hokkien in singapore
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Originally posted by Ap0cAlySm:
that is without a doubt true... i have been to several 'learn hokkien' sites with absolutely no standard basis in their transcriptions during my endeavours of self-learning and found them completely impossible to comprehend without my mom on standby to try and interpret for me with her limited and mostly forgotten knowledge of hokkien spoken with her primary school mates, however i have managed to chance upon some extremely useful chinese-taiwanese online dictionary sites with proper 'pinyin' and even sound players pronouncing every character. unsurprisingly though, another chinese-taiwanese online dictionaries used different 'pinyin' -.- but thankfully, same pronounciations so it didnt really matter that much. however the fact that it was completely in ç¹�é«”å— and TAIWANESE didnt help me learn local singaporean hokkien. Thus far i am proficient in 'formal' hokkien per say but completely clueless on local hokkien slangs e.t.c with the exception of the common ones like siam, diam, bo pien, vulgarities e.t.c.
to learn to transcribe Hokkien is something which needs learning, patience, training, time, effort, interesttranscribing using IPA (International Phonetic Alphabet) or the popular Taiwanese POJ (Pe�h-�e-jī) so far are the best and most accurate
an example of what is transcribe using IPA without indication of the 7-tones of Hokkien is shown here: http://sgforums.com/forums/2956/topics/352742
IPA and POJ can capture the unique vowels of Hokkien. They can represent the 7 tones and it's tone-sandhi with clarity.
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I don't think you can learn a language like you are learning some science or technical subject.
My parents can speak Malay, and that by interaction with Malays and Indians in the market. Not by any lesson or cassette tape.
You want to learn Hokkien, you must assimilate yourself into the Hokkien speaking world. Kopi tiams and markets would be the best place.
Bo ah, le anchua mah si buay kong ay.
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hokkien has 7 tones..!?!? this is new to me. im familiar with the taiwanese romanization of the language but i dun really know what IPA is?? for me its too late to integrate into the hokkien speaking world lol... i mean my entire social circle are all english-ed people, i dun even know where to start... I do have a neighbour from taiwan but as i have stressed before, dosen't help... that is why my only recourse is to have a teaching professional in the language to teach.
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Originally posted by Ap0cAlySm:
hokkien has 7 tones..!?!? this is new to me. im familiar with the taiwanese romanization of the language but i dun really know what IPA is?? for me its too late to integrate into the hokkien speaking world lol... i mean my entire social circle are all english-ed people, i dun even know where to start... I do have a neighbour from taiwan but as i have stressed before, dosen't help... that is why my only recourse is to have a teaching professional in the language to teach.
in standard Xiamen (Amoy) varietynames of the 7 tones for isolated characters <> contour in the 5-degree scale:
阴平 <> 44
阳平 <> 24
阴上 <> 53
阴去 <> 21
阳去 <> 22
阴入 <> 32 (underlined means clipped tone, or 入声)
阳入 <> 4 (underlined means clipped tone, or 入声)
be prepared to see works in which the tones contours are intepreted differently (for example 阴平 as 55, 阳平 as 35, 阴上 as 51, 阴去 as 11, 阳去 as 33, 阴入 as 21, and 阳入 as 55). you will notice that even though they are interpreted differently, the tone contours remain the same (a level tone remains a level tone, a falling tone remains a falling tone, a low tone remains a low range, a high tone remain in the high range). therefore these little difference are just due to the subjective interpretation on individual authors.
also be prepared to see works in which it says there are 5 tones or 8 tones.
works that state there are only 5 tones usually disregard the last two clipped tones (the underlined 32 and 4) as variations of the first 5 relaxed tones
works that state there are 8 tones are usually describing the 泉州 (QuanZhou / ChuanChiu) variety of Hokkien. In QuanZhou dialect, isolated characters has only 7 tones, but the 去声 words will undergo 2 types of tone-sandhi depending on whether it is 阴区 or 阳去, therefore in reality there are 8 tones.
as a practice, I follow the commonly accepted number of tones for the 6 following common languages (or dialects if you would like to call it) that you can find in Singapore:
Hakka (梅县/MeiXian/MoiYen variety) 6 tones
Hainanese (文昌/WenChang/BoonShio variety) 6 tones
Hokkien (厦门/XiaMen/Amoy/E-Mng variety) 7 tones
Hockchiu (�州/FuZhou/HukChew variety) 7 tones
Teochew (汕头/ShanTou/Swatow variety) 8 tones
Cantonese (广州/GuangZhou/KwongTsau variety) 9 tones
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Originally posted by mancha:
I don't think you can learn a language like you are learning some science or technical subject.
