djn,
You quote:
"Jew Campbound admitted himself that he is an EVIL german from family of murderers, and terrorists. Like the two faces of Islam the Judenslavic varieties are pure evil. I want all Indigenous Diojiulnants and Hokkian people to try to tolerate the evil Judenslavic doers."
Well then, how on earth are the rest of the IDH ppl going to "tolerate the evil Judenslavic doers" if you don't lead them Mr DJN? Maybe you should start tolerating by stopping all these? Have you even tried? Show me your first posting that shows your first tolerence. Don't "slap your own mouth"...
An obcure variety of Hokkien?
-
Sim Lee
Re: An obcure variety of Hokkien?
Nokko,
Great to see that some sensible people are starting to post on this forum again.
I really burst out laughing at the "Star War's" mp3. Actually my Hokkien is not really good enough to understand it fully - I was catching about 1/3 to 1/2 of it, and then knowing the plot about Luke and Darth Vader being his father helped me fill in the rest of it.
Well, yes, as with the case of "kahwin", I had always "assumed" that "mata" and "sabun" were borrowed from Malay into Hokkien until I heard that "sabun" (or something similar sounding) was also used outside of Malaya/Malaysia/Singapore (I think it was the same case as James quoted - Taiwan).
I had never heard about "mata" used outside this region, so this piece of information is very interesting, and I have no explanation for it.
The explanation for "sabun" may be that both Malay and Hokkien borrowed from one of the earlier colonial languages (I'm thinking specifically of Portuguese). An English word related to soap making is "saponification" where I believe the "sapon"-part has Romance roots. If the Portuguese word for soap sounds something like this, then this could explain similar sounding words in Taiwanese Hokkien, Malay-peninsular Hokkien, and Malay. Hopefully someone reading this forum who knows Portuguese or Spanish can shed some light on this.
Thanks also for your comments one the "-ui" / "-ng" thing, and your additional information on Hokkien as spoken in the North East of the Malay peninsular. I have written to an academic in the US, and she has confirmed that the "-ui" forms are known on the Chinese mainland. I sent her a very limited sample of Penang Hokkien, and she said it appeared to be a "mixed" form, from a couple of closely related (geographically and linguistically) dialects, i.e. the "-ui~" (instead of Amoy "-ng") was from one area, whereas the "-iau~" (instead of Amoy "-iu~") was from another [ "goat", "ginger", "accent" (e.g. foreign), "box" are iau~2, kiau~1, khiau~1, siau~1 in Penang Hokkien and iu~2, kiu~1, khiu~1, siu~1
in Amoy ].
Can you tell me if the Hokkien in Trengganu also uses "-iau~" instead of "-iu~"?
I cannot really comment with much authority on the Wee/Ooi surname issue because my Chinese is too limited (i.e. I don't know any written Chinese except for about 100+ characters I still remember from trying to learn Chinese as a little boy with 1 hour a week tuition at home, and vain attempts in my teens to learn Mandarin from a Linguaphone course). I can only say that: 1) yes, I have always thought that these might be 2 different spellings of the "same" Hokkien surname (yellow) and 2) I have never (until reading your posting) considered the possibility that "Ng" (for Hokkiens) might be the spelling of the Amoy pronunciation of the same surname - I had always assumed that they were all Cantonese. I do find the premise quite plausible though. Perhaps some Hokkien Ng's reading this (if they exist) might be able to confirm this... [ of course, if no one confirms this, we don’t know whether it’s because a) There are no Hokkien Ng’s, or b) There *are* Hokkien Ng’s, but none reading this forum, or c) There are Hokkien Ng’s reading this forum, but they are read-only members, afraid of being attacked for being Turkish
].
That's all for now.
Cheers,
Sim.
Great to see that some sensible people are starting to post on this forum again.
I really burst out laughing at the "Star War's" mp3. Actually my Hokkien is not really good enough to understand it fully - I was catching about 1/3 to 1/2 of it, and then knowing the plot about Luke and Darth Vader being his father helped me fill in the rest of it.
Well, yes, as with the case of "kahwin", I had always "assumed" that "mata" and "sabun" were borrowed from Malay into Hokkien until I heard that "sabun" (or something similar sounding) was also used outside of Malaya/Malaysia/Singapore (I think it was the same case as James quoted - Taiwan).
I had never heard about "mata" used outside this region, so this piece of information is very interesting, and I have no explanation for it.
The explanation for "sabun" may be that both Malay and Hokkien borrowed from one of the earlier colonial languages (I'm thinking specifically of Portuguese). An English word related to soap making is "saponification" where I believe the "sapon"-part has Romance roots. If the Portuguese word for soap sounds something like this, then this could explain similar sounding words in Taiwanese Hokkien, Malay-peninsular Hokkien, and Malay. Hopefully someone reading this forum who knows Portuguese or Spanish can shed some light on this.
Thanks also for your comments one the "-ui" / "-ng" thing, and your additional information on Hokkien as spoken in the North East of the Malay peninsular. I have written to an academic in the US, and she has confirmed that the "-ui" forms are known on the Chinese mainland. I sent her a very limited sample of Penang Hokkien, and she said it appeared to be a "mixed" form, from a couple of closely related (geographically and linguistically) dialects, i.e. the "-ui~" (instead of Amoy "-ng") was from one area, whereas the "-iau~" (instead of Amoy "-iu~") was from another [ "goat", "ginger", "accent" (e.g. foreign), "box" are iau~2, kiau~1, khiau~1, siau~1 in Penang Hokkien and iu~2, kiu~1, khiu~1, siu~1
in Amoy ].
Can you tell me if the Hokkien in Trengganu also uses "-iau~" instead of "-iu~"?
