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PGHK #256 Bin Chhe·h (面册)
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I totally agree with Ah Long’s comment on the dialect. No matter what “Ji Quan” – type of chinese you are. We need to at least try to preserve the dialect we have. I am a Hakka I always have a regretful heart that I do not speak fluent Hakka and I believe if the following generation do not learn the language will be extinct.
In some ways parents play an important role in teaching the language/dialect.
International language like English/Mandarin…etc is a normal languaue and our children can learn any where starting from TV to school teaching.
But our own dialect heritage i believe will only be started from out family.
So start taking serious on our heritage – our dialect!!
Thank you HokkienChar, you’re so delicious.
Many people just dun realise. There’s 1 very simple theory to remember: If the language dies out, being able to speak it makes you a treasure; If the language survives, not being able to speak it makes you an exception. So either way, you decide.
Most 30s-40s Penang people today speak 4 to 5 languages, most of us. If your child grows up only speaking Mandarin, English and Malay, no matter where you go, 3 is 3, less than “most people”. I dun care if you send them to learn French or Japanese or Italian, I can send my children to do the same and mine will always end up smarter. Like it or not, a person who speaks more languages is smarter.
Linguistically, Hokkien has elements that are NOT found in most other languages, being able to use them actively will keep your brain exposed to a wider learning skill. Like it or not, a foreigner will dedicate his whole life mastering words like “university (tua-oh)”, “sky (thiⁿ)”, “mango (suaiⁿ-ia)”, “eat rice (tsiah-puiⁿ”), “go for walk (kiaⁿ-kiaⁿ)”…… Try with anyone with 0 knowledge in Hokkien.
Hokkien changes tone in almost every word. We in Penang do it very naturally. Try “cow (gu)” and “beef (gu-bah)”. Try “run (tsau)” then “escape (tsau-loo)”. Try to say “red (ang)” then “very red (ang-ang)” then “really very red (ang-ang-ang)”. The tone changes automatically and our brain processes them without us realising it. Trust me, you dun get this privilege in most other languages spoken in Malaysia, except Teochew, Hakka, Hainanese. Brain unused will be rusty, even my grandmother knows it. And Hokkien makes your brain work more effectively than others.
People often think we’re not “pure”. I live in China, Hokkien speaking region, for almost 8 years now. Let me share with you, local Chinese get influenced by Mandarin even worse. If you ask people how to say “waste”, they will tell you “long-hui”, which is “lang-fei” from Mandarin. We still say “pah-sng” and they will hit their head when they hear it. Like it or not, our environment started get “polluted” by English and Mandarin only for less than 20 years, we’re way way more authentic.
Last but not least, people often think we speak rojak. Reminder, no 100% pure language in the world, unless one that has not been discovered. Culture and heritage, I dun have a big head to think about those, but I study Hokkien grammatically, I can tell you Hokkien is way more complicated and challenging than Mandarin. If you have the chance to use a tough language so naturally, that means you’re a smart person. Like it or not, you’re just smart.
Sheet, too long, I realise. Sorry…… :-p
HokkienChar, I hope you can pick up more Hakka too. Taiwan produces some very nice Hakka songs and TV programmes. I am 1/4 Hakka but regretfully, I dunno much about Hakka. You’re right, let us speak it forward…… 🙂
A lot of interesting discussion this week. So much to write and so little time!
I do want to write a whole section about tone changes in Hokkien, but I’m a bit busy at the moment.
Haha, bo lang khoaⁿ wa sia e page! Well, not exactly, I see Ah-John has been studying it hard!
Ah-John is right, I didn’t want to make anyone speak “pure” Hokkien, I always get a bit annoyed with people bagging Penang style Hokkien for its supposed lack of purity. Rojak Hokkien is fine with me, Ah-long says Japanese is rojak. English is even more rojak! “section”, “tone” “change” “transmit” “pronunciation” – none of these were English words originally.
What I wanted to do was help people to transmit pronunciation of words accurately without having to hear them, and use Hokkien creatively in a way that people can understand instantly, rather than having to guess all the time what words other people are trying to write.
