Appropriated hanji for che/chiah--e5/chia/chit/chiah-nih8

[FutureSpy]

Hi. I'm trying to learn Taiwanese, but I'm shrugging at what hanji would be appropriated for che (that), chiah--e5 (those), chia (here), chit (this) and chiah-nih8 (like that). I've been using 這, 遮個, 遮, 這 and 遮呢. My textbooks give some different solutions, but I'm afraid they're even more off. Could you please tell me if they're alright or suggest some better choices?

What about he, hiah--e5, hia, hit and hiah-nih8? I use 彼, 遐個, 遐, 彼 and 遐呢.

Thanks in advance

[amhoanna]

Those are fine.

Some use 即 for chit. By coincidence, it just "works" all the way around: 即 happens to mean THIS in Literary Chinese, and is pronounced "chit" in Literary Hoklo.

These words are systematically related to each other, and the kanji don't show that at all. The existing kanji really don't belong in this "neighborhood" of the Hoklo language. Also, the endings vary wildly across dialects and into Teochew, but the ch-/h- contrast is always there.

[FutureSpy]

So is it a better idea using romanization instead for this set of words?

Writing in Taiwanese (and I assume it's the same for the rest of Hokkien) is kinda problematic. I have different textbooks and all of them have differences. For example, one of my textbooks use romanization for boe7, another one uses 沒, and there are another two which give 無會 and 不會 (perhaps indicating a possible shortening of bo7-e7). So I'm writing it romanized as either boe7 or bōe. Actually I've just started learning, so in order to learn it in a more consistent way, I'm rewriting the lessons of my textbooks based on 台文/華文線頂辭典 dictionary as a primary source and 臺灣閩南語常用詞辭典 as a secondary source. Since I don't know Chinese (Japanese is my heritage language tho), things are a lot harder for me to at least suspect if some hanji for a specific word are off or not...

[SimL]

Hi FutureSpy,

I'm thrilled to hear that you're interested in Hokkien/Taiwanese/Minnanyu! Particularly as you don't even have a Chinese background. Please feel free to share the reason for your interest, if you feel like it (no obligation though!).

[FutureSpy]

Sure... Well, I don't have a specific reason:

1. I'm interested in minority languages.

2. Back in Jr. High School and High School (that's 2002~), I used to watch many Singaporean movies, and many of them had some Hokkien on them. I remember I got really interested in Singapore (I even used to listen to Singaporean bands!), but unfortunately never got to visit the country. The only book for learning Hokkien I knew was "Spoken Hokkien", but it was useless because I couldn't afford the tapes and I knew learning a tonal language without audio would take me nowhere. A friend of mine used to joke that Hokkien was great to swear... (Is that some kind of cliché joke?) I know, however, most speakers are eldery.

3. Again back in High School (around ~2005), one of my Japanese teachers was learning Chinese. I then asked her if it was because she was dating a Taiwanese, and she told me no, 'cos at home they spoke Taiwanese. Too bad I didn't research anything about it, because otherwise I'd find out many of 五月天 (MAYDAY) songs were actually in Taiwanese, and perhaps that would have boosted my motivation to buy those expensive textbooks and tapes? Who knows...

4. About one year and a half ago, a friend brought me to a Taiwanese association. As we got there, we got approached by an old lady who asked us if we were Japanese. She was very kind to introduce everything there, and she told us about Taiwanese language, all that in a nearly perfect Japanese. Before we left, she even gave a Mandarin textbook for each of us. After that, I started reading about Taiwanese language and found out it was actually Hokkien (I was like wow!). On the same day, I learned 五月天 had Taiwanese songs (and now I was like wow wow wow). So I made up my and decided to learn Taiwanese. I didn't have enough money for textbooks, but we were only a few months away from Christmas. So I got "Maryknoll Taiwanese" vol. 1 and 2, "Harvard Taiwanese 101", "The Little Prince" and "おれは鉄兵" DVDbox, but I was a little disappointed 'cos all text in the lessons was romanized and dumb me thought hanji on the glossary was Mandarin translation. Harvard wasn't really good for self-study 'cos there are no grammar explanations (if any, they're all in Mandarin). So I put them aside (okay, I'm lazy!). Then again, around Christmas last year, I decided to give a try some Japanese textbooks for learning Taiwanese. I got them around February, and it's been about one month since I'm working through "CD Express Taiwanese". After that, I'll probably try "New Express Taiwanese" (the newer edition by the same author, but a completely different textbook), and then "台湾語会話" (I still missing the CDs) before trying Maryknoll and Harvard.

