Tsū-ngóo kài-siāu

[amhoanna]

Ah-m̃-koh, lán tĩ-leh chioh jī ê sî, ũ--ê sĩ chioh-ì bô chioh-im, ũ--ê tian-tó sĩ chioh-im bô chioh-ì, góa kám-kak bô hiah it-tì-sèng(一致性).

同意。

不こ（m̄ kò）照我想、閩南文「借意」基本上干な（kannaⁿ）借漢文正妥当、不通直直借廣東文中華文日本語。ち点（cit tiám）拍算㑑無同意。

Make no mistake, 我所講兮「漢文」＝ 傳統书面漢文、無包括「官話文」。

Literary Chinese is a "canonical" language for Hoklo, a 長輩 if U will; not a mother or father tongue so much as an uncle or an aunt. Mandarin is not all that. Mandarin is from "the same generation". I don't reject Mando-borrowings categorically, but most do seem unjustified. Nor do I condone borrowing "唔" from Canto.

Also: not "ū--ê", but "ū-ê". I made the same mistake for 15+ yrs and was corrected specifically by "the natives".

嗯 tō-sĩ ha̍p-ì, im sui-jiân bô 呣 hiah kĩn, ah mã ũ tsiap-kĩn, só͘-í góa tio̍h iōng hit-ê.

「嗯」字不通借、有二个理由。

第一、嗯字本底不是漢文、是官話文、創省卜借。

第二、嗯字本底是「擬聲辞」ひ款物、照意思來借無妥当、無「效率」、ま gâu 花。

[Abun]

不こ（m̄ kò）照我想、閩南文「借意」基本上干な（kannaⁿ）借漢文正妥当、不通直直借廣東文中華文日本語。ち点（cit tiám）拍算㑑無同意。

Make no mistake, 我所講兮「漢文」＝ 傳統书面漢文、無包括「官話文」。

Literary Chinese is a "canonical" language for Hoklo, a 長輩 if U will; not a mother or father tongue so much as an uncle or an aunt. Mandarin is not all that. Mandarin is from "the same generation". I don't reject Mando-borrowings categorically, but most do seem unjustified. Nor do I condone borrowing "唔" from Canto.

I AM 同意 And I'm glad to hear someone else address the problem that Classical Chinese is not, as many people seem to just assume, a direct parent language of Hokkien, not in the way Latin is for Italian or French. Anyways, the problem is, that interjections are rather rare in "漢文" writing; you've got 兮 but that's about the only one I can think of off the top of my head. Btw, I'm guessing your term "漢文" refers to 漢朝 rather than 漢族, meaning Han dynasty and earlier writings. If you go further on, there are of course more interjections to be found, especially in later imperial works such as novels like 紅樓夢, but these of course reflect a Northern Chinese language so borrowing these would hardly be more appropriate than borrowing characters from contemporary Mandarin. In his book about Written Taiwanese, Henning Klöter mentions Ming dynasty stage plays (especially one called 荔鏡記, 1566) in which some characters obviously speak dialects of Bân(閩); these may serve as a source for the spelling of interjections. However we have to ask ourselves to what extent the characters those plays use are influenced by indigenous character usages. I would tend to assume that this was only rarely the case and the writers rather used the current 官話 as a source for borrowings, so these characters may be only marginally better than using characters from 紅樓夢.

Also: not "ū--ê", but "ū-ê". I made the same mistake for 15+ yrs and was corrected specifically by "the natives".

Oh, I wasn't aware of that. Thanks for correcting me.

第一、嗯字本底不是漢文、是官話文、創省卜借。

True, it doesn't appear in Classical Chinese, and true, it was coined by Mandarin writers. I don't think that in itself makes it improper to borrow it, especially since the phoneticum 恩 is equally close to the sound ǹg or m̀ in both Hokkien and Mandarin, but it has been established that we have different views there If Canto uses 唔, I would view that as just as proper or improper to borrow as Mandarin 嗯. My only problem with Canto borrowings is that I can not come up with them myself because I don't speak Canto

第二、嗯字本底是「擬聲辞」ひ款物、照意思來借無妥当、無「效率」、ま gâu 花。

嗯 was originally only only the asking ńg (Pinyin) in Mandarin? I wasn't aware of that. How was the confirming ǹg originally represented then?

[amhoanna]

嗯 was originally only only the asking ńg (Pinyin) in Mandarin? I wasn't aware of that. How was the confirming ǹg originally represented then?

Hmmmm....

What do mean by "originally"?