Ah-long has noted above that Hokkien speakers in China tend to just use Mandarin words instead of the original Hokkien words. An example I thought of was the word for “culture”. In Penang Hokkien I have heard “hong-siok” as in “hong-siok bo siang” (culture is different). Now in Mandarin this is “wenhua” 文化 so in Taiwan and China now they say “bun-hoa”. The reason why people in Penang don’t use this word is because it’s a relatively new word in Chinese, borrowed from the Japanese Kanji translation of the word “culture” about 100 years ago. So by not having this word Penang Hokkien actually preserves the older Hokkien way of expressing the concept.
Now for some words:
Li-ek 利益 can be “benefit” I heard Bhante Dhammavuddho say it. He speaks very nice Penang Hokkien (maybe only the way he says sioⁿ instead of siauⁿ for “think” is a bit different) and expresses some v ery difficult concepts without being too “chhim” – except for a few technical Buddhist terms.
What other words were there this week….?
Hiau-lok? What does that nickname mean? “Mai hiu” Does that mean “ignore”? If it does, how is it different from “bo chhap” or “bo chhai”? Haha, more questions than answers….sorry.
Ha, wa e pun chin-chiaⁿ tng liau!
Ang-moh. Actually…… Sioⁿ and Siauⁿ bot exist in Penang. I grow up saying Sioⁿ…… I am not sure if Siauⁿ is actually more popular ? I doubt so. I will have to observe……
Got the two others on my ride home…
pang-tiau 放刁 “to threaten”
Struggle was “kut-liong” I think, but I haven’t found it it my dictionary yet, though.
I finally found it in another dictionary – it was “kun-liong” 滾躘 to struggle to escape – I remembered I had seen it in Tan Choon Hoe’s second Penang Hokkien book, describing a hooked fish trying to escape.
There are a lot of 3 letter words in hokkien being forgotten, I remember my grandmother used to say, “or so-so”, (very dark), ‘ang kong-kong” (very red),
“sioa lak-lak”(very crazy), “pui tuz-tuz”(very fat), “kim tang-tang”(very shining),
“gong tai-tai”(very stupid), “hiao lek-lek”(very flirty)…just a few examples that I could think of for now my grandma also like to say “un-toon” (dirty)instead of “la sam”..also, I remember a phase we used to use then…is “si-bak”(death meat) means slow to react to thing…anyone heard of it now?
Hi tui pui kia:
I have heard all of the examples you mention except “hiao lek-lek”……
You’re right, those are interesting words that Penang people should continue to use. You will be surprised some of the words are not used in Fujian or Taiwan anymore, but we still hear them daily.
Does anyone know how to say these ? Those words still live in Penang. Be it “real” Chinese or loanwords, do you know how Penang people used to say them ?
Persuade / Convince
Race / Ethnic Group
Being Playful / Play Excessively
Firestation
Judge (in a court)
I hope you’re asking because you know them already and you want to see if others remember them or not…..otherwise you will have me wondering for days! The only one I’ve found is the one for firestation, but I don;t know whether it’s good Penang Hokkien or not – chui-liong-koan for “firestation”, which I’m guessing is 水龍館 in characters.
Ang-moh: I know them all. You’re right, Firestation is……
水龍間 = tsui liong king (more commonly used)
水龍關 = tsui liong kuan
As I recall,old people used to called firestation ‘kiu hui kiok”, “threaten”, I think is “ar-at” …example..’hor lang ar-at”. 流星 in hokkien is not ‘low che”, is “chow chiu che”.(broom star).
presuade is “hock”..example is” lu kong a hock wa bo”..
race is “pang -sa” ..I think is from malay word bangsa. also can be used in fruit like durian…
being playful/play excessively..I m not sure what u mean..but it might be “hong soor”..or ‘thiong” or “sh-eng”
judge in old time is called “po le choo”
please correct me if I m wrong.
Just to my untrained ear, Kiu-hoe-kiok 救火局 sounds like the old official Amoy word, and Chui-liong-keng sounds more colloquial. I don’t know why I wrote “koan” instead of “keng” – in my book I had actually written “keng”. What is interesting about this word is that it uses the literary pronunciation (thak-chhe•k-im 讀冊音) “liong” for “dragon” instead of the usual “leng”.
Tshau-tshiu-tshenn is another one, I suppose. I know some people may call it Ke-sai-tshenn too, “chicken shit star”…… XD
Persuade, maybe I din say it right. I was trying to say Po-lo-so. Do you know it ?
Race is correct, Bang-sa.
