An obcure variety of Hokkien?

Discussions on the Hokkien (Minnan) language.
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Andrew Yong

Re: An obcure variety of Hokkien?

Post by Andrew Yong »

Sorry, last post got cut short

Examples from the dictionary include Amoy png Changchew pui~, A boe C be, A emng C Emui~, etc.

It is incredible that this 1873 dictionary is still the best standard work aroung.


andrew
Sim Lee

Re: An obcure variety of Hokkien?

Post by Sim Lee »

Thank you for this information Andrew.

Any idea where I could get a copy of this Carstair Douglas's dictionary? I tried some antiquarian book websites, but nothing turned up. Amazon didn't turn up anything either, as I expected.

Where are you based?

Sim.
Aurelio

Re: An obcure variety of Hokkien?

Post by Aurelio »

Hi Sim Lee:

Look at the end of the "Hokkiens also not Chinese?"-thread in this same forum - there's a reprint which is still available. It's really a good dictionary. You might also want to have the xiamen Fangyan Cidian I suggested there (very inexpensive and all Chinese characters - less coverage of dialect and literary forms, though).

http://www.chinalanguage.com/forum/read ... #reply_568

Best regards,
Aurelio
Aurelio

Re: An obcure variety of Hokkien?

Post by Aurelio »

P.S.:

For the Xiamen Fangyan Cidian see two posts below that:

http://www.chinalanguage.com/forum/read ... #reply_570

Regards,
Aurelio
Andrew Yong

Re: An obcure variety of Hokkien?

Post by Andrew Yong »

I got hold of a copy at the Oxford University Chinese Studies Institute. It was the 1899 edition still handsomely bound in full leather. It does have some Chinese characters, about 60% of the words have the Chinese character block printed in the margin.

$US89 is quite expensive. The $S92 price sounds a lot more reasonable (=£35 vs £57). Does anyone know how/where I could get it more cheaply? I will be going back to Penang at the end of the summer and Pakkia~ in September, so price rather than location is the main factor.


andrew
Andrew Yong

Re: An obcure variety of Hokkien?

Post by Andrew Yong »

What is the pronunciation used in the Xiamen Fangyan Cidian?



andrew
Aurelio

Re: An obcure variety of Hokkien?

Post by Aurelio »

Hi Andrew:

The 厦门方言词典 gives the Xiamen pronunciation only, e.g.

门 [mng] not [mui"]
你 [li] and not [lu] or [lü]

[dz] and [l] are both given as [l] (人 [lang] and 热 [lua?]). There are, however, a few pages on the differences between the different dialects of Hokkien in the introductory part of the book.

Regards,
Aurelio
SL De

Re: An obcure variety of Hokkien?

Post by SL De »

Hi Aurelio:


(1) 門 [mng] not [mui"]

門 [mng] This tone is the pronounciation of the urban region of E-mng/E-mui 厦門.

門 [mui"] This tone is the pronounciation of the rural region of E-mng/E-mui 厦門

Amoy 厦門 (Ar-moy) This tone is the pronounciation of Fookchow Dialect.
From the Ching dynasty, the Officers of the Public Departments in E-mng and in Taiwan almost served by the Fookchow guy. So the Fookchows used their dialect pronounciation [ Amoy] insted of Holo pronounciation [E-mng] and [Ahmui (E-mui)]. The foreigners followed to use this Amoy.

Xiamen 厦門 This tone is the pronounciation of Mandarin.


(2) 你 [li] and not [lu] or [lü]

汝[lu] or [lü] This word is Old Hokkien. Only the very old persons use it in their conversation. In Penang, the people still use this word in their life daily.

你 [li] This word is a loan-word from Mandarin. Nowadays, in Hokkien and Taiwan the people all use this loan-ward to instead 汝[lu] or [lü].



SL De
Niuc

Re: An obcure variety of Hokkien?

Post by Niuc »

Hi SL De

Many dictionaries & websites indicate that 門 "mng" is E-mng (Xiamen) & Cuanciu (Quanzhou) pronunciation, "mui" is Ciangciu (Zhangzhou) pronunciation. The rural area of E-mng that use "mui" may be influenced by Ciangciu.

"li" used in E-mng & Taiwan is not only written as 你 but also 汝, according to 廈門方言詞典.
汝 is "li" in E-mng, "lu" in Ciangciu, "ly" in Cuanciu. These three varians still exist in daily speech.
箸 : "ti", "tu", "ty"
去 : "khi", "khu", "khy"
etc....


Best Regards,
Niuc

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Casey

Re: An obcure variety of Hokkien?

Post by Casey »

Hi! Sim Lee
Just came across your question and conversation about the Hokkien dialect over the net. It is very interesting. I think my explanation may be of help to you.
Hokkien dialect is spoken with different accents in different areas of the southern Fujian (Hokkien) area. The accent spoken in Xiamen (or Amoy) is considered to be the standard because Xiamen is a large port city and is more accessible than any other cities or towns in the area, hence its dialect is most commonly encoutered However, the accents in Quanzhou (Chuan Chiu) and Zhangzhou (Chiang Chiu) are different. Judging from its pronunciation, the Penang Hokkien originates from the Chiang Chiu accent where the sounds "-ui (nasal)" (like in pui (rice) and kui (bright))and "uae" (like in muae (porridge) and muae (younger sister)) correspond to "-ng" and "-ay" in the Amoy accent respectively. By the way "Amoy" is actually "ae mui" in Chiang Chiu accent ("e mng in Amoy accent). Westerners could not pronounce it correctly and turned it into "Amoy".
The subject of Hokkien dialects spoken in Malaysia and Singapore is an interesting one. Even though most of the time the Hokkien dialect we come across is a mixture of accents, one still can find specific accent pockets in some cities and towns, most obvious being the Chiang Chiu accent in Penang and the "Eng Chun" accent (a branch of Chuang Chiu accent) in Muar, Johor.
Best regards
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