Anyways, the problem is, that interjections are rather rare in "漢文" writing; you've got 兮 but that's about the only one I can think of off the top of my head. Btw, I'm guessing your term "漢文" refers to 漢朝 rather than 漢族, meaning Han dynasty and earlier writings.

"漢文" may take on different meanings in different contexts, but I've never heard it used to refer to 漢 Era writings. What I meant was "Literary Chinese", basically what the 中華 establishment refers to as 文言文 (a term that does not seem to have been widespread pre-ROC; note the three-syllable structure, a common concession to Mandarin phonology). A lot of the Beng-Cheng novels were not Literary Chinese so much as Literary Mandarin.

For reasons most likely political, the 中華 establishment dislikes the word "漢文" and has removed it from education and the media in general.

[Abun]

What do mean by "originally"?

I was asking about the source you meant when saying 本底 earlier under your 第二.

For reasons most likely political, the 中華 establishment dislikes the word "漢文" and has removed it from education and the media in general.

Ok, I hadn't heard about that... Who exactly do you bean by 中華 establishment? I have heard the word 文言(文) being used almost exclusively (albeit only in Mandarin) by people in both Mainland China and TW. So do you mean Singapore and Overseas Chinese?
I also think the trisyllabic 文言文 sounds a little odd and prefer the bisyllabic 文言, although you could argue that 看字面, this actually means spoken words in a literary style.

"漢文" may take on different meanings in different contexts, but I've never heard it used to refer to 漢 Era writings. What I meant was "Literary Chinese", basically what the 中華 establishment refers to as 文言文 (a term that does not seem to have been widespread pre-ROC; note the three-syllable structure, a common concession to Mandarin phonology). A lot of the Beng-Cheng novels were not Literary Chinese so much as Literary Mandarin.

In this sense "漢文" is very diverse and not as uniform over the centuries as many people think. For example, in pre-Han sources, the verbal prefix 可 is always followed by a passive construction; 可知 for example was "can be known". It can therefore be induced that as a rule, 可 most likely changed the verb to passive voice, so that it could not have an object anymore (more accurately put, the verb lost one point in its valency, since ditransitive verbs like 謂 could still have an object, but only one instead of the normal two), so sentences 可知其是 (one can know it is true) would likely have been incorrect according to the rules of pre-Han written Chinese. If the verb was supposed to stay in active voice, you had to add an 以: 可以知其是. You can still see this construction today in expressions like 可愛(can be loved, 可憐 can be pitied ect.). In later works however, this rule is not strictly followed anymore.
Apart from grammatical changes the vocabulary also took in much influence from both the vernacular 官話s of the different dynasties as well as Sanskrit (especially in early Buddhist texts) and the languages of turkic tribes that conquered China (or parts of it). Due to a few 古文 movements since the late 1st century AD, this influence was of course much smaller than in the spoken languages, but it is nevertheless present, visible for example in the rising number of bisyllabic compounds as time progressed.
Therefore, I would tend to argue that the closer we come to the present, the smaller the amount of actual Han and pre-Han elements became (I choose these periods as a reference not because Chinese was "purer" then but because it was the ideal of 古文 purists). To use your family analogy, late imperial 漢文 would probably be more accurately described as a cousin who tried to emulate his father (Hokkien's uncle).

[amhoanna]

Who exactly do you bean by 中華 establishment?

I use the term very precisely indeed, so precisely that some people get mad. There are two political establishments that call themselves 中華. While they did not create the term, they popularized it; the term was pretty obscure before they picked it up. While they imply that the term has been widespread for thousands of years, that was clearly not the case if we read "classic" texts.

Both Tionghoas run their own systems of compulsory education. They also dominate the media -- completely, in the case of the PRC.

Keep in mind that for at least two generations already, nearly all formal Sinitic-language instruction outside of PRC/ROC territory has also been based on PRC or ROC curricula. When I was a kid (outside PRC/ROC), our kanji/Mandarin primers featured characters with names like 王大中. ... The great exception would be Hong Kong, till recently.

What do mean by "originally"?

How did the use of "嗯 = YES-GRUNT" originate?

It originated from the YES-GRUNT (in Mandarin speech) sounding kind of like Mandarin "恩". The YES-GRUNT doesn't have an actual -n final, but, close enough (in Mandarin), esp. considering how a lot of speakers drop -n finals, esp. in the Yangtze Valley and north of there, men too but esp. young women. But the point is that "嗯 = YES-GRUNT" was assigned purely on the basis of sound, and makes sense only strictly w/i the confines of Mandarin phonology. How U gon' go borrow something like that into Hokkien??