I cannot really comment with much authority on the Wee/Ooi surname issue because my Chinese is too limited (i.e. I don't know any written Chinese except for about 100+ characters I still remember from trying to learn Chinese as a little boy with 1 hour a week tuition at home, and vain attempts in my teens to learn Mandarin from a Linguaphone course). I can only say that: 1) yes, I have always thought that these might be 2 different spellings of the "same" Hokkien surname (yellow) and 2) I have never (until reading your posting) considered the possibility that "Ng" (for Hokkiens) might be the spelling of the Amoy pronunciation of the same surname - I had always assumed that they were all Cantonese. I do find the premise quite plausible though. Perhaps some Hokkien Ng's reading this (if they exist) might be able to confirm this... [ of course, if no one confirms this, we don’t know whether it’s because a) There are no Hokkien Ng’s, or b) There *are* Hokkien Ng’s, but none reading this forum, or c) There are Hokkien Ng’s reading this forum, but they are read-only members, afraid of being attacked for being Turkish
].That's all for now.
Cheers,
Sim.
-
Lim Eng Di
Re: An obcure variety of Hokkien?
I'm teochiu and my parents grew up in Cambodia. We also say "Mata" for police. In my Teochiu Dictionary (2001. Shantou University), there is no listing for the "ma" in "mata". We dont say 'sabun for soap.
I think the spread of this word has come strictly from Southeast asian communication and borrowing. But I guess the details are still a mystery.
I think the spread of this word has come strictly from Southeast asian communication and borrowing. But I guess the details are still a mystery.
-
nokko
Re: An obcure variety of Hokkien?
yoohoo~~ down here... there you are... after scrolling down 175 lines with 8,764 characters (with spaces) - that's about 1,380 words... you have finally found the next relevant replies, congratulations! keep up the good work.
Sim,
You quote:
"I sent her a very limited sample of Penang Hokkien, and she said it appeared to be a "mixed" form, from a couple of closely related (geographically and linguistically) dialects, i.e. the "-ui~" (instead of Amoy "-ng") was from one area, whereas the "-iau~" (instead of Amoy "-iu~") was from another [ "goat", "ginger", "accent" (e.g. foreign), "box" are iau~2, kiau~1, khiau~1, siau~1 in Penang Hokkien and iu~2, kiu~1, khiu~1, siu~1
in Amoy ].
Can you tell me if the Hokkien in Trengganu also uses "-iau~" instead of "-iu~"?"
hhmm... to be honest I don't speak hokkien so regularly in Terengganu, because I speak mainly mandarin at home, and my parents are foochow from Sibu, Sarawak, East Malaysia. Anyway, I have godparents who came from Klang, West Coast of Peninsular Malaysia. My god father is from 'sua tao' and my godmum is a teohchew, not sure originally from where in china. So, my hokkien is very half-cooked, I tend to switch to accomodate the type of hokkien the person I am speaking to... lol.
Anyway, to answer your question, as far as I can remember, it should be '-io'. i am not sure if it is the same as the '-iau' you are refering to, but i don't think it is '-iu'. I remembered elephant is called 'chio'. The 'o' in '-io' is more like the 'o' in the English word 'Forum', and please note that it is NOT like the 'o' in saying 'bridge' - 'gio'.
Perhaps '-iau' is more appropriate to differentiate/distinguish the two 'o' pronunciation in hokkien. So the rest will follow, goat, which sounds the same as a common chinese surname, 'yang' also read 'yio' (cant: yong), thus these surnames would appear as 'yeo' or 'yeoh' for hokkienese, and 'yong' for cantonese here. Do you remember a decades-old packet drink called 'yeo's'?
Assuming your '-iau' and my '-io' above is the same:
I notice that some if not all words in mandarin which are pronounced '-iang', can be translated to '-iau', on top of those examples you have provided above, 'xiang' (think), 'qiang' (grab/rob) can also do? 'liang' doesn't 'qualify' somehow.
I am going back to Terengganu for Chinese New Year next weekend (currently working in Kuala Lumpur), so will find out more from my hometown friends who are at least 3rd generations old.
Happy Chinese New Year!
regards
nokko
Sim,
You quote:
"I sent her a very limited sample of Penang Hokkien, and she said it appeared to be a "mixed" form, from a couple of closely related (geographically and linguistically) dialects, i.e. the "-ui~" (instead of Amoy "-ng") was from one area, whereas the "-iau~" (instead of Amoy "-iu~") was from another [ "goat", "ginger", "accent" (e.g. foreign), "box" are iau~2, kiau~1, khiau~1, siau~1 in Penang Hokkien and iu~2, kiu~1, khiu~1, siu~1
in Amoy ].
Can you tell me if the Hokkien in Trengganu also uses "-iau~" instead of "-iu~"?"
hhmm... to be honest I don't speak hokkien so regularly in Terengganu, because I speak mainly mandarin at home, and my parents are foochow from Sibu, Sarawak, East Malaysia. Anyway, I have godparents who came from Klang, West Coast of Peninsular Malaysia. My god father is from 'sua tao' and my godmum is a teohchew, not sure originally from where in china. So, my hokkien is very half-cooked, I tend to switch to accomodate the type of hokkien the person I am speaking to... lol.
Anyway, to answer your question, as far as I can remember, it should be '-io'. i am not sure if it is the same as the '-iau' you are refering to, but i don't think it is '-iu'. I remembered elephant is called 'chio'. The 'o' in '-io' is more like the 'o' in the English word 'Forum', and please note that it is NOT like the 'o' in saying 'bridge' - 'gio'.
Perhaps '-iau' is more appropriate to differentiate/distinguish the two 'o' pronunciation in hokkien. So the rest will follow, goat, which sounds the same as a common chinese surname, 'yang' also read 'yio' (cant: yong), thus these surnames would appear as 'yeo' or 'yeoh' for hokkienese, and 'yong' for cantonese here. Do you remember a decades-old packet drink called 'yeo's'?
Assuming your '-iau' and my '-io' above is the same:
I notice that some if not all words in mandarin which are pronounced '-iang', can be translated to '-iau', on top of those examples you have provided above, 'xiang' (think), 'qiang' (grab/rob) can also do? 'liang' doesn't 'qualify' somehow.
I am going back to Terengganu for Chinese New Year next weekend (currently working in Kuala Lumpur), so will find out more from my hometown friends who are at least 3rd generations old.
Happy Chinese New Year!
regards
nokko
-
Ken
Re: An obcure variety of Hokkien?