That's just a bunch of unconnected reasons, but basically that's why I want to learn Hokkien. I want to learn Taiwanese first, but later learn the differences with Amoy (and perhaps Penang) and how to avoid Japanese loans in order to communicate with other Hokkien speakers as well.

And when learning, I really need hanji, even if it's just some random character. The point is, I completely fail to recognize words in an all romanized text... Perhaps it's because of my tone impairness?

As to why I've chosen Hokkien over Mandarin... Well, I do languages for hobby, so usefulness isn't important unless I really have to learn the language for a specific need. And personally, I don't like Mandarin retroflexes (like those -er sounds or R as in 溫柔). I'm prepared to get bashed for this comment I'm not saying Hokkien is better than Mandarin, nor the other way around, just that Hokkien sounds a lot better to me and that counts a lot when choosing a language to learn...

[SimL]

Hi FutureSpy,

Thanks for sharing the background to your wanting to learn Hokkien/Taiwanese. What a nice story, about how you liked Taiwanese people and culture, and that there turned out to be a connection between Taiwanese and the Singaporean Hokkien you had been interested in earlier.

Indeed, a student sinologist asked me the other day if it was worthwhile learning "obscure languages", and my reply to him was that many people learn a language because they're interested in the relevant culture. So it makes total sense (to me) to learn Icelandic or Tibetan, even if these languages have a very small number of speakers, in global terms. His question was related to European languages with a small speaker-base, but in your case, I'm of course *delighted* that your choice is Hokkien/Taiwanese .

As the regular visitors to this Forum will know, Ah-bin is also someone from a non-Chinese background who's interested in Hokkien. I hope you find this Forum a valuable resource for information about Hokkien. I'd venture the (not so humble!) opinion that this is one of the richest sources of information on Hokkien in English.

>> I don't like Mandarin retroflexes (like those -er sounds or R as in 溫柔). I'm prepared to get bashed for this comment

Don't worry about criticizing retroflexes (or "the North") on this Forum. The phrase "CCP stooges" has been heard to pass the lips of more than one of the regulars here . And yes, some of us are "proud" of the preservation of post-vocalic stops in Hokkien, and (despite what *some* outsiders might say), the nasalized vowels put it in the same category as a "chic" and "suave" language like French .

[FutureSpy]

Thanks SimL.

Since linguistics isn't my study field, I don't have to worry too much about if learning it is worthwhile or not. I study Computer Science, and unfortunately reality is that languages skill and knowledge isn't really a must or so valued as in other fields. (Exceptions may exist tho)

Another reason why I'm learning Hokkien is that hanji and Japanese kanji pronunciations are much closer (looking at them isolated and ignoring the way they form compounds and frequency of use, of course) than Mandarin hanzi in many cases. My goal is being able to at least have a gist of 布袋劇. I know it's kinda ambitious, and I'd have to know many literary pronunciations, but I hope it's enough to keep me from studying it on and off or moving to other languages so soon.

And you're right about this forum. I still didn't have enough time to browse all topics, but I've been reading random stuff here and there.

Well, considering my mother tongue (Portuguese) has lots of nasalization, and so has my grandparents dialect (東北弁), it'd be very biased if I said I find it charming too. IMHO, it adds some musicality to the language

[SimL]

Hi FutureSpy!

