新用戶自我紹介

[Abun]

Filled out the request, but I don't know whether or not they'll really buy it, it is pretty costly after all...

No, I had not heard of the EATS yet. My interest in Taiwan (it had always seemed like a "more westernized China" to me before I made friends with some people from there) is also rather recent and I have never written any papers about it before, so I didn't have much reason to look for symposia, yet but it seems quite interesting

[SimL]

Filled out the request, but I don't know whether or not they'll really buy it, it is pretty costly after all...

True, and fair enough, if they dont. But thank you for putting in the request anyway .

I've been fascinated by Taiwan ever since my father told me, when I was a little boy, that they spoke "Hokkien" there. For me, with my very strong sense of "Hokkien identity", anything related to Hokkien immediately blipped on my radar screen.

No, I had not heard of the EATS yet. [...] I have never written any papers about it before, so I didn't have much reason to look for symposia, yet but it seems quite interesting

I've been to 4 of the annual EATS conferences. I'm the (really) odd one out: 1. I'm the only person present (even among the huge number of Westerners) who doesn't speak Mandarin! Not only don't I speak it at all; everyone else speaks it fluently! 2. I'm the only non-academic. In fact, there are hardly ever even undergraduate students of Chinese. The vast majority are Phd students, with some Masters students, and some lecturers (i.e. all the organizers, and a couple of people coming to give moral support to the students they're supervising).

But I've loved the papers which have been presented there - many as intellectually stimulating as the all-day symposium I went to last Friday. I just noticed that even the 2013 one had "The Different Faces of Nezha in Taiwanese Mass Culture". If I had realised that paper was being given, I probably would have gone!

And (but you - because you're surrounded by academics - probably wouldn't notice this as dramatically as people like me, who live in the "normal world"), it's always a bit daunting to see how smart some people can be. Suddenly, I'm surrounded by 30-40 Phd students and lecturers, and I see how quickly they think about, and how well they can zoom in on flaws in reasoning, or methodological weaknesses (or alternative explanations etc for some observed linguistic or sociological phenomenon). After a paper has been given, and the panel challenge the giver of the paper, or the audience ask their questions, the arguments fly back and forth at an amazing speed - it's staggering how quickly these people can think on the run. In my working life I'm considered "reasonably intelligent", but in this sort of company, I'm only very, very average (probably, to be honest, quite far down on the scale! ).

My interest in Taiwan (it had always seemed like a "more westernized China" to me [...]

In some ways they are a lot more "modern" (democratic ideals, freedom of the press, etc) than the PRC, but in other ways (also good ones IMHO, but that's a matter of one's perspective), they are a lot more traditional. For example, all the temples seem to work the same way they work in Malaysia, i.e. with lots of people worshipping in them, burning incense and paper money. I saw one religious procession on the street which I found completely awesome: brightly painted, 3-4 metre figures of "gods" or "immortals" (persumably made of paper-mache or cardboard, or something light), each with a human being inside (doing the "animation"), paraded down the street, to the accompaniment of drums and cymbals, with support-staff carrying banners and other religious symbols. They "danced" a sort of (slow!) dervish dance, with the arms of the immortals swinging freely (the arms themselves were made of cloth, with again clay or paper-mache hands at the end, to provide the weight), as the immortals turned around, in slow graceful circular motions. I was completely entranced by the procession - it looked as if the gods had really descended from Heaven, and were walking for a short while among humans. I may be wrong (I've never been to the PRC), but I imagine that 50 years of Communism has "secularized" society to the extent that these sorts of religious ceremonies are no longer performed there.

[Abun]

In some ways they are a lot more "modern" (democratic ideals, freedom of the press, etc) than the PRC, but in other ways (also good ones IMHO, but that's a matter of one's perspective), they are a lot more traditional. For example, all the temples seem to work the same way they work in Malaysia, i.e. with lots of people worshipping in them, burning incense and paper money. I saw one religious procession on the street which I found completely awesome: brightly painted, 3-4 metre figures of "gods" or "immortals" (persumably made of paper-mache or cardboard, or something light), each with a human being inside (doing the "animation"), paraded down the street, to the accompaniment of drums and cymbals. They "danced" a sort of (slow!) dervish dance, with the arms of the immortals swinging freely (the arms themselves were made of cloth, with again clay or paper-mache hands at the end, to provide the weight), as the immortals turned around, in slow graceful circular motions. I was completely entranced by the procession. I may be wrong (I've never been to the PRC), but I imagine that 50 years of Communism has "secularized" society to the extent that these sorts of religious ceremonies are no longer performed there.