Hi Nokko,
Your question on the number of Hokkiens in Malaysia. If you refer to the 'Encyclopedia of Overseas Chinese' published by the Chinese Culture Heritage Centre in Singapore, it says that Hokkiens constititute abt 70% of the Chinese polulation (i.e. it's still the largest Chinese group in Malaysia, as in Singapore, the Phillipines and probably Indonesia). In fact Hokkiens form the largest Chinese group in SEA.
Your question on the number of Hokkiens in Malaysia. If you refer to the 'Encyclopedia of Overseas Chinese' published by the Chinese Culture Heritage Centre in Singapore, it says that Hokkiens constititute abt 70% of the Chinese polulation (i.e. it's still the largest Chinese group in Malaysia, as in Singapore, the Phillipines and probably Indonesia). In fact Hokkiens form the largest Chinese group in SEA.
-
Sim Lee
Re: An obcure variety of Hokkien?
>> Anyway, to answer your question, as far as I can remember,
>> it should be '-io'. i am not sure if it is the same as the '-iau'
>> you are refering to, but i don't think it is '-iu'. I remembered
>> elephant is called 'chio'. The 'o' in '-io' is more like the 'o' in
>> the English word 'Forum', and please note that it is NOT like
>> the 'o' in saying 'bridge' - 'gio'.
Well, yet a third pronunciation! I understand what you are trying to convey Nokko.
>> distinguish the two 'o' pronunciation in Hokkien
Yes, the inadequacies of Roman (ASCII) vowel symbols is a real pain when trying to transcribe Hokkien. Hokkien has two different “o-type” sounds which in phonetics are called the “closed-o” (as in English “go”, “so”), and the “open-o” (as in English “got”, “rot” (and, as you say, “forum”)).
In IPA (the International Phonetic Alphabet), the first is transcribed as a ‘normal’ o - a complete circle - and the second one as an o which is not complete - the left side is left uncompleted, making it look a bit like an upside-down “c”. So, in IPA, it is very easy to distinguish between these two sounds.
Because IPA can’t be typed using a standard keyboard (e.g. for newsgroups and in primitive emails), people have invented some conventions where regular ASCII letters are used to represent IPA. This is called (logically enough) ASCII IPA. In ASCII IPA, the “closed-o” is written “o” (lowercase o) and the “open-o” is written “O” (uppercase o).
The same problem was encountered by the missionaries trying to transcribe Hokkien in the early 19th(?) century in China. In the system of spelling they invented, called peh-oe-ji (I think this is “bai2 hua4 ci2” in Mandarin), the “closed-o” is written “o” (lowercase o) and the “open-o” is written as “o.” (lowercase o with a dot after it). [ Actually, the dot is not at the bottom, but at the top - i.e. it is the ‘top dot’ of a colon, not the bottom one, but again, I can’t type that in ASCII, so I can’t illustrate it here. ]
In Malaysia, the “informal spelling” (sometimes) tries to indicate “closed-o” as “o” (lowercase o) and the “open-o” as “or” (because it’s a bit like English, as in “boring”, “core” etc). That’s why I said in my initial posting that wife was “bor” rather than “bo” in the informal spelling. [ This is rather unsatisfactory, because there is no “r” sound after the vowel in Hokkien. ]
So, in your form of Hokkien Nokko, your word “elephant” would be: (in ASCII IPA) “ts<h>iO~” (the <h> shows that the “ts” is aspirated, i.e. pronounced with a strong puff of air), (in peh-oe-ji) “chhio.n” (the ‘n’ at the end of this word is written smaller and higher, i.e. as a superscript). The “~” and superscript-n indicate “nasalization” (see next paragraph).
I feel it’s quite important to mark the nasalization of Hokkien vowels. In ASCII IPA, it is done using the ‘~’ symbol after the vowel, and in peh-oe-ji, it is done using a superscript-n (again, this is difficult to do using a regular keyboard). Hokkien distinguishes nasalized from unnasalized vowels, so:
"si" “to be" or "four" "si~" "fan" or "to salt"
"pi" "to compare" or "to point" "pi~" "flat"
"i" "maternal aunt" "i~" "round"
"ka" "to churn" or "to grind" "ka~" "to dare"
"ui" "to surround" "ui~" "yellow"
"kia" "to send" "kia~" "mirror"
"ua" "language" "ua~" "late"
"tiau" "long thing "tiau~" "uncle by marriage"
e.g.. piece of string”
In the Malaysian “informal spelling”, they sometimes try to indicate this by writing an ‘n’ *before* the vowel, so “pi~”, “kia~” might be spelt “pni”, “knia”. There are 3 objections to this practice: a) It looks funny (but this is only a minor objection - one can get used to any convention, if it works properly), b) It doesn’t actually indicate what’s going on because there isn’t really a “full-n” before the vowel (this may be a slightly more valid objection, linguistically speaking, but in practical terms it doesn’t matter *that* much either, as Hokkien doesn’t have the sound-combinations like “pn-”, “kn-” anyway, so there is no danger of confusion, c) It doesn’t work if there is no initial consonant in the word - e.g. for “round” and “yellow” above, one cannot write “ni”, “nui”, because that *can* cause a lot of confusion (this is a valid objection which makes this solution very poor indeed).
So, that’s why I always indicate nasalization in Hokkien words, using “~”.
So, you are quite right in saying that a lot of words in Mandarin ending in “-ing” match Hokkien words ending in “-iau~” (my variant) or “iO~” (your variant). This is a well known linguistic phenomenon where full-nasals (“-m”, “-n”, “-ng”) after a vowel get “blurred” so that they just become a nasalization of the vowel. French did the same thing, in evolving from Latin, so that “nom” is pronounced “nO~”, “mont” is pronounced “mO~”, and “rang” is pronounced “ [ra~].
So, with your good knowledge of Mandarin, you should be able to see that most (all?) of Mandarin forms of the words in column 1 above will not end in “-n” or “-ng”, whereas most (all?) of the Mandarin forms of the words in column 2 above will end in “-n” or “-ng”.
Nokko, one question...
How come you spell the name of your home state “Terengganu”? Is that the modern/standard Malay spelling? When I was young I think we spelt it “Trengganu”. I was born in Alor Setar, but in those days we spelt that as “Alor Star”. Perhaps it’s because (officially), “tr-“ and “st-” don’t exist as combinations of consonants in Malay, but that is just how “ter+<vowel>” and “set+<vowel>” sounded to English ears when said quickly...