Oh cool. I've heard that Portuguese is one of the most subtle and difficult of the Romance languages. I gather that you're at least partly of Japanese descent, from one set of grandparents. [Via French Wikipedia, I found "Le Tōhoku-ben (東北弁, Tōhoku-ben?) est un dialecte du japonais (弁, ben?) de la région de Tōhoku." (http://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/T%C5%8Dhoku-ben), and from English Wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/T%C5%8Dhoku_region), I got some information about your grandparents' place of origin. I hope my interpretation of what you wrote is correct.]

Welcome to the Forum. It's a bit quiet at the moment, but you might have worked out that there have been periods when there were 5-10 postings per day! Please feel free to post questions here. As one of our regulars here (not sure who any more, might have been Mark) said once, it's the "newbies" like Ah-bin and the people who don't speak it very well, like SimL, who stimulate the knowledgeable ones (niuc, Andrew, Mark, amhoanna) to think about and contribute information about Hokkien, when they ask questions.

Enjoy, and good luck with the learning!

[FutureSpy]

Well, Portuguese is roughly Spanish with richer phonology (open vowels and nasalization). We share most of our vocabulary with Spanish, but there are prefered words in Spanish which aren't completely unknown in Portuguese but rather archaic or gained a more specialized meaning (Portuguese was under Spanish influence in the past, and many words were borrowed or replaced by Spanish ones during this early period). People say Spanish is one of the easiest Romance language, so I think Portuguese is hardly among the hardest ones. My bets are Romanian, Corsican or Sardinian...

Actually, I'm half 秋田 (Akita) and half 北海道 (Hokkaido) from both mom's side and dad's side. But Hokkaido was settled (or should I say taken away) by Japanese immigrants from different parts of Japan. Grandpa's branch from dad's side is also from Akita, so I'm at least 3/4 Akita. I know nothing about my grandma family from mom's side so I can't really attest the remaining 1/4 (knowing their from Hokkaido is the same as knowing nothing about them ). It might sound funny how neither dad nor mom can speak any Japanese dialect (they understand it fairly well tho), but it has to do with WWII and language ban. So my grandparents really never bothered teaching them their language...

Thanks. I'll certainly need more help, so I'll get back to you guys some time very soon

[SimL]

Hi FutureSpy,

>> My goal is being able to at least have a gist of 布袋劇.

Wow, how exciting! I loved these when I was a child, but haven't been exposed to them much, once I left Malaysia.

>> I'd have to know many literary pronunciations

You are undoubtedly correct about this. In one of the topics here, I posted a short report / some questions about a performance of "Taiwanese Puppet Theatre" in Amsterdam, about 2-3 years ago. It was in connection with a Taiwanese or Chinese festival here. In my posting, I recall saying that the form of the language used was so "unusual" (perhaps archaic) that I could only just make out 1-2 words every 4-5 sentences. I.e. to the extent that I couldn't really even follow the rough outline of the plot, to say nothing of actually understanding the dialog (fortunately, the theatre program booklet had plot summaries). If you can find that topic on the Forum, someone replied with speculations about what sort of language that was.

I was truly spectacular, with one puppet at one stage drinking real water out of a (miniature of course) glass, and three puppets "juggling" spinning plates on the ends of long sticks (the way real Chinese acrobats do).

In another note, I think I posted some "modern" puppet theatre clips from youtube. I'll try and find them for you again. They're produced by (I think) the Presbyterian Church in Taiwan, as the story is of someone called Reverend MacKay(?, not sure of the name), one of the first Western missionaries to preach in Taiwan. It's really lovely: the language is in modern Taiwanese, and I can follow about 30-60% of it. It shows the story of his arrival in Taiwan, and his initial attempts to learn Taiwanese. If I can't find them on the net, I can still send them to you by mail, as I saved them way back (about 5 years ago, I think). They're not very long, from memory no more than 5-10 minutes.

If you know of any other clips related to Hokkien/Taiwanese 布袋劇 on the net, please share.