That's exactly what struck me as the most obvious cultural difference from the PRC (and even from Korea where I had been before, in last August). Especially the street temples are fascinating. In the PRC it's unimaginable to go through the streets and see little temples (some consisting of only one room and a buddha/immortal statue, some bigger, comprising several stories). Most impressing was one in Tamsui where there was actually a neon board on the front announcing numbers (wasn't able to stop long enough to see what exactly, though, might have been visitor numbers or something). But not only public temples, also private shrines are something I can't really imagine in the PRC (not sure about Korea in this case because I wasn't able to visit private homes there, but judging by the things shown on TW, at least some families do have ancestor shrines). The family I was staying with had a shrine with a big statue of Kuan-im 觀音 right before the guest room and the older family members would go pài-pài 拜拜 first thing every morning

[SimL]

That's exactly what struck me as the most obvious cultural difference from the PRC (and even from Korea where I had been before, in last August). [...] But not only public temples, also private shrines are something I can't really imagine in the PRC (not sure about Korea in this case because I wasn't able to visit private homes there, but judging by the things shown on TW, at least some families do have ancestor shrines).

Well, one program I saw on TV (or perhaps it was an article I read) talked about how "trance possession by gods/spirits" was alive and well in South Korea, but that there was considerable pressure from the government "not to talk about it" (because they were "ashamed" of it, as reflecting "supersitious nonsense"). Trance possession is one of my favourite topics , as it's also a very important part of Hokkien culture.

One of the EATS conferences had a paper on "communicating with one's ancestors" (in particular, dead parents and spouses). Apparently, this was a growing "movement" in Taiwan. And one which was very interesting from a historical-sociological point of view. This is because (according to the presenter, from memory), such rituals were completely unknown in "traditional" Chinese society. When a spirit medium was possessed, it was traditionally only done by a major god. (This is indeed the way I know it too.)

The presenter of the paper had some ideas that this new phenomenon was a result of "individualization / Westernization" in Taiwanese society. That is: instead getting messages and information from an impersonal god, whom everyone already knew, one could get the same from a specific individual, whom only you or your family knew (and who already knew you personally). He presented this argument a lot more coherently than I'm able to do here (I'm not even sure if I got it exactly right). But it was certainly fascinating to learn about.

But not only public temples, also private shrines are something I can't really imagine in the PRC [...]. The family I was staying with had a shrine with a big statue of Kuan-im 觀音 right before the guest room and the older family members would go pài-pài 拜拜 first thing every morning

Again, many parallels to Malaysia. Certainly, in my youth, almost every single Chinese family that I knew in Penang had a small ThiN-kong altar attached to a pillar at the very front of the house. That's all that my grandparents had though - there was no shrine or altar inside the house, to a specific "family god". But more than half of the homes I knew would have a "Koan-Im", "Koan-Kong", "Tua-Peh-Kong" (or, very occasionally, Monkey King) statue and altar in the living room, as the family god. And there would be oil burning from a wick dipped into it (never constantly incense, as that would smell out the house and be unhealthy I think).

[The only Chinese people I knew without any elements of Chinese Folk Religion in their homes were the "young urban professionals", who had gone to university and got "Western Scientific Ideas". People like my parents, uncles and aunts, for example! The fact that my mother had a Christian background also played some role in this, I guess, but even many of my aunts who were married to men from backgrounds which followed Chinese Folk Religion, and many of my uncles who were married to women from similar backgrounds, all didn't have ThiN-kong altars outside the house (which I consider the barest minimum to qualify as being still a follower), "just because" they considered themselves more enlightened, with their scientific and Western ideas. In fact, in my youth, among that group of people, it was even common to mock the Sin-SEN (TCM practitioner), saying that "bong-mEh" (feeling the pulse) was just mumbo-jumbo. So, what bits of exposure I had to Chinese Folk Religion were from the "non-professional"/"normal" members of my extended family (including my grandmother). Even my father taking me to temple on the birthday of a god was not so much because of any belief in or devotion to the god, and much more just to expose me to "cultural richness and diversity". The Cheng-Beng ceremonies at the grave, and death-day worship in the home were however taken reasonably seriously, even by my parents, including my mother, who just followed what the rest of the family did, because she had no knowledge of this sort of stuff from her own Methodist childhood.]

