"tiong-ng" (middle)

[Niuc]

Hi Hong

Thanks for the link to the online dictionary. It's wonderful but I have problem viewing some of its romanization, e.g. 'ng3' appears as '¢g'.

I usually don't put 'h' for glottal stop as it doesn't sound 'h' in my dialect and the tone numbers (4 & already indicate that they are 'jip8' tones.

硬 in our dialect is 'ngi*7', not 'nge*7'. There is no 'e*' sound in ours. Cuanciu type should have 'i*' and Ciangciu 'e*', E-mng mix.
e.g. stiff 硬 is 'ngi*7' for Cuanciu & E-mng, 'nge*7' for Ciangciu, baby 嬰 is 'i*1' for Cuanciu, 'e*1' for Ciangciu and E-mng.

最 cue3, mostly used in 最近 'cue3 kun7' = recently
te4/te2 is the short form of 'te3 it4' 第一, literaly "number one" -> most (superlative)
上 siong7 is also used for superlative form, with a sense of classy.

It's correct that 向 is 'ng3' (literary: 'hiong3') = to face a certain direction e.g. 向東 'ng3 tang1' or 'hiong3 tang1' = facing east. Another word for 'ng3' is 仰 (lit.: 'giong3') = to face upward, to hope. In my opinion, 'ng3 bang7' should be 仰望 instead of 向望, 'ng3 thi*1 po2 iu7' should be 仰天保佑.

'ui' is different from 'ui*', the latter is nasalized.

阿及 'a-kah' in the dictionary is a foreign word, should be from 'agak', the characters actually read 'a1 kip8'. Another one is 萬華, given as 'bang-kah', clearly a Japanese reading.

haolian is probably of Teochew origin, should be 好臉.

嫦娥 is read as 'siong5 ngo`5' in ours.

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[hong]

The dict is a mess.We cannot know which word is from chuan/chiang/amoy.Perhaps the author-Zhengliangwei can't even be sure since he is not local like those China' s author.Only China's author can give us correct usage in each area especially those proverbs.The vocabulary is large in here but without some phrases for us to read,users will find it too hard for those unputonghua-like words.
Bat(八) is a word explained in han period shuowenjiezi as knowing.This dict still put bat as roman zi which is a sign of no respect for the old dict.Are you sure te are used by every minnan(singaporean too?) because my taiwanese dict didn't even bother to explain it.I have to show the shang zi for my friend from Klang even though they uses siongke a lot.I think the search engine is not sensitive enough,it couldn't be just one page for the words we want every time.

[hong]

Dear Niu,
I have been searching for minnan special word for marry for a long time.I find it here as chiu thau 上頭.Have you heard of it?There is a minnan word divorce as li ian which is special.I can't understand we have no less than 3 minnan words for tongkat and agak.Malay/Indonesian still have to be included in?LimKianhui did mention agak in xiamen.

[hong]

ng-ng-hiap-hiap,ng-iap hide.
Niu,
A year ago I asked you about Australia in minnan which I don't think it is correct to say it in Taiwan/HongKong hanzi.Australia and many other countries are included in Dayangzhou.So Australia cannot another zhou 洲within it.There are just seven zhou .China's hanzi for it is correct.I heard every minnan radio say it in the same way from china.
Guhanyu zhou for this zi is means state but every chinese dialect agree there are seven(six?)zhou in this earth now.

[Niuc]

Hi Hong

I am not too sure but I think Singaporean also use 'te4' ('te7 it4'). It's the most common to indicate superlative form in our dialect.

I think Klang's "siongke" is equivalent to our "siong7 kai3" (上階?), e.g. 上階好 'siong7 kai3 ho2' = the best (literally: highest rank good).

I have never heard of 上頭 'ciu*7 thau5' but I just found out that in Douglas' dictionary:
'thau5 mng5 liam7 ciu*7 e0' (頭門..上的) = the first wife (as to time) marrried by a man
'thau5 ciu*7 kia*2' (頭上子) = first-born child
'ciu*7 thau5 ciu*7 bin7' (上頭上面) = devoid of shame and modesty

'li5 ian5' should be 離緣, we usually say 'li5 hun1' 離婚.

As shown in your posting above, we can just say 'kuai*2 a8' for "tongkat". For "agak" it depends on context.

About how many 'ciu1' 洲 in the world, it depends on how we count. But Australia is a 'ciu1' 洲 (continent) for sure.

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[hong]

I think the kai zi in zhengliangwei dict is better which is a word in Beijing language too.Another is 介.Taiwanese daily news do begin to follow china's name for australia but not places like Laos.If australia can be called a zhou,I think japan can them as a continental too.

[Sim]

Hi

>> I am not too sure but I think Singaporean also use 'te4' ('te7 it4').
>> It's the most common to indicate superlative form in our dialect.

This is the most common superlative I heard in Penang Hokkien. In fact, I only knew it as "te" (single word) and never realised until 1 year ago that it was meant to be the informal form of "te it". I was corresponding with a guy from Taiwan who is interested in Taiwanese/Hokkien/Minnon, and he told me that he had never heard of a superlative "te", which puzzled me very much. When I asked my parents how someone could possibly not know such a common word, they told me that it was short for "te it"!

>> ..., we usually say 'li5 hun1' .

This is a term I remember my maternal grandparents (Amoy & surrounds, Sitiawan, Seremban) using, on the few occasions when divorce was talked about in the 70s. This term I remember clearly, but vaguely, I seem to also remember them also saying "li5 khui1" (khui1='open', presumably).

Cheers,
Sim.

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[Sim]

Hi,

Just going very briefly back to the "ng-" words in Hokkien. My father's family say "ngiau1" (cat) and "ngiau1-chu2" (mouse). I don't know how "normal" this is. My mother and her family all say "niau1", and even though I grew up in Penang, among my paternal relatives, I only ever said "niau1" (and "niau1-chu2"). In fact, I only realised that my two parents were pronouncing this word differently a couple of months ago!

What do the readers of the forum here say?

Sim.

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[Niuc]

Hi

Hong, usually a continent is a huge mainland that has various climates. Australia has both tropical and sub-tropical zones. Japan is too small to be a continent by itself, even Indonesia - which is much larger than Japan - isn't a continent.

Sim, we say 'niau1' for cat and 'niau2 chy2' for mouse. Actually the two 'niau' are different: 'niau1' is 貓 ('mao1' in Mandarin), 'niau2' is 老 (according to Douglas' i.e. old, another readings: 'lau7', 'lo2' -> 'lao3' in Mandarin).

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[hong]

Dear Niu,
I shouldn't waste much time about Australia is a continent or not.If Australia is a separate continent ,it will mean they don't have to go through football qualify round for the worldcup(they haven't done it yet).England is considered by some as un- europe because they are separated from the mainland.It is a matter of hanzi for that zhou is new word with new meaning since human understood clearly the earth.I find that it is nothing wrong for Indonesia to group into dayangzhou along australia since even some Russian countries has been put into asia a few years ago..
I find this word again on ngia-迎 invite although the zi has many sounds
ngia-ang,ngia-nau-jiat ,ngia-sin,ngia-sin-beng for inviting god.