My parents can speak Malay, and that by interaction with Malays and Indians in the market. Not by any lesson or cassette tape.
You want to learn Hokkien, you must assimilate yourself into the Hokkien speaking world. Kopi tiams and markets would be the best place.
Bo ah, le anchua mah si buay kong ay.
Originally posted by Ap0cAlySm:hokkien has 7 tones..!?!? this is new to me. im familiar with the taiwanese romanization of the language but i dun really know what IPA is?? for me its too late to integrate into the hokkien speaking world lol... i mean my entire social circle are all english-ed people, i dun even know where to start... I do have a neighbour from taiwan but as i have stressed before, dosen't help... that is why my only recourse is to have a teaching professional in the language to teach.
Originally posted by popmynutsy:singapore hokkien is not totally the same as taiwan. got abit of malay also. but languages no matteer wad, is to communicate with each other, as long as u understand each other should be ok.
what mancha say is absolutely correct.you must immerse yourself into a Hokkien speaking environment to pick out language. just like a baby who donno how to read and write but know how to speak first by listening and imitating
and also what popmynutsy say is also correct
singapore/malacca/penang/johor/indonesian hokkien has integrated malay vocabulary which makes itself special from taiwanese and china hokkien
addressing your query on IPA
you can find the definition of International Phonetic Alphabet in the internet yourself first.
i will demonstrate how IPA works beautifully for Hokkien here instead:
like what mancha said: "Bo ah, le anchua mah si buay kong ay."
transcribed in IPA without tones, for Xiamen variety: "bo a, li an tsÅ©ã ma si bue kɔŋ e"
with tones + tone-sandhi: "bo(24) a(0), li(35 or 53) an(22 or 55 or 53) tsÅ©ã(35 or 53) ma(11) si(11) bue(11) kɔŋ(53) e(0)"
comparing mancha's transciption and my IPA transciption, u'll notice:
- i omitted the (h) for (ah) and (mah), since adding a (h) adds another puff of sound which is not needed in this case
- mancha used (le) while i used (li). it is apparent that mancha is following our standard Singaporean Hokkien variety. if I were to transcribe faithfully mancha's variety into IPA, it would be (lɯ)
- mancha used (chua) while i used (tsÅ©ã). (ts) represents the dental affricate in IPA. the 2 tildes above (Å©) and (ã) shows that the vowel is fully nasalized
- mancha used (buay) and (ay) while i used (bue) and (e). the symbol (e) can take the place of 2 characters (ay), which is more efficient
- mancha used (kong) while i used (kɔŋ). the symbol (ɔ) represents an "o" with your mouth opened wider while the symbol (o) represents an "o" with your mouth opened smaller. in the case of spoken Hokkien, there is a distinction between (o) and (ɔ), however when coupled with (ŋ), the distinction between (oŋ) and (ɔŋ) is lost, therefore some authors notate as (oŋ) for the sake of simplicity. the symbol (ŋ) represents "ng", which is more efficient
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Get friends who speak hokkien and practice conversing with them. But avoid the ciao Ah-bengs and Ah-lians.
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There is nothing wrong with learning different cultural languages. but not on the expense of the common one. I am a foreigner here and i've got one word of the english spoken here........uncomprehensible :p
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Ap0cAlySm,
I'm a Taiwanese who has been living in Singapore for most of my life. Although Mandarin is my best Chinese language, I also speak fluent Taiwanese Minnan (Hokkien). I've been interested in Hokkien dialect since last year and had been finding time to 'study' it in the hope of advancing my Hokkien.
Taiwanese Minnan had over the past 20 years fast become the 'standard' Hokkien due to mass propagation of Taiwanese Hokkien drama and Pop Songs. Taiwan has become the center of Hokkien culture, just like Hong Kong's position in the cantonese world.