Happy New Year to you too!
Sim.
>> it should be '-io'. i am not sure if it is the same as the '-iau'
>> you are refering to, but i don't think it is '-iu'. I remembered
>> elephant is called 'chio'. The 'o' in '-io' is more like the 'o' in
>> the English word 'Forum', and please note that it is NOT like
>> the 'o' in saying 'bridge' - 'gio'.
Well, yet a third pronunciation! I understand what you are trying to convey Nokko.
>> distinguish the two 'o' pronunciation in Hokkien
Yes, the inadequacies of Roman (ASCII) vowel symbols is a real pain when trying to transcribe Hokkien. Hokkien has two different “o-type” sounds which in phonetics are called the “closed-o” (as in English “go”, “so”), and the “open-o” (as in English “got”, “rot” (and, as you say, “forum”)).
In IPA (the International Phonetic Alphabet), the first is transcribed as a ‘normal’ o - a complete circle - and the second one as an o which is not complete - the left side is left uncompleted, making it look a bit like an upside-down “c”. So, in IPA, it is very easy to distinguish between these two sounds.
Because IPA can’t be typed using a standard keyboard (e.g. for newsgroups and in primitive emails), people have invented some conventions where regular ASCII letters are used to represent IPA. This is called (logically enough) ASCII IPA. In ASCII IPA, the “closed-o” is written “o” (lowercase o) and the “open-o” is written “O” (uppercase o).
The same problem was encountered by the missionaries trying to transcribe Hokkien in the early 19th(?) century in China. In the system of spelling they invented, called peh-oe-ji (I think this is “bai2 hua4 ci2” in Mandarin), the “closed-o” is written “o” (lowercase o) and the “open-o” is written as “o.” (lowercase o with a dot after it). [ Actually, the dot is not at the bottom, but at the top - i.e. it is the ‘top dot’ of a colon, not the bottom one, but again, I can’t type that in ASCII, so I can’t illustrate it here. ]
In Malaysia, the “informal spelling” (sometimes) tries to indicate “closed-o” as “o” (lowercase o) and the “open-o” as “or” (because it’s a bit like English, as in “boring”, “core” etc). That’s why I said in my initial posting that wife was “bor” rather than “bo” in the informal spelling. [ This is rather unsatisfactory, because there is no “r” sound after the vowel in Hokkien. ]
So, in your form of Hokkien Nokko, your word “elephant” would be: (in ASCII IPA) “ts<h>iO~” (the <h> shows that the “ts” is aspirated, i.e. pronounced with a strong puff of air), (in peh-oe-ji) “chhio.n” (the ‘n’ at the end of this word is written smaller and higher, i.e. as a superscript). The “~” and superscript-n indicate “nasalization” (see next paragraph).
I feel it’s quite important to mark the nasalization of Hokkien vowels. In ASCII IPA, it is done using the ‘~’ symbol after the vowel, and in peh-oe-ji, it is done using a superscript-n (again, this is difficult to do using a regular keyboard). Hokkien distinguishes nasalized from unnasalized vowels, so:
"si" “to be" or "four" "si~" "fan" or "to salt"
"pi" "to compare" or "to point" "pi~" "flat"
"i" "maternal aunt" "i~" "round"
"ka" "to churn" or "to grind" "ka~" "to dare"
"ui" "to surround" "ui~" "yellow"
"kia" "to send" "kia~" "mirror"
"ua" "language" "ua~" "late"
"tiau" "long thing "tiau~" "uncle by marriage"
e.g.. piece of string”
In the Malaysian “informal spelling”, they sometimes try to indicate this by writing an ‘n’ *before* the vowel, so “pi~”, “kia~” might be spelt “pni”, “knia”. There are 3 objections to this practice: a) It looks funny (but this is only a minor objection - one can get used to any convention, if it works properly), b) It doesn’t actually indicate what’s going on because there isn’t really a “full-n” before the vowel (this may be a slightly more valid objection, linguistically speaking, but in practical terms it doesn’t matter *that* much either, as Hokkien doesn’t have the sound-combinations like “pn-”, “kn-” anyway, so there is no danger of confusion, c) It doesn’t work if there is no initial consonant in the word - e.g. for “round” and “yellow” above, one cannot write “ni”, “nui”, because that *can* cause a lot of confusion (this is a valid objection which makes this solution very poor indeed).
So, that’s why I always indicate nasalization in Hokkien words, using “~”.
So, you are quite right in saying that a lot of words in Mandarin ending in “-ing” match Hokkien words ending in “-iau~” (my variant) or “iO~” (your variant). This is a well known linguistic phenomenon where full-nasals (“-m”, “-n”, “-ng”) after a vowel get “blurred” so that they just become a nasalization of the vowel. French did the same thing, in evolving from Latin, so that “nom” is pronounced “nO~”, “mont” is pronounced “mO~”, and “rang” is pronounced “ [ra~].
So, with your good knowledge of Mandarin, you should be able to see that most (all?) of Mandarin forms of the words in column 1 above will not end in “-n” or “-ng”, whereas most (all?) of the Mandarin forms of the words in column 2 above will end in “-n” or “-ng”.
Nokko, one question...
How come you spell the name of your home state “Terengganu”? Is that the modern/standard Malay spelling? When I was young I think we spelt it “Trengganu”. I was born in Alor Setar, but in those days we spelt that as “Alor Star”. Perhaps it’s because (officially), “tr-“ and “st-” don’t exist as combinations of consonants in Malay, but that is just how “ter+<vowel>” and “set+<vowel>” sounded to English ears when said quickly...
Happy New Year to you too!
Sim.
-
nokko
Re: An obcure variety of Hokkien?
Sim,
I am trying very hard to read your reply but I couldn't although I am most anxious to, coz some of them are distorted, perhaps they were the double quotations? Some worked though, i don't know why. Maybe you could repost?
