansiapiapi, a small town just accross strait west of Melaka, speak 同安 Tang-Ua* (Tong2-An1) Hokkien. From what I know, it's a kind of mixture between Cuan-Ciu 泉州 (Quanzhou) and E-Mng 廈門 (Xiamen). Basically it's similar to E-Mng & Taiwanese, yet we pronounce vowels clearer than Taiwanese, i.e. "marriage"/"jie2-hun1" 結婚 as "kiat-hun" not "ket-hun", "special"/"te4-bie2" 特別 as "tiat-piat" not "tet-pet" and "Hok-Kian" 福建 instead of "Hok-Kien"/"Hok-Ken". Usually it's easier for people from Bagan to understand Hokkien used in Medan than vice versa.
BTW, I rarely find young people in Singapore speaking Hokkien. I usually speak to my Singaporean friends in Mandarin.
Niuc
http://www.geocities.com/niucls/
It's really nice to find a wonderful forum like this. I enjoy very much learning more about Hokkien from all of you. Thanks.
Some additional info that I know:
Indonesian Hokkiens from North Sumatra Province, especially from Medan (a city just across strait west of Penang), speak like those in Penang.
But those from Riau Province (eastern part of Sumatra, just across strait from Southern Malaysia) speak like those in Melaka.
My paternal grandparents were from 金門 Kim-Mng (Jinmen) and they spoke like Southern Malaysia/E-Mng/Taiwan Hokkien instead of Penang/Medan Hokkien. Hokkiens in Sinaboi (Cia*-Cui-Kang) are from Kim-Mng and they also use the '-ng' instead of '-ui*'. Since I haven't visited Kim-Mng yet, I can't verify nor deny what Andrew Lee wrote.
People in my hometown Bagansiapiapi, a small town just accross strait west of Melaka, speak 同安 Tang-Ua* (Tong2-An1) Hokkien. From what I know, it's a kind of mixture between Cuan-Ciu 泉州 (Quanzhou) and E-Mng 廈門 (Xiamen). Basically it's similar to E-Mng & Taiwanese, yet we pronounce vowels clearer than Taiwanese, i.e. "marriage"/"jie2-hun1" 結婚 as "kiat-hun" not "ket-hun", "special"/"te4-bie2" 特別 as "tiat-piat" not "tet-pet" and "Hok-Kian" 福建 instead of "Hok-Kien"/"Hok-Ken". Usually it's easier for people from Bagan to understand Hokkien used in Medan than vice versa.
BTW, I rarely find young people in Singapore speaking Hokkien. I usually speak to my Singaporean friends in Mandarin.
Niuc
http://www.geocities.com/niucls/
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Sim Lee
Re: An obcure variety of Hokkien?
Hi Diojiulnant,
Can you say "stark raving looney"?.
It would be really nice if you didn't post entries in every single forum I can find on Hokkien related sites on the internet.
Cheers
Can you say "stark raving looney"?
.It would be really nice if you didn't post entries in every single forum I can find on Hokkien related sites on the internet.
Cheers
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nokko
Re: An obcure variety of Hokkien?
-_-
...
hhmm... where were we... ? oh, that's right, i was going to ask this for a very very long long time :
how do you say 'soap' and 'police' in hokkien? (Sim: shhh... let's hear from outside S.E.A. first before we give our answers... it could be another case like 'kahwin'...
)
How I have seen it so far is that ppl from northern part of peninsular malaysia speaks similar to Penang hokkien 'slang', whereas the Southern part of Peninsular, particularly the south-west coastline (from Klang all the way down to Johor) speaks more of Taiwanese hokkien.
I came from Terengganu, a north-east state of peninsular, we also say 'ke-nui' for chicken egg instead of 'kue-neng'. I have also always wondered why ppl on the other side of the Peninsular speaks different hokkien than us. I have thought it might be an influence of Teochiew, but I am not so sure, still, I am not exposed to Teochiew much, apart from listening to Singapore Teochiew comedians ('Wang Sha' and 'Ye Feng') on tapes, years ago...
Hokkien 'population' used to be number 1 in Malaysia, followed by Hakka, then Cantonese, according to a survey revealed in local newspaper years ago. Not sure about it today.
sorry for the 'chin-cai' romanisation, pai se pai se...
starwars in hokkien, just for laugh... which I believe is of Singaporean Hokkien, what do you all think?
http://psi.phase.net/~cool/stahwars.mp3
regards
nokko
...
hhmm... where were we... ? oh, that's right, i was going to ask this for a very very long long time :
how do you say 'soap' and 'police' in hokkien? (Sim: shhh... let's hear from outside S.E.A. first before we give our answers... it could be another case like 'kahwin'...
