Hoklo on Luzon (Philippines Hokkien), reports from the field

[Yeleixingfeng]

Amhoanna,

I tried using Hangeul... It is entirely possible, but it would be too compact to fit into a small square, especially the tensed 'k', 't', which in Hangeul is a doubled 'g'. Besides, ai has merged to 'e', thus we need to invent/combine to form a new jamo for ai.

And then there's the tone, further adding to the complexity.

Imagine everything in a small box.. Thau-hin5 la. >.<

Again, I'm not saying it's impossible.

[amhoanna]

Yelei, I think U're saying that hangeul couldn't be used for Mandarin w/o adding things to it and maybe changing a few things, and I think U are "obviously" right. Not sure what U mean by "small square".

Out of the scripts I mentioned, to the best of my knowledge, only romaji and Arab script have ever been adapted to write Mandarin. And only Arab script has ever been actually used to write Mandarin for communication, not decorative or educational, purposes. (I say "has been", but AFAIK it's still in use.)

[amhoanna]

I actually struggled this subject back then.

This is interesting! Learning Tagalog in a city where a Spanish creole is the go-to language.

I am nor pro or anti of anything, mainland chinese and taiwanese for me is only one.

This sentence makes me chuckle. For me, "Mainland" China and Taiwan and the Philippines are all only one, and all of Asia too, and the entire world, and the entire galaxy. Why this whole spat over undersea oil rights? We are all one. Whenever I meet someone who thinks China and the Philippines are not one, I wish I could eat their liver. I guess I'm "pro"-carnivorism.

[SimL]

Out of the scripts I mentioned, to the best of my knowledge, only romaji and Arab script have ever been adapted to write Mandarin. And only Arab script has ever been actually used to write Mandarin for communication, not decorative or educational, purposes. (I say "has been", but AFAIK it's still in use.)

Hi amhoanna,

Apparently, it was also written in cyrillic script, but in this case, not (quite) standard Mandarin. The article http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dungan_language says: "The modern Dungan language is the only spoken Chinese that is written in the Cyrillic alphabet, as they lived under the Soviet rule."

[Ah-bin]

This Dungan language is a kind of Western Mandarin, I used to own a book about it. It's almost like the Penang Hokkien of Kazakhstan, except that it has books, a newspaper and its own radio programming. I believe the kind of Chinese written in Arabic script was actually a kind of western Mandarin as well.

I used to own a book about Dungan, but I lent it to someone and never received it back. I know that person is going to be around the University next week though....

Anyway, the reason why I call it the Penang Hokkien of Kazakhstan is because it shares certain features in common with Penang Hokkien:

1) The retention of archaic vocabulary:
皇帝 - means "president"
衙門 - meand "government office"

2) Loans from Russian for new inventions
Traktor - tractor (can't remember any others)

3) A simplified tone system
There are only three tones in citation mode, the fourth appears in the first syllable of a compound through tone sandhi.

The language is written without tone marks, with words (rather than syllables) as the meaningful units, like the way Amhoanna writes his POJ, with the syllables stuck together as a single word.

This reminds me, one of the things I have to do all the time when speaking to Chinese who have learnt Engiish is correct their use of "Chinese words" rather than "chinese characters" for 漢字, which makes me wonder if they ever teach anything about how to describe Chinese things in English. It's interesting that few Chinese who speak fluent English (and few English learners of Chinese) realise that there are English equivalents for many Chinese things, such as 斤 - a catty (I realise this is from Malay).

[siamiwako]

I've listened to Wang Li's track and yes I can say it's the same old familiar hokkien accent!

Accents that I noticed suggest the speaker is not from 顏市, at least from my observation, I usually associate them with Metro Manila (I could be wrong on this though):
(Vocab = MM pronunciation/ZC pronunciation)
明白 = beng piak/beng pek
朋友 = piang yu/peng yu
(not found in track)白色 = peh siak/peh shek (where h is a bit fuzzied) hence when we say 黑色 we say o-shek which sounds like we're talking behind 胡適's back!!!

I think MM accent is more closer to native coanciu/amoy accent.

Has anyone noticed Filipino Chinese say tak-tseh "讀冊" as oppose to tak-tsu (TW?) "讀書"??
甚麼時候 for 甚麼時(陣?)?? Some people say ti-si (在時?? I reckon it should be 幾時) for when.
I know 陣 is read as tin (e.g. 雁陣 gan-tin 打前陣 pah-cian-tin)

Ask a student where's he going and he'll say oh-teng 學堂 as oppose to hak-hao 學校.