Playful, I found younger friends of mine dunno Gau-kun. This is what I wanted to say.
Judge is correct, Po-le-tsu !
How about these ?
Name card
Movie in cinema
If someone’s bankrupt, lost everything…… in the worst episode of life……
Expenses
Admire
Police inspector
JPJ
Mama-san
I wonder, Is that the same “kun” as in “roll”?
Po-le-tsu? Is that from “police”? Are there characters for it? I can’t find it anywhere… Otherwise I’m guessing it might be 保理主!
Kun sounds identical as “roll” but I dunno the character.
Yes, Po-le-tsu is written as 保理主 by some old folks here. Those words may be locally-invented, these are all the wisdom of older generation. I hate when people say Penang Hokkien is rojak, is not standard, is not expressive. I just keep one mindset, it’s our language, we have every reason to make it standard and expressive, because it’s ours. People often refer to Chinese dictionary from China, and tell students to write “standard” Chinese. Our language is becoming somebody else’s.
Yes, I heard of po-lo-so. I suddenly remember a phase of old saying if one thing haven’t get done yet is “bo ka li lo”…There are some words here I like to share, 沒辦法 is used to be “bo huat tor”, not “bo ban huat”. 安排 is “huat luk”, not “an pai”, 飛機場 used to be “poui chun por”, not “pui ki tieo”.
bankrupt is “pok-kai”,
expenses is “sor hui”
admire is “u-wan tor”?
polica inspector is ‘tua kow”(big dog)
movie is “dian hui hee” 電火戲
mama-san is “ma-mee’?or “lao ee po”?
I can’t recall JPJ and name card..haha
The problem of preserving the Penang Hokkien language is the language did not pass down by parents and friends seldom speak Hokkien (Mostly use Mandarin). When one have no chance to use the language, it will be forgotten. I myself found very hard to learn the real Hokkien word’s because there is a few source around me and lucky i found this website. There is a time where I think of translating a simple sentence from English to Hokkien and the result FAIL!!! can even think of what word to replace that show how low I know about Hokkien.
Bankrupt or lost everything = puah chan (hope it is right)
correction, police inspector should be “am- pai”, police sargent is ‘tuo kow”
I’ve been enjoying the discussions going on here in the comments area. I hope some of you are compiling some of those words brought up during these discussions.
Keep it up. I love it.
lee:
You’re so right. I often tell my friends when they talk to their children in Mandarin or English, some more they call their sons and daughters Ah Boy or Ah Girl. I dun understand why people prefer calling gender than real names.
People say Hokkien is just a dialect, everyone now speaks English or Mandarin already. My theory is very simple, it’s like fried egg, small dish, eh ? If you know how to do it, you will do it well. If you dun, no matter how small you try to make people think it is, you just dunno how to do it. Speaking Hokkien does NOT mean losing English or Mandarin. Those big big languages are going to be there for a very very long time. Why do we try to take over school teachers’ job ? Let them do it, we dun need double effort for the same outcome, that your children speak English and Mandarin. Ha.
People never realise, the more languages one speaks, the faster his brain works. Being multilingual is always our pride. Always. I live in China for 8 years now, everyone thinks Chinese-Malaysians are super-talented. BUT, if you’re so willing to give up, our next generation will be speaking languages so common to the rest of the world. What’s so special about us ? The pride is then vanished.
Some people may think Hokkien is poor, low-class. Well, have we forgotten that all the rich rich people like Loh Boon Siew, spoke Hokkien for his entire life. I always tell people, language is spoken by you, if you’re well-educated and rich, your language will sound well-educated and rich. If you’re rude, no matter what language you speak, they will all sound rude.
I really hope Penang people can realise that. English and Mandarin are everywhere, why do we waste our time…… Sayang……
sayang..should be “liao lian”..
My little black notebook is running out of space because of this discussion thread…it’s great!
Ah Long:
The problem with people now days is their mind. They think Hokkien is not important because you can not find money with that language. People will give priority to Mandrin and English because it is important when getting a job.
What you say about Loh Boon Siew is true and in my opinion last time english and mandrin also is not that important. It is the people that make it become important.
We should be proud with our language…..
A few words came to my mind today which I like to share..
“teng-nga-gi” = crazy 癲
”thong“ ＝crazy 狂
“pai-pi”=處理
”how-kor”= eat
“gi-at”=頑皮 naughty
‘tian-tok”= I think is overwhelm or excited.