Although I speak Taiwanese Minnan, I'm also familiar with local Singaporean Hokkien. Nevertheless, if you want to learn good proper Hokkien, Taiwanese Minnan would still be the prefered one. Singaporean Hokkien has been corrupted to a large degree by many imported Malay words, Teochew and Cantonese such that it's no longer pure.
If you wish to find a conversational partner to practise or learn Hokkien (free of course), you're free to contact me at [email protected] . We can meet up and I can teach you Hokkien.
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Taiwanese hokkien and local hokkien is abit different in the way they use the words . So don't be surprised if pple here don't really get what you are talking abt . Taiwanese hokkien is called Min nan yu , whereas our hokkien is called Fu jian .
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Originally posted by yhjow:
Ap0cAlySm,
I'm a Taiwanese who has been living in Singapore for most of my life. Although Mandarin is my best Chinese language, I also speak fluent Taiwanese Minnan (Hokkien). I've been interested in Hokkien dialect since last year and had been finding time to 'study' it in the hope of advancing my Hokkien.
Taiwanese Minnan had over the past 20 years fast become the 'standard' Hokkien due to mass propagation of Taiwanese Hokkien drama and Pop Songs. Taiwan has become the center of Hokkien culture, just like Hong Kong's position in the cantonese world.
Although I speak Taiwanese Minnan, I'm also familiar with local Singaporean Hokkien. Nevertheless, if you want to learn good proper Hokkien, Taiwanese Minnan would still be the prefered one. Singaporean Hokkien has been corrupted to a large degree by many imported Malay words, Teochew and Cantonese such that it's no longer pure.
If you wish to find a conversational partner to practise or learn Hokkien (free of course), you're free to contact me at [email protected] . We can meet up and I can teach you Hokkien.
I agree that without a doubt Singaporean Hokkien has been corrupted by other languages, but then, the isolation from China Hokkien has also lead Singaporean Hokkien to preserve older features which are losing ground in respective China Hokkien varieties
eg. I read a latest report last year on in China, 漳州 Hokkien that nowadays the youngsters tends not to pronounce the 入声韵尾 -p -t -k anymore and reduces them to a glottal stop final. therefore a lost of differentiation in the original phonemes. In Singaporean Hokkien, -p -t -k & -glottal stop final are pronounced clearly and audibly (can't quote source, the book is found at Main National Library Chinese Reference Section)
eg. I observed something in Singaporean Hokkien about words originating from ä¸å�¤éŸµç±»'s “曾”æ‘„å¼€å�£ä¸€ç‰ä¸‰ç‰ã€‚ this would be a time-consuming topic, i think i will discuss only if you or anyone here request for elaboration
Originally posted by TWE:Taiwanese hokkien and local hokkien is abit different in the way they use the words . So don't be surprised if pple here don't really get what you are talking abt . Taiwanese hokkien is called Min nan yu , whereas our hokkien is called Fu jian .
to Singaporean layman, you are right (taiwanese hokkien can call Min Nan Yu é—½å�—è¯ / Tai Yu å�°è¯ and our hokkien we call Fu Jian Hua ç¦�建è¯� Hokkien Wuay or Hokkien)
in the linguistics field, there is ç‹ä¹‰çš„é—½å�—è¯ Versus 广义的闽å�—è¯, in both cases, Taiwanese Hokkien and our Hokkien are all included in them
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Originally posted by Bangulzai:
I agree that without a doubt Singaporean Hokkien has been corrupted by other languages, but then, the isolation from China Hokkien has also lead Singaporean Hokkien to preserve older features which are losing ground in respective China Hokkien varieties
eg. I read a latest report last year on in China, 漳州 Hokkien that nowadays the youngsters tends not to pronounce the 入声韵尾 -p -t -k anymore and reduces them to a glottal stop final. therefore a lost of differentiation in the original phonemes. In Singaporean Hokkien, -p -t -k & -glottal stop final are pronounced clearly and audibly (can't quote source, the book is found at Main National Library Chinese Reference Section)
eg. I observed something in Singaporean Hokkien about words originating from ä¸å�¤éŸµç±»'s “曾”æ‘„å¼€å�£ä¸€ç‰ä¸‰ç‰ã€‚ this would be a time-consuming topic, i think i will discuss only if you or anyone here request for elaboration
to Singaporean layman, you are right (taiwanese hokkien can call Min Nan Yu é—½å�—è¯ / Tai Yu å�°è¯ and our hokkien we call Fu Jian Hua ç¦�建è¯� Hokkien Wuay or Hokkien)
in the linguistics field, there is ç‹ä¹‰çš„é—½å�—è¯ Versus 广义的闽å�—è¯, in both cases, Taiwanese Hokkien and our Hokkien are all included in them
chimology.