It looks like the following to me:
"Yes, the inadequacies of Roman (ASCII) vowel symbols is a real pain when trying to transcribe Hokkien. Hokkien has two different ?o-type??sounds which in phonetics are called the ?closed-o??(as in English ?go?? ?so??, and the ?open-o??(as in English ?got?? ?rot??(and, as you say, ?forum??). "
If you can still see the above well, then there must be something my IE or Comp don't support, am I missing something else? My IE can show both Trad and Simplified Chinese.
regards
sukii
I am trying very hard to read your reply but I couldn't although I am most anxious to, coz some of them are distorted, perhaps they were the double quotations? Some worked though, i don't know why. Maybe you could repost?
It looks like the following to me:
"Yes, the inadequacies of Roman (ASCII) vowel symbols is a real pain when trying to transcribe Hokkien. Hokkien has two different ?o-type??sounds which in phonetics are called the ?closed-o??(as in English ?go?? ?so??, and the ?open-o??(as in English ?got?? ?rot??(and, as you say, ?forum??). "
If you can still see the above well, then there must be something my IE or Comp don't support, am I missing something else? My IE can show both Trad and Simplified Chinese.
regards
sukii
-
Sim Lee
Re: An obcure variety of Hokkien?
Hi Nokko,
Thank you for wanting to take the trouble!
The unreadable characters you see are not Chinese encoding, but simply open and close quotes - you know, the fancy ones where open-quote goes from north-west to south-east and close-quote goes from north-east to south-west.
I've tried to replace them all with vertical quotes only, so here's the next attempt:
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Repost:
>> Anyway, to answer your question, as far as I can remember,
>> it should be '-io'. i am not sure if it is the same as the '-iau'
>> you are refering to, but i don't think it is '-iu'. I remembered
>> elephant is called 'chio'. The 'o' in '-io' is more like the 'o' in
>> the English word 'Forum', and please note that it is NOT like
>> the 'o' in saying 'bridge' - 'gio'.
Well, yet a third pronunciation! I understand what you are trying to convey Nokko.
>> distinguish the two 'o' pronunciation in Hokkien
Yes, the inadequacies of Roman (ASCII) vowel symbols is a real pain when trying to transcribe Hokkien. Hokkien has two different “o-type” sounds which in phonetics are called the “closed-o” (as in English “go”, “so”), and the “open-o” (as in English “got”, “rot” (and, as you say, “forum”)).
In IPA (the International Phonetic Alphabet), the first is transcribed as a ‘normal’ o - a complete circle - and the second one as an o which is not complete - the left side is left uncompleted, making it look a bit like an upside-down “c”. So, in IPA, it is very easy to distinguish between these two sounds.
Because IPA can’t be typed using a standard keyboard (e.g. for newsgroups and in primitive emails), people have invented some conventions where regular ASCII letters are used to represent IPA. This is called (logically enough) ASCII IPA. In ASCII IPA, the “closed-o” is written “o” (lowercase o) and the “open-o” is written “O” (uppercase o).
The same problem was encountered by the missionaries trying to transcribe Hokkien in the early 19th(?) century in China. In the system of spelling they invented, called peh-oe-ji (I think this is “bai2 hua4 ci2” in Mandarin), the “closed-o” is written “o” (lowercase o) and the “open-o” is written as “o.” (lowercase o with a dot after it). [ Actually, the dot is not at the bottom, but at the top - i.e. it is the ‘top dot’ of a colon, not the bottom one, but again, I can’t type that in ASCII, so I can’t illustrate it here. ]
In Malaysia, the “informal spelling” (sometimes) tries to indicate “closed-o” as “o” (lowercase o) and the “open-o” as “or” (because it’s a bit like English, as in “boring”, “core” etc). That’s why I said in my initial posting that wife was “bor” rather than “bo” in the informal spelling. [ This is rather unsatisfactory, because there is no “r” sound after the vowel in Hokkien. ]
So, in your form of Hokkien Nokko, your word “elephant” would be: (in ASCII IPA) “ts<h>iO~” (the <h> shows that the “ts” is aspirated, i.e. pronounced with a strong puff of air), (in peh-oe-ji) “chhio.n” (the ‘n’ at the end of this word is written smaller and higher, i.e. as a superscript). The “~” and superscript-n indicate “nasalization” (see next paragraph).
I feel it’s quite important to mark the nasalization of Hokkien vowels. In ASCII IPA, it is done using the ‘~’ symbol after the vowel, and in peh-oe-ji, it is done using a superscript-n (again, this is difficult to do using a regular keyboard). Hokkien distinguishes nasalized from unnasalized vowels, so:
"si" “to be" or "four"; BUT "si~" "fan" or "to salt"
"pi" "to compare" or "to point"; BUT "pi~" "flat"
"i" "maternal aunt"; BUT "i~" "round"
"ka" "to churn" or "to grind"; BUT "ka~" "to dare"
"ui" "to surround"; BUT "ui~" "yellow"
"kia" "to send"; BUT "kia~" "mirror"
"ua" "language"; BUT "ua~" "late"
"tiau" "long thing"; BUT "tiau~" "uncle by marriage"
e.g. "piece of string”
In the Malaysian “informal spelling”, they sometimes try to indicate this by writing an ‘n’ *before* the vowel, so “pi~”, “kia~” might be spelt “pni”, “knia”. There are 3 objections to this practice: a) It looks funny (but this is only a minor objection - one can get used to any convention, if it works properly), b) It doesn’t actually indicate what’s going on because there isn’t really a “full-n” before the vowel (this may be a slightly more valid objection, linguistically speaking, but in practical terms it doesn’t matter *that* much either, as Hokkien doesn’t have the sound-combinations like “pn-”, “kn-” anyway, so there is no danger of confusion, c) It doesn’t work if there is no initial consonant in the word - e.g. for “round” and “yellow” above, one cannot write “ni”, “nui”, because that *can* cause a lot of confusion (this is a valid objection which makes this solution very poor indeed).
So, that’s why I always indicate nasalization in Hokkien words, using “~”.
So, you are quite right in saying that a lot of words in Mandarin ending in “-ing” match Hokkien words ending in “-iau~” (my variant) or “iO~” (your variant). This is a well known linguistic phenomenon where full-nasals (“-m”, “-n”, “-ng”) after a vowel get “blurred” so that they just become a nasalization of the vowel. French did the same thing, in evolving from Latin, so that “nom” is pronounced “nO~”, “mont” is pronounced “mO~”, and “rang” is pronounced “ [ra~].