‘im-chim”= very picky挑剔
‘theng chin” =認真
‘liak leng”=按摩(抓龍）
‘ma-ta-liao” = police station, later people also called ‘ba-lai”
“am-po-cea” = 蟬（暗報姐）
“beng”(fourth sound) = 厲害
“kia－ow” ＝ 窮 poor also can used as “kia-ow kor” 窮苦
“tai-e-at” = 驕傲
“kua uwak” = living a good life
“sai long” = 煽動
I have found the characters for a few of these already:
pai-pi 排比 – to sort out
giat 孽 – naughty
liak-leng 掠龍 – to massage
beng 猛 – is that “terrible” or “fearsome”?
teng-chin – 頂真 – hard-working – serious
I couldn’t find some of the others and others I found had different meanings, because I’m not sure how to get the right pronunciation (sometimes I can find them in dictionaries when I know that) .
I guess 快活 for “living a good life”, but wouldn’t this be “khoai-oah/khuai-uak”
tai-iat – 大閱 or 大曳 – proud!
Just found it and I was wondering about this one for ages. Bhante Dhammavuddho used it but I thought he was saying “tai-giat” so I couldn’t find it!
I’m getting ready to post the next several shows over the next couple of shows. I’d need help with these words.
Tian-khi 电器？
Sai 屎?
I’d also appreciate it if Ah Long and Ang moh or anyone with the knowledge to correct me if i wrote the Chinese characters incorrectly or use the wrong 白话字。
Don’t worry – Ah-John hose are both perfect! I’m especially looking forward to hearing 屎 too 🙂
Oops, I meant “those are both perfect”
Just to note that 冊 in PEh-oa-ji should be chhEh, not chhEk. The difference between -h (glottal stop) and -k is clear if you compare cheh 節 with chek 叔
Nice to see you pop up here Andrew (I’m guessing you’re the same Andrew from the other Hokkien forum – if so welcome to the PGHK “safe haven”). I’ve been wondering about this for a while, and I think the two often get mixed in Penang, even though most speakers can distinguish them for some words, other words tend to slip into -k. I suspect this is the influence of other dialects, such as Hakka, Hainanese and Cantonese that have only a final -k ending. My idea was that so long as PGHK speakers keep in mind that they might find words with final -k under -h in dictionaries, I think it shouldn’t be too much of a problem. The Chinese and Taiwanese rules of tone change also don’t seem to affect syllables in -k and -h differently in Penang either, at least so far as I have heard. Phah-suiⁿ 撲算 (to plan) Khe•h-oa 客話 (Hakka), and bah-chang 肉粽 (sticky rice in bamboo leaf) change to Pha-suiⁿ, Khe•-oa, and ba-chang in Chiang-chiu and have high falling tones on the first syllable, but in Penang they are more like “phak-suiⁿ, Khe•k-oa, and bak-chang – retaining their short syllable and becoming high short tones (compare them with bah/bak and phah/phak on their own – the tone is low and short, but changes to high and short at the beginning of a word).
Of course, this is not a rule. Some people may do it differently….just something I have observed through trying to speak PGHK in the way that most people do.
hi john and ah long, anyone know how to call sabun/soap in hokkien?
Angmo: I have to admit I haven’t noticed that; I thought it stayed -h but changed to a high tone. Part of the problem is that Malay regularly uses -k to represent a glottal stop: only Indonesians actually pronounce the k, so there may be some contagion there.
Sua Pah Kao:
Sabun is a word used in both China and Taiwan. It is a vocabulary in Hokkien. I believe a few generations back some people said Tee Khoo (phonetically Tee as in tea, Khoo as in dollar – most people might spell as Teh Khor). But today, Sabun is indeed an understood word across all Hokkien speaking regions, I would say. 🙂
Douglas’ dictionary (1873) shows sabun was used even then. In the old days there were various different types of soap: pui-tso was a kind of black soap (皂 means black), but there were also i-tso, tso-kiap, peh-ih, etc. Te-khơ was made from the husks of camellia seeds; uiN-bak-chi and ba-bui were different fruits that were used as soap.
thanks guys… very deep… haha
Sabun = savon (french) = savon (spanish = sabun (hokkien)
It is only the english use soap!!!
By the way, playful = guai giet (?)