Another parallel is the roadside shrines in Penang. In fact, I think there were even more of them in Penang than in Taiwan (though I can't say for sure, as I was only 10 days in Taiwan). I imagine there are still countless Tua-Peh-Kong shrines everywhere in Penang (and the "Datok-kong" ones as well). These must be the two most common shrines in Penang - mostly just a small wooden structure, often no more than 0.5 m wide x 0.5 m deep x 0.75 m high, set up under a tree or rock, on some uncleared piece of ground, or on some small street corner. Often with just a tablet inside, with the name of the deity in Chinese characters (instead of an actual statue), and oil or incense burning in front of the tablet.

[Ah-bin]

Wow...I have actually never met anyone from Germany who was a native Plattdeutsch speaker! I did meet some people who spoke Mennonite Plattdietsch in Thailand (of all places!). The only place I have come across much Plattdeutsch otherwise was in the fairytale "Von dem Fischer un syner Fru" in Grimms' Kinder und Hausmärchen. It was quite easy to understand for me, at least in a written form, partly because I learnt Dutch for so many years, and partly because Platt and English have some similarities in vocabulary ("lütte" is "little", I think?).

I often hear about Taiwan being westernised... PRC Chinese love to tell me how westernised they are, but the same PRC Chinese often do not know even which door to enter when visiting a temple.

I did my MA thesis on Taiwanese linguistic nationalism about 12 years ago, and I have some materials about Taiwanese Hokkien and Hakka that you may be interested in, depending on the focus of your thesis, I'd be happy to give you them, as I have moved on from Taiwanese studies in the last years to focus more on Penang Hokkien. Those materials have been sitting in a garage back in NZ with no-one to look at them, and I haven't been back there for three years. It is highly likely I'll be moving to Germany at the beginning of next year (to Dresden), so I can just send them with my other things when I ship them and pass them on to you then.

If you send me a PM with your email address I can send you some stuff I have scanned as well, such as Ong Iok-tek's basic Taiwanese vocabulary, and some materials on Chiang-chiu Hokkien.

[Abun]

Hello Ah-bin,

I wish I could call myself a Plattdeutsch native speaker, but unfortunately I have never even met anybody younger than my grandparents who actually is a native speaker... My grandfather was, he had to learn Standard German in School (and struggled with things like using the correct article for his whole life because in Plattdeutsch you usually only differentiate utrum (m or f) and neutrum, only when using pronouns you see which word is feminine and which is masculine genus). But during his generation, Plattdeutsch seems to have suffered a huge loss of prestige, only being viewed as a dialect that uneducated people from the countryside use. Plus, parents apparently feared that their children would not learn Standard German properly if their first language was Plattdeutsch (which actually seems to have been true to a certain extent, though it usually only ever surfaced in written texts where even native speakers tend to make mistakes if the sentences get long or the actual gender differs from the grammatical genus ("das Mädchen" --> es). Anyways, the result was that hardly anybody from my parents' generation spoke Plattdeutsch at home. My mother has no problems of understanding it because the elders were using it amongst themselves when they were visiting her grandparents (my grandfather's parents), but when talking to the kids everybody only ever used Standard German, so my mother's speaking skills, while existent, are pretty limited. Consequently, my generation can speak it even worse. The Plattdeutsch we would use at home is limited to a few set phrases or "spells" (I remember one in particular which my mother told us would make wounds stop hurting when we were little ). Personally, I can still understand pretty much everything in Plattdeutsch because it's really not that difficult to make the connection between their representations in Standard German and Plattdeutsch if you've discovered the pattern, though I'm often lost when it comes to words that are really different in Standard German (for example, I only recently learnt the word for "match" (the one you light a fire with), Standard German: Streichholz, but Plattdeutsch is "Rietsteken" (literally "Reißstecken", "ripping stick")). And when it comes to speaking myself, my Plattdeutsch is definitely much worse than my English, probably even worse than my (Mandarin) Chinese.