So, with your good knowledge of Mandarin, you should be able to see that most (all?) of Mandarin forms of the words in column 1 above will not end in “-n” or “-ng”, whereas most (all?) of the Mandarin forms of the words in column 2 above will end in “-n” or “-ng”.
Nokko, one question...
How come you spell the name of your home state “Terengganu”? Is that the modern/standard Malay spelling? When I was young I think we spelt it “Trengganu”. I was born in Alor Setar, but in those days we spelt that as “Alor Star”. Perhaps it’s because (officially), “tr-“ and “st-” don’t exist as combinations of consonants in Malay, but that is just how “ter+<vowel>” and “set+<vowel>” sounded to English ears when said quickly...
Happy New Year to you too!
Sim.
Thank you for wanting to take the trouble!
The unreadable characters you see are not Chinese encoding, but simply open and close quotes - you know, the fancy ones where open-quote goes from north-west to south-east and close-quote goes from north-east to south-west.
I've tried to replace them all with vertical quotes only, so here's the next attempt:
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Repost:
>> Anyway, to answer your question, as far as I can remember,
>> it should be '-io'. i am not sure if it is the same as the '-iau'
>> you are refering to, but i don't think it is '-iu'. I remembered
>> elephant is called 'chio'. The 'o' in '-io' is more like the 'o' in
>> the English word 'Forum', and please note that it is NOT like
>> the 'o' in saying 'bridge' - 'gio'.
Well, yet a third pronunciation! I understand what you are trying to convey Nokko.
>> distinguish the two 'o' pronunciation in Hokkien
Yes, the inadequacies of Roman (ASCII) vowel symbols is a real pain when trying to transcribe Hokkien. Hokkien has two different “o-type” sounds which in phonetics are called the “closed-o” (as in English “go”, “so”), and the “open-o” (as in English “got”, “rot” (and, as you say, “forum”)).
In IPA (the International Phonetic Alphabet), the first is transcribed as a ‘normal’ o - a complete circle - and the second one as an o which is not complete - the left side is left uncompleted, making it look a bit like an upside-down “c”. So, in IPA, it is very easy to distinguish between these two sounds.
Because IPA can’t be typed using a standard keyboard (e.g. for newsgroups and in primitive emails), people have invented some conventions where regular ASCII letters are used to represent IPA. This is called (logically enough) ASCII IPA. In ASCII IPA, the “closed-o” is written “o” (lowercase o) and the “open-o” is written “O” (uppercase o).
The same problem was encountered by the missionaries trying to transcribe Hokkien in the early 19th(?) century in China. In the system of spelling they invented, called peh-oe-ji (I think this is “bai2 hua4 ci2” in Mandarin), the “closed-o” is written “o” (lowercase o) and the “open-o” is written as “o.” (lowercase o with a dot after it). [ Actually, the dot is not at the bottom, but at the top - i.e. it is the ‘top dot’ of a colon, not the bottom one, but again, I can’t type that in ASCII, so I can’t illustrate it here. ]
In Malaysia, the “informal spelling” (sometimes) tries to indicate “closed-o” as “o” (lowercase o) and the “open-o” as “or” (because it’s a bit like English, as in “boring”, “core” etc). That’s why I said in my initial posting that wife was “bor” rather than “bo” in the informal spelling. [ This is rather unsatisfactory, because there is no “r” sound after the vowel in Hokkien. ]
So, in your form of Hokkien Nokko, your word “elephant” would be: (in ASCII IPA) “ts<h>iO~” (the <h> shows that the “ts” is aspirated, i.e. pronounced with a strong puff of air), (in peh-oe-ji) “chhio.n” (the ‘n’ at the end of this word is written smaller and higher, i.e. as a superscript). The “~” and superscript-n indicate “nasalization” (see next paragraph).
I feel it’s quite important to mark the nasalization of Hokkien vowels. In ASCII IPA, it is done using the ‘~’ symbol after the vowel, and in peh-oe-ji, it is done using a superscript-n (again, this is difficult to do using a regular keyboard). Hokkien distinguishes nasalized from unnasalized vowels, so:
"si" “to be" or "four"; BUT "si~" "fan" or "to salt"
"pi" "to compare" or "to point"; BUT "pi~" "flat"
"i" "maternal aunt"; BUT "i~" "round"
"ka" "to churn" or "to grind"; BUT "ka~" "to dare"
"ui" "to surround"; BUT "ui~" "yellow"
"kia" "to send"; BUT "kia~" "mirror"
"ua" "language"; BUT "ua~" "late"
"tiau" "long thing"; BUT "tiau~" "uncle by marriage"
e.g. "piece of string”
In the Malaysian “informal spelling”, they sometimes try to indicate this by writing an ‘n’ *before* the vowel, so “pi~”, “kia~” might be spelt “pni”, “knia”. There are 3 objections to this practice: a) It looks funny (but this is only a minor objection - one can get used to any convention, if it works properly), b) It doesn’t actually indicate what’s going on because there isn’t really a “full-n” before the vowel (this may be a slightly more valid objection, linguistically speaking, but in practical terms it doesn’t matter *that* much either, as Hokkien doesn’t have the sound-combinations like “pn-”, “kn-” anyway, so there is no danger of confusion, c) It doesn’t work if there is no initial consonant in the word - e.g. for “round” and “yellow” above, one cannot write “ni”, “nui”, because that *can* cause a lot of confusion (this is a valid objection which makes this solution very poor indeed).
So, that’s why I always indicate nasalization in Hokkien words, using “~”.
So, you are quite right in saying that a lot of words in Mandarin ending in “-ing” match Hokkien words ending in “-iau~” (my variant) or “iO~” (your variant). This is a well known linguistic phenomenon where full-nasals (“-m”, “-n”, “-ng”) after a vowel get “blurred” so that they just become a nasalization of the vowel. French did the same thing, in evolving from Latin, so that “nom” is pronounced “nO~”, “mont” is pronounced “mO~”, and “rang” is pronounced “ [ra~].
