My books
In Volume 1 Page 216 of Bodman, he quotes Confucius twice (using Amoy Hokkien pronunciation, word-for-word):ong wrote: Bodman is an expert on old chinese language but certainly not minnan language
1. Kì sô pût iôk, bŭt sî ū zín 己所不欲, 勿施於人
2. Lō iáu tī mâ liêk, sü kiù kiàn zïn sîm 路遙知馬力; 日久見人心
(I think the 6th word should have been 'jit')
I wonder how many native Hokkien speakers today can do that! After all, Bodman was not a native speaker, and his book was written only six decades (or two generations) ago!
By the way, is the pronunciation 'ū' for 於 specific to Amoy 廈門 ? Is it different for, say, Chiang Chew 漳州 and Chuan Chew 泉州? If I am not mistaken, the surname 余 among Penang Hokkiens is normally Romanised as "Ee", which suggests that Mandarin words with -ü endings end up as -u in Amoy 廈門, but as -i in Chiang Chew 漳州 (this is consistent with the phonetic table provided by 陳章太 and 李如龍 "閩語研究").
Finally... how is 否則 pronounced in Hokkien? Specifically Amoy (being the 'standard') and Chiang Chew (that's my personal bias, since my first exposure to Hokkien was in Penang). In all the books I have read, 否 is ALWAYS given as "p'ai" (bad, unlucky). But 否 is such a common word in Classical Chinese that there must be a literal reading for it in Hokkien that carries the proper meaning of "no/not".
Mark, I think there are still quite a number of people especially in Taiwan and Fujian who still can recite classical works using literary reading. Unfortunately most young people are not able to do that. Indeed literary quotes like those won't be easily understood by most native Hokkien speakers. Even in the old times, I think only those who went to school or were rich enough to have private lessons [私塾 sy1-siok8] that could easily understand those quotes.
In my dialect, 於 is usually pronounced as gy7; e.g. 等於 ting2-gy7. [Note: I use 'y' for the sound like 'i' in Mandarin Pinyin 'si']
余 is y5 in my dialect. I think the romanized surname "Er" also refers to this.
Literary reading aside, 否 is also used - particularly in Taiwan - as the character for bai2. Although may be bai2 is just another pronunciation of phai2 壞 , the former sounds "softer" and "not as serious as" the latter.
In my dialect, 於 is usually pronounced as gy7; e.g. 等於 ting2-gy7. [Note: I use 'y' for the sound like 'i' in Mandarin Pinyin 'si']
余 is y5 in my dialect. I think the romanized surname "Er" also refers to this.
Literary reading aside, 否 is also used - particularly in Taiwan - as the character for bai2. Although may be bai2 is just another pronunciation of phai2 壞 , the former sounds "softer" and "not as serious as" the latter.
Hi, Niuc,niuc wrote:I think there are still quite a number of people especially in Taiwan and Fujian who still can recite classical works using literary reading. Unfortunately most young people are not able to do that. Indeed literary quotes like those won't be easily understood by most native Hokkien speakers. Even in the old times, I think only those who went to school or were rich enough to have private lessons [私塾 sy1-siok8] that could easily understand those quotes.
Something a little closer to home - would you reckon that many native Hokkien speakers in Malaysia/Singapore/Indonesia can understand the Hokkien news? Most of the terms used in the Hokkien news are actually modern terminologies as used in Mandarin, but using Hokkien pronunciation.
The irony is that for the educated people today who understand these modern terms, they would most likely have learnt them first in Mandarin form, not in Hokkien - which is the opposite of the common everyday words, which native Hokkien speakers first learn in Hokkien before transferring them to Mandarin during schooling life.
I doubt there are many native Hokkien speakers alive today who still belong to the generation that learnt the Chinese written language using Hokkien as the base, since Mandarin became the medium of Chinese instruction around the 1920's to 30's, which would put them above the age of 90 (my maternal grandmother falls under this category - she's a native Hakka speaker, reads the Chinese newspapers regularly, but knows no Mandarin).
I take it you are referring to the latest Penang Hokkien podcast, on 國慶日. Yes, I heard the host trying to correct the speaker several times on how to pronounce the term 慶祝.ong wrote:I am sure penang people won't understand it.They don't even know how to say celebrate.
Okay understood. My question, using a simple example (since I am an engineer): We normally use the Mandarin phrase 'chang2 du1' 長度 when we talk about 'length'. But in Hokkien, we normally just say 長 'tng' (上音), not 長度 'tiong tO' / 'tng tO', right? If I am wrong, and we also use 長度 in Hokkien, then should the 長 be pronounced as 文讀 (i.e. 'tiong tO') or 白讀 (i.e. 'tng tO')? According to Bodman, when these words occur as 詞, then the 文讀 pronunciation is used (e.g. 飛 is 'pe' but 飛機 is 'hui ki').ong wrote:It is not important to learn pronunciation for those mandarin proverbs,we should learn minnan proverb to express the same meaning for it.This is the better way to show how good we are instead of those benzi.
It should be tiong /tiang.
飛=pue is only when we say special minnan invention 飛船。
You can hear those guys even say 再見 as kinn.Since the word is from mandarin,it should be kian.
It is so silly to talk about Penang hokkien,since at least 70% don't know how to say celebrate,can I say the correct word for Penang minnan is english celebrate or mandarin sound of it if I am given the job of writting 檳島閩南方言志﹖
It is shameful if Penang people still feel proud about this language.We can have limited vocaburaly in this language but not to the extent of no light tone,wrong vowel being used,no proverb and no more than 10 ABB type of adjective,using teochew uang,luang in daily conversation.
I would say it was due to limited minnan population in Penang Islang since the beginning.We cannot have minnan people living together like those people in Taiwan.In taiwan people still speak a bit like thier ancestors in their area.You certainly can't find people speaking 惠安 dialect with special alphabet and vowel in whole malaysia now.
飛=pue is only when we say special minnan invention 飛船。
You can hear those guys even say 再見 as kinn.Since the word is from mandarin,it should be kian.
It is so silly to talk about Penang hokkien,since at least 70% don't know how to say celebrate,can I say the correct word for Penang minnan is english celebrate or mandarin sound of it if I am given the job of writting 檳島閩南方言志﹖
It is shameful if Penang people still feel proud about this language.We can have limited vocaburaly in this language but not to the extent of no light tone,wrong vowel being used,no proverb and no more than 10 ABB type of adjective,using teochew uang,luang in daily conversation.
I would say it was due to limited minnan population in Penang Islang since the beginning.We cannot have minnan people living together like those people in Taiwan.In taiwan people still speak a bit like thier ancestors in their area.You certainly can't find people speaking 惠安 dialect with special alphabet and vowel in whole malaysia now.