)How I have seen it so far is that ppl from northern part of peninsular malaysia speaks similar to Penang hokkien 'slang', whereas the Southern part of Peninsular, particularly the south-west coastline (from Klang all the way down to Johor) speaks more of Taiwanese hokkien.
I came from Terengganu, a north-east state of peninsular, we also say 'ke-nui' for chicken egg instead of 'kue-neng'. I have also always wondered why ppl on the other side of the Peninsular speaks different hokkien than us. I have thought it might be an influence of Teochiew, but I am not so sure, still, I am not exposed to Teochiew much, apart from listening to Singapore Teochiew comedians ('Wang Sha' and 'Ye Feng') on tapes, years ago...
Hokkien 'population' used to be number 1 in Malaysia, followed by Hakka, then Cantonese, according to a survey revealed in local newspaper years ago. Not sure about it today.
sorry for the 'chin-cai' romanisation, pai se pai se...
starwars in hokkien, just for laugh... which I believe is of Singaporean Hokkien, what do you all think?
http://psi.phase.net/~cool/stahwars.mp3
regards
nokko
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nokko
Re: An obcure variety of Hokkien?
Another thing to add, because of these northern and southern varieties of hokkien in the peninsular, the '-ui' and '-ng' thing, there appear to be two 'spellings' of surnames : 'WEE' in the north-eastern states, NG' in the south-western states, both point to the same surname in chinese character : 'yellow' (Cant : 'WONG'). Not sure if it is the same in Penang, is it the same in Penang, Sim?
So, one can guess those surnames with 'wee' are most likely from north-eastern states, whereas for 'ng', if the person is of hokkien origin, then the person is most likely from south-western; ('ng' is also used for cantonese' 'wu2' surname, 'mouth facing the sky')
regards
nokko
So, one can guess those surnames with 'wee' are most likely from north-eastern states, whereas for 'ng', if the person is of hokkien origin, then the person is most likely from south-western; ('ng' is also used for cantonese' 'wu2' surname, 'mouth facing the sky')
regards
nokko
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JCampbell
Re: An obcure variety of Hokkien?
In Taiwan, you can say "satbun" for soap and "kengchat" for police or "tai-in" to refer to policeman. "Satbun" is not a Minnan word and came from one of the indigenous Taiwanese languages in the mountains maybe Ami or Tsou or Paiwan, or?
Don't be fooled by the communist terrorist, there are no such words in Minnan such as:
kaul-hoon (or karl-hoon)
qa-hun (or gkad-hoon)
Even though gkad-hoon looks close, his spelling is really strange based on his interpretation of the sound. This means she never studied Minnan proper pronunciation or spelling. In must be an Arabic person trying to learn Chinese. Arabs have lots of 'q' sounds so they think this must be convenient way to record Minnan. But they don't know, already have lots of standard dictionaries for writing Minnan in several proper ways.
Australia is not "terra nullous". It means "south". For example see French "australe".
Don't be fooled by the communist terrorist, there are no such words in Minnan such as:
kaul-hoon (or karl-hoon)
qa-hun (or gkad-hoon)
Even though gkad-hoon looks close, his spelling is really strange based on his interpretation of the sound. This means she never studied Minnan proper pronunciation or spelling. In must be an Arabic person trying to learn Chinese. Arabs have lots of 'q' sounds so they think this must be convenient way to record Minnan. But they don't know, already have lots of standard dictionaries for writing Minnan in several proper ways.
Australia is not "terra nullous". It means "south". For example see French "australe".
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nokko
Re: An obcure variety of Hokkien?
hhmm... strange... 'sabun' is the malay word for 'soap'. Now I don't know who 'copied' who...
As for 'police', it is called 'mata' (pinyin : ma1 da2) here. My bro asked a teohchew friend who grew up in UK and has never been to Malaysia before told me that they called police as 'mata' as well... Malay called them 'mata-mata'
I didn't have the chance to watch more Taiwanese programs, so I didn't come across to 'Kengchat' from Taiwan, it sounds more like a cantonese police to me though...
good day.
regards
nokko
As for 'police', it is called 'mata' (pinyin : ma1 da2) here. My bro asked a teohchew friend who grew up in UK and has never been to Malaysia before told me that they called police as 'mata' as well... Malay called them 'mata-mata'
I didn't have the chance to watch more Taiwanese programs, so I didn't come across to 'Kengchat' from Taiwan, it sounds more like a cantonese police to me though...
good day.
regards
nokko