So, with your good knowledge of Mandarin, you should be able to see that most (all?) of Mandarin forms of the words in column 1 above will not end in “-n” or “-ng”, whereas most (all?) of the Mandarin forms of the words in column 2 above will end in “-n” or “-ng”.
Nokko, one question...
How come you spell the name of your home state “Terengganu”? Is that the modern/standard Malay spelling? When I was young I think we spelt it “Trengganu”. I was born in Alor Setar, but in those days we spelt that as “Alor Star”. Perhaps it’s because (officially), “tr-“ and “st-” don’t exist as combinations of consonants in Malay, but that is just how “ter+<vowel>” and “set+<vowel>” sounded to English ears when said quickly...
Happy New Year to you too!
Sim.
-
Sim Lee
Re: An obcure variety of Hokkien?
Drat! I see that it still didn't succeed.
This is another attempt, where I explicitly get rid of the fancy quotes.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Repost:
>> Anyway, to answer your question, as far as I can remember,
>> it should be '-io'. i am not sure if it is the same as the '-iau'
>> you are refering to, but i don't think it is '-iu'. I remembered
>> elephant is called 'chio'. The 'o' in '-io' is more like the 'o' in
>> the English word 'Forum', and please note that it is NOT like
>> the 'o' in saying 'bridge' - 'gio'.
Well, yet a third pronunciation! I understand what you are trying to convey Nokko.
>> distinguish the two 'o' pronunciation in Hokkien
Yes, the inadequacies of Roman (ASCII) vowel symbols is a real pain when trying to transcribe Hokkien. Hokkien has two different "o-type" sounds which in phonetics are called the "closed-o" (as in English "go", "so"), and the "open-o" (as in English "got", "rot" (and, as you say, "forum")).
In IPA (the International Phonetic Alphabet), the first is transcribed as a 'normal' o - a complete circle - and the second one as an o which is not complete - the left side is left uncompleted, making it look a bit like an upside-down "c". So, in IPA, it is very easy to distinguish between these two sounds.
Because IPA can't be typed using a standard keyboard (e.g. for newsgroups and in primitive emails), people have invented some conventions where regular ASCII letters are used to represent IPA. This is called (logically enough) ASCII IPA. In ASCII IPA, the "closed-o" is written "o" (lowercase o) and the "open-o" is written "O" (uppercase o).
The same problem was encountered by the missionaries trying to transcribe Hokkien in the early 19th(?) century in China. In the system of spelling they invented, called peh-oe-ji (I think this is "bai2 hua4 ci2" in Mandarin), the "closed-o" is written "o" (lowercase o) and the "open-o" is written as "o." (lowercase o with a dot after it). [ Actually, the dot is not at the bottom, but at the top - i.e. it is the 'top dot' of a colon, not the bottom one, but again, I can't type that in ASCII, so I can't illustrate it here. ]
In Malaysia, the "informal spelling" (sometimes) tries to indicate "closed-o" as "o" (lowercase o) and the "open-o" as "or" (because it's a bit like English, as in "boring", "core" etc). That's why I said in my initial posting that wife was "bor" rather than "bo" in the informal spelling. [ This is rather unsatisfactory, because there is no "r" sound after the vowel in Hokkien. ]
So, in your form of Hokkien Nokko, your word "elephant" would be: (in ASCII IPA) "ts<h>iO~" (the <h> shows that the "ts" is aspirated, i.e. pronounced with a strong puff of air), (in peh-oe-ji) "chhio.n" (the 'n' at the end of this word is written smaller and higher, i.e. as a superscript). The "~" and superscript-n indicate "nasalization" (see next paragraph).
I feel it's quite important to mark the nasalization of Hokkien vowels. In ASCII IPA, it is done using the '~' symbol after the vowel, and in peh-oe-ji, it is done using a superscript-n (again, this is difficult to do using a regular keyboard). Hokkien distinguishes nasalized from unnasalized vowels, so:
"si" "to be" or "four"; BUT "si~" "fan" or "to salt"
"pi" "to compare" or "to point"; BUT "pi~" "flat"
"i" "maternal aunt"; BUT "i~" "round"
"ka" "to churn" or "to grind"; BUT "ka~" "to dare"
"ui" "to surround"; BUT "ui~" "yellow"
"kia" "to send"; BUT "kia~" "mirror"
"ua" "language"; BUT "ua~" "late"
"tiau" "long thing"; BUT "tiau~" "uncle by marriage"
e.g. "piece of string"
In the Malaysian "informal spelling", they sometimes try to indicate this by writing an 'n' *before* the vowel, so "pi~", "kia~" might be spelt "pni", "knia". There are 3 objections to this practice: a) It looks funny (but this is only a minor objection - one can get used to any convention, if it works properly), b) It doesn't actually indicate what's going on because there isn't really a "full-n" before the vowel (this may be a slightly more valid objection, linguistically speaking, but in practical terms it doesn't matter *that* much either, as Hokkien doesn't have the sound-combinations like "pn-", "kn-" anyway, so there is no danger of confusion, c) It doesn't work if there is no initial consonant in the word - e.g. for "round" and "yellow" above, one cannot write "ni", "nui", because that *can* cause a lot of confusion (this is a valid objection which makes this solution very poor indeed).
So, that's why I always indicate nasalization in Hokkien words, using "~".
So, you are quite right in saying that a lot of words in Mandarin ending in "-ing" match Hokkien words ending in "-iau~" (my variant) or "iO~" (your variant). This is a well known linguistic phenomenon where full-nasals ("-m", "-n", "-ng") after a vowel get "blurred" so that they just become a nasalization of the vowel. French did the same thing, in evolving from Latin, so that "nom" is pronounced "nO~", "mont" is pronounced "mO~", and "rang" is pronounced " [ra~].
So, with your good knowledge of Mandarin, you should be able to see that most (all?) of Mandarin forms of the words in column 1 above will not end in "-n" or "-ng", whereas most (all?) of the Mandarin forms of the words in column 2 above will end in "-n" or "-ng".
Nokko, one question...