Well, I feel that while it would probably be valid to say Taiwan is more westernized if comparing it to PRC as a whole (that is, not just looking at the really big coastal cities like Siōng-hái, Kńg-tsiu and so on), the reverse conclusion that PRC is more traditional definitely is not true, probably largely because of the Cultural Revolution. If somebody asked me to describe it roughly, I would say that Taiwan, much like Korea and Japan is more of a synthesis of Western culture and traditional Chinese one, where you can find a lot of elements from both cultural areas. In the PRC on the other hand, the government has spent a lot of time to eradicate as many traces as possible from both traditional Chinese culture and Western culture, which I guess led to the much-heard phrase that today's PRC doesn't have any culture. While this is of course not true, I would say that PR-Chinese are still more unsure about their cultural identity and in the process of rebuilding it.

Actually, because my interest in Hokkien is pretty recent (like the end of last year), I had already decided on the rough topic for my BA-thesis and discussed it with my professor, so I'm not writing about that at the moment but about queer literature in Taiwan (which is a pretty interesting topic as well). But nonetheless, I'd of course be happy for anything you have, as long as you don't need it anymore of course. Thanks a lot!

[amhoanna]

If you ask me, such a thing can only be done by not only using characters but some kind of phonetic script as well to write loanwords, too. Personally, I’d opt for something in the style of Hangeul, although more for aesthetic reasons because it fits better with characters than Latin script.

I agree with U strongly.

bāng-lo̍k (m̄-tsai internet--ê tsìng-khak sû, sóo-í guá tshìn-tshái kā huâ-gí--ê 網絡 huan-i̍k--kuè-lâi--ê)

网路 bãng-lō͘ (bang6-loo7)
Tâi'oân sek: bāng-lō͘ (bang7-loo7)

(He tē it imcat sĩ tē la̍k tiāu ‧ê, tē la̍k tiāu tĩ‧ Tâi'oân kah tē chit tiāu kap còhóe; bãng >> bāng.)

越南話，mạng.

KADRI--

bô su-kah ê sī ták-ták-pái tióh-beh siāuⁿ chhut Tn̂g-lâng-jī ê Hôa-gú ê im ka ē phah chhut!

Hăⁿà? Lí‧ phah Bânlâm bûn iōng Hôagí‧ ê suji̍p kesi? Lí‧ sĩ tōatiâu ha̍kciá ‧neh! Ná ẽcòe ánne!

I don’t see any good reason why one should write “你” instead of “汝“, but then again, I also don’t see why writing “你” would be worse than “汝“.

The Hoklo word is in the class of syllables where Coanciu has lí‧ (high unrounded vowel), Ciangciu has lí, and Penang/Medan and some Tâng’oaⁿ dialects have lú. So does 你 really fit etymologically?

按呢中文會使用毋是本字的漢字，閩南語敢袂使按呢做？

官話文（MANDARIN）、日語、越南文等等，無論天下 XX 語 áncóaⁿ 做，he 攏干焦 ẽ 通参考但定。

[Abun]

(He tē it imcat sĩ tē la̍k tiāu ‧ê, tē la̍k tiāu tĩ‧ Tâi'oân kah tē chit tiāu kap còhóe; bãng >> bāng.)

Ooh, guá it-ti̍t kiò-sī Tâi-gí--ê tē la̍k tiāu sī kah tē jī tiāu kap tsò-hué (guá kám-kak bat khuànn-tio̍h lâng kóng "bé-á"--ê "bé" (kah i-ê bûn-tho̍k "má") pún-té sī tē la̍k tiāu, tān-sī guá m̄-tsai sī tī tó-uī khuànn-tio̍h--ê). Tān-sī Tâi-gí--ê tē la̍k tiāu nā-sī kah tē tshit tiāu kap tsò-hué, án-ni guá tō tsiong-î tsai-iánn uī-siánn-mi̍h ū tsiah tsē sû Kok-gí (Kuan-uē-gí) sī tē sann tiāu (siōng-siann 上聲), Tâi-gí suah sī tē la̍k tiāu (khì-siann 去聲, lē-jû "ū 有", "hōo 雨", iah lí sóo thê-kàu--ê "bāng 網"). Guân-lâi--ê tē la̍k tiāu ū--ê kin-á-ji̍t kui tē tshit tiāu, ū--ē kui tē jī tiāu, kám sī in-uī tsìn-ji̍p bân-lâm-gí--ê sî-tsūn put-tông? Pí-jū-kóng, tn̂g-lâng pún-té bē-hiáu khiâ bé, sī àn pak-pîng--ê bîn-tso̍k (hôo-tso̍k 胡族? guá bē-kì--ah) o̍h--ê. Hok-kiàn hit-ê tē-thâu mā m̄ sik-ha̍p tshī bé, án-ni Bân-lâm--ê lâng khó-lîng sī pí-kàu uànn tsiah khuànn-tio̍h bé-á--ê, sóo-í guá ioh "bé-á" tsit-ê sû khó-lîng sī phīng "ū", "hōo" iah "bāng" khah sin. Kám sī tsit-ê guan-in?