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eeeeee...
of all dialects...
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both language can say 70% close. Should be able to understand by both party.
In singapore hokkien not very in depth. compare to taiwan side.
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Other than the Minnan (hokkien) experts from China, I would say most of world's experts on Minnan language (hokkien) are from Taiwan. The Minnan (Hokkien) language and culture in Taiwan is of a high standard largely because there is a government-funded culture body devoted to supporting it. Not only is Hokkien taught in Schools in Taiwan, Taiwan also has a flourishing literary circle comprising of Hokkien poets and writers, who write in Taiwanese Minnan language. Of course, you won't miss the flourishing Hokkien media and pop scene from Taiwan.
Though most Taiwanese are able to speak Minnan, the majority still cannot write in Minnan. It was only the last 20 years in Taiwan that linguists was able to standardize the appropriate Chinese characters used for expressing Hokkien. It would still take more years for the Hokkien language to become widespread in written form.
Bangulzai, you're probably the only Singapore Hokkien expert I've seen.
I'm not a linguist or expert on Hokkien, but I'm trying to learn and pick up Taiwanese Minnan.
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Anyway, minnan is tough to learn
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Anyway, minnan is tough to learn
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BTW, according to the taiwanese tai yu, there are no proper characters to learn from. saw the strokes, look kind of different from Mandarin, and told that it based on tone sound to learn hokkien in taiwan
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Originally posted by Fantagf:
BTW, according to the taiwanese tai yu, there are no proper characters to learn from. saw the strokes, look kind of different from Mandarin, and told that it based on tone sound to learn hokkien in taiwan
depends on where you look at this piece of information
i dissect your query one by one:
1. "there are no proper characters to learn from"
There are proper characters for pretty much of the words, and there are also many improper characters for many of the words. Why?
For example:
- You want to eat.
How to write in Hokkien ? Guess ?
>> issit
- ä½ è¦�å�ƒ or
- �爱食 or
- 丽爱甲 ????
Answer:
- Apparently, people who have only learned how to write in Mandarin Chinese will try to write as ä½ è¦�å�ƒ but read as Li Ai Tsiah.
- People who have understood and knows Minnan inside out knows that the original characters for Li Ai Tsiah is apparently �爱食
- 丽爱甲 is the most corrupt version which matches only in pronunciation and thus no meaning unless read out in Mandarin Chinese to approximate the sound
Dilemma and Solutions:
I will present the problem if we write as ä½ è¦�å�ƒ or 丽爱甲 (or whatever made-up characters).
- No doubt ä½ è¦�å�ƒ brings out the meaning in both Mandarin Chinese and Minnan, but it does not bring out the actual pronunciation in Minnan. A Minnan thus can choose to read it as Li Yiau K'hik (literary pronunciation of the 3 characters) instead of Li Ai Tsiah (the pronunciation that we want)
- 丽爱甲 is worst, as both 丽 and 甲 has a corresponding Minnan pronunciation of Ley and Kah, thus if one is not smart enough to guess (keyword: guessing game), you can even read it as Ley Ai Kah (which has no meaning)
- Therefore, the only solution is to find the original characters (in linguistic terminology is called: 本å—), and no matter the meaning or the pronunciation will be correct in Minnan
Feel free to give any examples from your side for me to expound or explain too, if the above is not being conveyed to you in a clear manner.
2. "It based on tone sound to learn hokkien in taiwan"
- all languages learners based on tone and sounds to learn language, starting from babies. language acquisition is always spoken ones before written ones, so it applies to all languages including hokkien
- You want to eat.
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Originally posted by Bangulzai:
depends on where you look at this piece of information
i dissect your query one by one:
1. "there are no proper characters to learn from"
There are proper characters for pretty much of the words, and there are also many improper characters for many of the words. Why?
For example:
- You want to eat.