How come you spell the name of your home state "Terengganu"? Is that the modern/standard Malay spelling? When I was young I think we spelt it "Trengganu". I was born in Alor Setar, but in those days we spelt that as "Alor Star". Perhaps it's because (officially), "tr-" and "st-" don't exist as combinations of consonants in Malay, but that is just how "ter+<vowel>" and "set+<vowel>" sounded to English ears when said quickly...
Happy New Year to you too!
Sim.
This is another attempt, where I explicitly get rid of the fancy quotes.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Repost:
>> Anyway, to answer your question, as far as I can remember,
>> it should be '-io'. i am not sure if it is the same as the '-iau'
>> you are refering to, but i don't think it is '-iu'. I remembered
>> elephant is called 'chio'. The 'o' in '-io' is more like the 'o' in
>> the English word 'Forum', and please note that it is NOT like
>> the 'o' in saying 'bridge' - 'gio'.
Well, yet a third pronunciation! I understand what you are trying to convey Nokko.
>> distinguish the two 'o' pronunciation in Hokkien
Yes, the inadequacies of Roman (ASCII) vowel symbols is a real pain when trying to transcribe Hokkien. Hokkien has two different "o-type" sounds which in phonetics are called the "closed-o" (as in English "go", "so"), and the "open-o" (as in English "got", "rot" (and, as you say, "forum")).
In IPA (the International Phonetic Alphabet), the first is transcribed as a 'normal' o - a complete circle - and the second one as an o which is not complete - the left side is left uncompleted, making it look a bit like an upside-down "c". So, in IPA, it is very easy to distinguish between these two sounds.
Because IPA can't be typed using a standard keyboard (e.g. for newsgroups and in primitive emails), people have invented some conventions where regular ASCII letters are used to represent IPA. This is called (logically enough) ASCII IPA. In ASCII IPA, the "closed-o" is written "o" (lowercase o) and the "open-o" is written "O" (uppercase o).
The same problem was encountered by the missionaries trying to transcribe Hokkien in the early 19th(?) century in China. In the system of spelling they invented, called peh-oe-ji (I think this is "bai2 hua4 ci2" in Mandarin), the "closed-o" is written "o" (lowercase o) and the "open-o" is written as "o." (lowercase o with a dot after it). [ Actually, the dot is not at the bottom, but at the top - i.e. it is the 'top dot' of a colon, not the bottom one, but again, I can't type that in ASCII, so I can't illustrate it here. ]
In Malaysia, the "informal spelling" (sometimes) tries to indicate "closed-o" as "o" (lowercase o) and the "open-o" as "or" (because it's a bit like English, as in "boring", "core" etc). That's why I said in my initial posting that wife was "bor" rather than "bo" in the informal spelling. [ This is rather unsatisfactory, because there is no "r" sound after the vowel in Hokkien. ]
So, in your form of Hokkien Nokko, your word "elephant" would be: (in ASCII IPA) "ts<h>iO~" (the <h> shows that the "ts" is aspirated, i.e. pronounced with a strong puff of air), (in peh-oe-ji) "chhio.n" (the 'n' at the end of this word is written smaller and higher, i.e. as a superscript). The "~" and superscript-n indicate "nasalization" (see next paragraph).
I feel it's quite important to mark the nasalization of Hokkien vowels. In ASCII IPA, it is done using the '~' symbol after the vowel, and in peh-oe-ji, it is done using a superscript-n (again, this is difficult to do using a regular keyboard). Hokkien distinguishes nasalized from unnasalized vowels, so:
"si" "to be" or "four"; BUT "si~" "fan" or "to salt"
"pi" "to compare" or "to point"; BUT "pi~" "flat"
"i" "maternal aunt"; BUT "i~" "round"
"ka" "to churn" or "to grind"; BUT "ka~" "to dare"
"ui" "to surround"; BUT "ui~" "yellow"
"kia" "to send"; BUT "kia~" "mirror"
"ua" "language"; BUT "ua~" "late"
"tiau" "long thing"; BUT "tiau~" "uncle by marriage"
e.g. "piece of string"
In the Malaysian "informal spelling", they sometimes try to indicate this by writing an 'n' *before* the vowel, so "pi~", "kia~" might be spelt "pni", "knia". There are 3 objections to this practice: a) It looks funny (but this is only a minor objection - one can get used to any convention, if it works properly), b) It doesn't actually indicate what's going on because there isn't really a "full-n" before the vowel (this may be a slightly more valid objection, linguistically speaking, but in practical terms it doesn't matter *that* much either, as Hokkien doesn't have the sound-combinations like "pn-", "kn-" anyway, so there is no danger of confusion, c) It doesn't work if there is no initial consonant in the word - e.g. for "round" and "yellow" above, one cannot write "ni", "nui", because that *can* cause a lot of confusion (this is a valid objection which makes this solution very poor indeed).
So, that's why I always indicate nasalization in Hokkien words, using "~".
So, you are quite right in saying that a lot of words in Mandarin ending in "-ing" match Hokkien words ending in "-iau~" (my variant) or "iO~" (your variant). This is a well known linguistic phenomenon where full-nasals ("-m", "-n", "-ng") after a vowel get "blurred" so that they just become a nasalization of the vowel. French did the same thing, in evolving from Latin, so that "nom" is pronounced "nO~", "mont" is pronounced "mO~", and "rang" is pronounced " [ra~].
So, with your good knowledge of Mandarin, you should be able to see that most (all?) of Mandarin forms of the words in column 1 above will not end in "-n" or "-ng", whereas most (all?) of the Mandarin forms of the words in column 2 above will end in "-n" or "-ng".
Nokko, one question...
How come you spell the name of your home state "Terengganu"? Is that the modern/standard Malay spelling? When I was young I think we spelt it "Trengganu". I was born in Alor Setar, but in those days we spelt that as "Alor Star". Perhaps it's because (officially), "tr-" and "st-" don't exist as combinations of consonants in Malay, but that is just how "ter+<vowel>" and "set+<vowel>" sounded to English ears when said quickly...
Happy New Year to you too!
Sim.
-
Sim Lee
Hooray, it finally worked - just read the previous posting t
I managed to get the last attempt to work, I think.
Sim.
Sim.