I don’t see any good reason why one should write “你” instead of “汝“, but then again, I also don’t see why writing “你” would be worse than “汝“.

The Hoklo word is in the class of syllables where Coanciu has lí‧ (high unrounded vowel), Ciangciu has lí, and Penang/Medan and some Tâng’oaⁿ dialects have lú. So does 你 really fit etymologically?

按呢中文會使用毋是本字的漢字，閩南語敢袂使按呢做？

官話文（MANDARIN）、日語、越南文等等，無論天下 XX 語 áncóaⁿ 做，he 攏干焦 ẽ 通参考但定。

I couldn't figure out what 但定 is (nā-tīng? tān-tīng?) which seems kind of crucial for understanding your point...

About the 你-thing: Was I wrong about the etymology of 你? I always lived under the impression that it was only a new way of writing a mandarin colloquial reading of 汝. I don't have any rhyme dictionary here, so I can only resort to 漢語大字典, whicht cites the reading as 乃里切 according to 集韻 and I indeed don't think that 里 rhymes with the high unrounded vowel in Hokkien. But then again, the 集韻 was compiled in the 11th century where there might well have been significant differences between the rhymes in Hokkien and the language that the 集韻 described (開封-Chinese I presume, as that was the Song-Capital at the time in question).

Whatever the case may be, my point was that while I of course prefer to have pún-jī (because it's easier to read if both meaning and pronounciation match, and of course because it's interesting to know the source of a word), the purpose of characters is being able to write. However, right now there are quite a lot of words in Hokkien that no one knows the correct pún-jī for (partly because there simply is none, e.g. for words of non-sinitic origin, contractions ect.) and seemingly everybody writes them in his own way which significantly impedes reading. The result is that the average Hokkien person doesn't write their language, which can only contribute to the influence of Hokkien shrinking ever further. For this reason, I believe that it would be good to settle on a standard way to write, even if that means some words end up not being written the way we personally think is the correct pún-jī. So, if I were to decide the standard, I would choose 汝 over 你 to write lí/lú/lí‧, because no matter whether 你 is a variant of 汝 (and thus semi-correct) or not (and thus wrong), 汝 is the right pún-jī for all I've heard. But since people would have no problem in understanding 你, either, I would not have a big problem with conceding with this character in order to settle the argument and find a standard way of writing.

But maybe you were agreeing and I just didn't understand it because of 但定

[amhoanna]

tsiong-î

kui

And other assorted Mandarisms. Ho̍hló ōe bô ánne kóng--ê. Koaⁿōe ê ZHŌNGYÚ, Ho̍hló ōe bô ci̍t ê tùitâng ê sû'á.

M̌kò, lí íkeng cin cán--a.

kám sī in-uī tsìn-ji̍p bân-lâm-gí--ê sî-tsūn put-tông?

kám sǐ in'ūi ji̍p Bânlâmgí ê sî bô kâng?

Khòpún, sianseⁿ téngténg ti̍tthàu kóng "T2 = T6", kóng cin--ê sǐ chògō͘--ê.

For this reason, I believe that it would be good to settle on a standard way to write, even if that means some words end up not being written the way we personally think is the correct pún-jī.

Well said. In fact, it would be insane to advocate all punji all the time, although many a knave attempts just this -- b/c sometimes THERE IS NO punji.