How to write in Hokkien ? Guess ?
>> issit
- ä½ è¦�å�ƒ or
- �爱食 or
- 丽爱甲 ????
Answer:
- Apparently, people who have only learned how to write in Mandarin Chinese will try to write as ä½ è¦�å�ƒ but read as Li Ai Tsiah.
- People who have understood and knows Minnan inside out knows that the original characters for Li Ai Tsiah is apparently �爱食
- 丽爱甲 is the most corrupt version which matches only in pronunciation and thus no meaning unless read out in Mandarin Chinese to approximate the sound
Dilemma and Solutions:
I will present the problem if we write as ä½ è¦�å�ƒ or 丽爱甲 (or whatever made-up characters).
- No doubt ä½ è¦�å�ƒ brings out the meaning in both Mandarin Chinese and Minnan, but it does not bring out the actual pronunciation in Minnan. A Minnan thus can choose to read it as Li Yiau K'hik (literary pronunciation of the 3 characters) instead of Li Ai Tsiah (the pronunciation that we want)
- 丽爱甲 is worst, as both 丽 and 甲 has a corresponding Minnan pronunciation of Ley and Kah, thus if one is not smart enough to guess (keyword: guessing game), you can even read it as Ley Ai Kah (which has no meaning)
- Therefore, the only solution is to find the original characters (in linguistic terminology is called: 本å—), and no matter the meaning or the pronunciation will be correct in Minnan
Feel free to give any examples from your side for me to expound or explain too, if the above is not being conveyed to you in a clear manner.
2. "It based on tone sound to learn hokkien in taiwan"
- all languages learners based on tone and sounds to learn language, starting from babies. language acquisition is always spoken ones before written ones, so it applies to all languages including hokkien
the improper characters i saw from the taiwanese programme for tai yu is like jia gu wen i Mandarin.Thanks for your explanation. Appreciate it.
- You want to eat.
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Originally posted by Fantagf:
the improper characters i saw from the taiwanese programme for tai yu is like jia gu wen i Mandarin.Thanks for your explanation. Appreciate it.
Jiaguwen is both applicable to mandarin as well as hokkien because both languages (or dialects if u wanna call them) utilises the Modern Chinese Script which is decended from Jiaguwen
Example:
you can write Jiaguwen for 龙：
if you know how to read Jiaguwen and you know both Mandarin Chinese and Hokkien, you will still be reading it as Lóng in Mandarin Chinese or Leng / Liong in Hokkien without any difficulty
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Originally posted by Bangulzai:
Jiaguwen is both applicable to mandarin as well as hokkien because both languages (or dialects if u wanna call them) utilises the Modern Chinese Script which is decended from Jiaguwen
Example:
you can write Jiaguwen for 龙：
if you know how to read Jiaguwen and you know both Mandarin Chinese and Hokkien, you will still be reading it as Lóng in Mandarin Chinese or Leng / Liong in Hokkien without any difficulty
I know Mandarin but can't identify from the jia gu wen that that is long.
thanks.
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Originally posted by Fantagf:
I know Mandarin but can't identify from the jia gu wen that that is long.
thanks.
that's why
no one writes in Jiaguwen nowadays for communication
are you very sure u got it quite right the Taiwanese Programme say that Taiwanese Minnan Hokkien uses Jiaguwen and someone call it "improper"
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丽爱甲 Ley Ai Kah (which has no meaning) .
It can otherwise explain in Hokkien as only love the best with her beauty.
æ±�爱食 Li Ai Tsiah æ±� is old Chinese (Wen Yuan) of (Bai Hua Wen) you (ä½ ) of the Spring and Autumn period before Chin dynasty.
Basic Hokkien is a derivative from Chu, best survived in Chu Yuan prose that survived the burning by the Chin. Chin language have no gender hence only ä½ . Whereas other states such as Chu, Qi etc survives now only as lingusitic dialects.
Hope this help.
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Originally posted by Bangulzai:
that's why
no one writes in Jiaguwen nowadays for communication
are you very sure u got it quite right the Taiwanese Programme say that Taiwanese Minnan Hokkien uses Jiaguwen and someone call it "improper"
they did not say improper, it is me who said it. as they show the jia gu wen and explained that the dai yu has not exact character to represent for learning.