I was told that the word "Intsik/in-chik" comes from the word 引叔 where 引 means 他們/他家 = 他(們/家)叔

I also noticed a slightly higher tone on 好
好運 = 虎運 (from track) I say 河運. Maybe it's just me - an oddball

I hardly hear people use tse-tsi for 現在, aside from my cousin in-law from Manila. I usually say tse-tsun (I guess word is 這陣) or tseh to shorten the word.

[siamiwako]

I actually struggled this subject back then.

This is interesting! Learning Tagalog in a city where a Spanish creole is the go-to language.

I guess having a provincial dialect adds extra burden on us - 1 main dialect (閩南) 3 main languages (英華菲) + 1 another local dialect! Or maybe it's just me?

Thinking back what my priorities were (in descending order) when I was in high school:
1. 閩南
2. 英語／華語(we call it 國語 back then)
3. 本地方言
4. 菲語

This should explain why my Tagalog is really bad.

[Ah-bin]

I guess having a provincial dialect adds extra burden on us - 1 main dialect (閩南) 3 main languages (英華菲) + 1 another local dialect! Or maybe it's just me?

Just a comment on English terminology. "Dialect" in the technical sense used by linguists means any variation of a language, whether localised, standardised or otherwise. According to this definition, Mandarin is a dialect as well.

So if you count 閩南 as a dialect you have to class 華語 as a dialect as well, and therefore you actually speak three main languages, but you know two dialects of one language (Chinese).

The confusion comes through a mistranslation of the term 方言 into English when it does not mean the same thing. Use of the mistranslation in English is encouraged by several Chinese organisations and regimes, but not all of them. In Taiwan, Hakka and Hokkien are officially known as 鄉土語言 "local languages". By the Taiwanese definition you speak four languages.

方言 refers to localised dialects (i.e. 閩南) but excludes the standard dialect 華語, so if you are writing in Chinese you can say 三種語言,一種方言, and it is correct, but to translate it into English as "Three languages and one dialect" when referring to the combination above, that would be technically incorrect, since 方言 and dialect don;t mean exactly the same thing.

If you are referring to the non-technical sense of the word "dialect" then the usage in both languages is about the same, except that people in China often refer to any localised language within the boundaries of China as a 方言 whether it is related to Chinese or not.

Sorry to be picky, but the three English words that are most harmful to the continued use of any kind of Chinese other than Mandarin are "just a dialect", as they put Mandarin on a higher level and denigrate all the others. If constantly reminding people that (at least in English) Mandarin is "just a dialect" too dissuades over-proud Mandarin speakers from thinking that they are something special compared to Hokkien/Hakka/Cantonese etc. speakers.

[amhoanna]

The Pinoy usage of the word "dialect" is JUST like the Chinese usage of "fangyan". I've heard Chavacano referred to as a dialect too. A dialect of what? The Pinoy English word "dialect" doesn't seem to imply there being a language attached to it. I've heard the "language = dialect with army and navy" quote pretty often in the Phils.

The perception of Hoklo and Hakka as "not real languages" is alive and well in Taiwan too, unfort. Cry the beloved ROC-washed rakyat.

It's cool that Siamiwako's "priority language" was Hoklo even when he was in high school, with all the pressures that go with that (high school).

[amhoanna]

Thanks for commenting on the recordings, SMWK.

Have U heard Cebu Hoklo? Would U say that it sounds different?

I never heard the word ce6-ci3 (could be ce7-ci3, ce7-ci7, ce6-ci7) for NOW before these recordings. I like the sound of it. In TW the usual word is cim2-ma2. This may or may not come from a hypothetical cit4-ma2 form. Cit4 cun7 is used in TW too. I'm agnostic as to whether that kanji is the true one.

Thakche' and thakcu are both used in TW. Most people seem to use one or the other. Thakcu is mostly used by older people in places where the Hoklo skews Coanciu. Mainstream TWese uses thakche'. O'tng was probably in the vocab till some point in the 20th cen.

Interesting theory on intsik. Could it be related to Malay encik, meaning SIR (moderately respectful)?

Would love to hear Zamboanga Hoklo sometime, complete with its loanwords from Bisaya, Spanish, etc.