I'm no fan of borrowing glyphs from Mandarin. Literary Chinese from the "pre-vernacular" era is fine. But if we're going to use characters like 你 and 的 and 個 just b/c that's how it's done in Mandarin, to me that kind of partly defeats the whole point of writing in Hoklo.

I don't go for "synthetic punji" (artificial punji) either. If there is no punji, a lot of people will go digging in kanjictionaries for kanji with a meaning that's "kind of" related and a sound that's "kind of" close. I say cut it out with the sloppiness. If there is no punji, let's just 馴用 or 借音 and make a note that there is no known punji.

但定 = nãniā

[Abun]

And other assorted Mandarisms. Ho̍hló ōe bô ánne kóng--ê. Koaⁿōe ê ZHŌNGYÚ, Ho̍hló ōe bô ci̍t ê tùitâng ê sû'á.

To-siā lí hōo guá tsí-tshut! Guá tsit-ê bô sian-senn, kan-tann ē-tàng tshâ sû-tián lâi tshuē sin sû, sóo-í guá tsiânn gâu huān kíng khah tshin-tshiūnn Kuann-uē--ê sû tsit-ê tshò-ngōo... Án-ni Kuann-uē--ê "zhōngyú 終於" kah "guī 歸(=屬於)" Tâi-gí bueh án-tsuánn kóng--nih?

Khòpún, sianseⁿ téngténg ti̍tthàu kóng "T2 = T6", kóng cin--ê sǐ chògō͘--ê.

Án-ni guân-lâi sī T6--ê sû kin-á-ji̍t kám lóng sī T7? Lē-jû, sòo-sû "gōo" thiann--khí-lâi sī T7, Kuan-uē sī T3, sóo-í Tâi-gí ing-kai pún-té m̄-sī T7, sī T6, tio̍h-m̄-tio̍h? Án-ni i-ê bûn-tho̍k (文讀) ing-kai mā sī T7<T6, tān-sī suah sī T2: ngóo.

I'm no fan of borrowing glyphs from Mandarin. Literary Chinese from the "pre-vernacular" era is fine. But if we're going to use characters like 你 and 的 and 個 just b/c that's how it's done in Mandarin, to me that kind of partly defeats the whole point of writing in Hoklo.

I don't quite see the difference in quality between borrowing Mandarin characters or those from Literary Chinese. If we borrow a character for a word without a punji, then it's the "wrong" character, whether we borrow it from Mandarin or Literary Chinese (for example, I don't see why writing ê as 之 would be better than 的), it's both a borrowing, the only difference would be that writing would look like Literary Chinese and not Mandarin.
What I find much worse than monosyllabic borrowings like 你, 的 and 個, are polysyllabic ones (like writing án-tsuánn as 怎樣), not only because it defeats the point of it, but also because you then get even more readings for each character than we already have, and because it often completely ignores the way a word is composed. The distinction between 的 and 個 may be artificial for Hokkien, but at least both funtions (attribute particle and measure word) are both there, whereas if we were to write án-tsuánn as 怎樣, it would suggest that 怎 is án and 樣 is tsuánn, which would be wrong not only in etymology but in semantics and syntax (lost a word here... I mean the way that words are formed, which is at least closely related to syntax, though of course not quite it), too.

I don't go for "synthetic punji" (artificial punji) either. If there is no punji, a lot of people will go digging in kanjictionaries for kanji with a meaning that's "kind of" related and a sound that's "kind of" close. I say cut it out with the sloppiness. If there is no punji, let's just 馴用 or 借音 and make a note that there is no known punji.

I would have understood a "synthetic punji" as a newly created character such as 亻因. I'm ok with that, especially for very common words such as this one. But I agree with you that looking for an already existing character to force upon that word is trying to preserve a notion of an unbroken history of Chinese writing. I would be ok with a few 馴用 or 借音 characters, but harbouring the ideal that people can read and write Hokkien without any more difficulty than mandarin, I would try to keep the necessity of making footnotes out of it by borrowing characters that are otherwise not used or at least have the same reading in other places. Or of course, as already mentioned, by creating a way of transcription that fits more smoothly with Chinese script (if going for something in the style of Hangeul, one could for example end up spelling ê as 에 with some kind of tonal mark).