Buddhist sermons in Penang Hokkien

[SimL]

duaaagiii,

Thank you VERY MUCH! This will help immensely in annotating my transcriptions. I'm sharing them with Ah-bin, so *two* people are profitting from your knowledge of Hokkien.

Cheers,
Sim.

[SimL]

tsiam7-si5 暫時

Barclay gives 漸 for the first character. Any opinion on the suitability of this?

Also, in my usage, 無理由 means "without reason, unreasonable, illogical, irrational". Consequently,
I suppose that 有理由 could mean "to make sense, hang together, be coherent".

Any opinions on this?

SimL

[SimL]

Hi duaaagiii,

All of them - including the 把握 pa2-ak4 and 後悔 regret, regretful - fitted very well. (The latter had some discrepancy with tones though).

Thanks again,
SimL

[duaaagiii]

tsiam7-si5 暫時

Barclay gives 漸 for the first character. Any opinion on the suitability of this?

In my opinion, 漸 (gradual, gradually) does not fit.

Also, in my usage, 無理由 means "without reason, unreasonable, illogical, irrational". Consequently,
I suppose that 有理由 could mean "to make sense, hang together, be coherent".

Any opinions on this?

Hmm...
In Taiwan, I think we'd tend to say 道理 or just 理 instead of 理由, but 理由 makes sense.
I would tend to interpret '有理由' as 'to have a reason', and '有道理' or '有理' as 'to make sense'.

I first heard siong-siong last night in the PgHK Podcast. Is that the normal word for regularly? It sounds as if it comes from reading Mandarin texts in Hokkien.
I know there is also tiaN-tiaN 定定 . Does it mean the same? If so, which one is more commonly used?

定定 means the same thing and is more commonly used; it's more colloquial than 常常.

[Andrew]

siong5-siong5 常常 yes, it can mean 'regularly'

I first heard siong-siong last night in the PgHK Podcast. Is that the normal word for regularly? It sounds as if it comes from reading Mandarin texts in Hokkien.

I know there is also tiaN-tiaN 定定 . Does it mean the same? If so, which one is more commonly used?

I've never heard it, but shouldn't it be siang-siang in PgHk?

Also, is tiaN-tiaN the same as PgHk tiam7-tiam7, as in regularly, constantly?

[SimL]

Also, is tiaN-tiaN the same as PgHk tiam7-tiam7, as in regularly, constantly?

Wow! I'd forgotten this word! I think it's very typically PgHk.

I would add that "tiam-tiam" is "regularly, constantly", but only when it has a negative connotation. "i tiam-tiam mE wa" (= "s/he keeps scolding me"), "i tiam-tiam hiam i e kiaN gong" (= "s/he keeps complaining that his/her children are stupid"), "i tiam-tiam lai cioh lui" (= "s/he keeps coming to borrow money").

In my usage, it's never used for positive things. Like one would never say "i tiam-tiam thak-cEh" (= "he studies regularly"), "i tiam-tiam iaN bE-pio" (= "he regularly wins the lottery"), except if you were grumbling that your school friend never goes out to the movies with you, because s/he's too busy studying, or you're jealous of your friend because s/he keeps winning the lottery. "wa tiam-tiam iaN bE-pio" would hence be an unusual sentence. It could be used to mean "(I wonder why / it's really amazing that) I keep winning the lottery" or "(damn! all my friends and relatives keep expecting money or presents from me, because) I keep winning the lottery". So, still some sort of surprise or annoyance is involved, never for a normal "regularly".

SimL

[duaaagiii]

Interesting; tiam7-tiam7 (恬恬) in Taiwan means "quiet; quietly; to be quiet (i.e. shut up)"

• 恬恬！
  Be quiet! / Shut up!
• 恬恬食三碗公(半)
  (lit. to quietly eat three (and a half) big bowls of food)
  describes a person who does not appear to be aggressive, but in reality is very much so

[Ah-bin]

Ah, thank you everyone for clearing that up. I've heard tiam7tiam7 on the podcast but I had though it was the Taiwanese meaning. TiaN6-tiaN6 (not sure if my tone numbers are the same as yours but the characters are 定定) is used in Chiang-chiu for "often" without any negative meaning as far as I know. But if tiam-tiam is bad, then what is the way to say often in a good sense? Perhaps siong-siong is fine, but I am just suspicious when it looks like Mandarin and is read in the thak-chheh-im 讀册音 that it is used only by people who have had a Mandarin education.

Regards,

Ah-Bin

[Andrew]

Interesting; tiam7-tiam7 (恬恬) in Taiwan means "quiet; quietly; to be quiet (i.e. shut up)"

• 恬恬！
  Be quiet! / Shut up!
• 恬恬食三碗公(半)
  (lit. to quietly eat three (and a half) big bowls of food)
  describes a person who does not appear to be aggressive, but in reality is very much so

We also have this meaning, as in ce-tiam-tiam, "to sit quietly", but normally when we say "be quiet!" it is just "tiam (-lah)!"

Douglas says that tiaN-tiaN, 定定, also has the meaning "still, quiet, motionless, be quiet!, also a sort of adverbial particle at the end of a sentence, having the sense of 'only' or of 'and that is all' ". So perhaps the two are interchangeable?

[Andrew]

Ah, thank you everyone for clearing that up. I've heard tiam7tiam7 on the podcast but I had though it was the Taiwanese meaning. TiaN6-tiaN6 (not sure if my tone numbers are the same as yours but the characters are 定定) is used in Chiang-chiu for "often" without any negative meaning as far as I know. But if tiam-tiam is bad, then what is the way to say often in a good sense? Perhaps siong-siong is fine, but I am just suspicious when it looks like Mandarin and is read in the thak-chheh-im 讀册音 that it is used only by people who have had a Mandarin education.

The only thing I can think of is ta(k)-pai, which doesn't strictly mean often, but each time, always, e.g. i tak-pai lai gua-e chu, "he's always coming to my house".