Discover Hokkien Chinese Hokkinoe by MeiJean Kuo Barth, Ph.D. A native speaker of Hokkien

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Discover Hokkien Chinese(??? Hok-kiàn-oe)by
Mei-Jean Kuo Barth, Ph.D.A native speaker of
Hokkien
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Areas where Hokkien is spoken

• Taiwan
• Fujian Province and nearby areas in Southern
  China
• Southeast Asian Countries Singapore,
  Philippines, Thailand, Vietnam, Indonesia
• Other areas of Hokkien people settlement
  Central/South America
• Total Speakers around 35 million people

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The presenter Gue Mi-JngSelf introduction in
Hokkien

• Welcome to this session.

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??, ??, ????????e ????????????????????, ??????jin
ma ????????????, ??????? ????????????, ??di ?ha
??, ??han???gong???dua han??????????????????
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????(daiwan zuigo)Fruits of Taiwan

• ??????? jian gui gamma hou gui ni
• 2 ?????? ji gui ging jio hou gam dinn
• 3 ?????? sa gui bi bie ng ng ng
• 4?????? xi gui ong lai sng sng sng
• 5?????? go gui lai ji ang gi gi
• 6 ?????? lak gui xi guei gui lok bbi
• 7 ?????? qit gui long gang dng dng dng
• 8 ?????? bei gui yiu aa gui diong qiu
• 9 ?????? gao gui bo do hou zou jiu
• 10 ?????? bei gui baa laa cng cng cng
• 11 ?????? zap yi gui leng bu jia cui dnn
• 12 ?????? zap jii gui sit giao mua mua xi

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Phonology

• Hokkien is mutually unintelligibly from Mandrin
  and Cantonese Chinese
• It has one of the most diverse phonologies
  amongst Chinese languages, with more consonants
  than standard Mandarin or Cantonese.
• It has a complex system of vowels and consonant
  sounds.

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Ancient Chinese and Hokkien

• Ancient Chinese refers to the Chinese language
  spoken during 6th- 10th centuries (Sui, Tang and
  Song dynasties)
• Hokkien retains a lot of Ancient Chinese vowels
  and final consonants sound.
• Tang poetry (by famous poet Li Bai) rhymes with
  fluidity when read using Hokkien language.

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Initialsconsonants

• Hokkien has aspirated, un-aspirated as well as
  voiced consonant initials. This distinction
  makes Hokkien one of the harder dialects for
  non-native speakers to learn.
• For example, the words for opening and closing
  (khui (?) vs. kuin (?)) a door have the same
  vowel but differ only by aspiration of the
  initial and nasality of the vowel.
• Hokkien also has labial initial consonants such
  as m in m-si (??) (meaning "is not").
• Another example is "boy" (za-po ) vs. "girl"
  (za-bo), which differ in the second syllable in
  consonant voicing and in tone.

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Final Consonants

• Unlike Mandarin, Hokkien retains all the final
  consonants of ancient Chinese sounds. While
  Mandarin only preserves the n and ? finals,
  Southern Min also preserves the m, p, t and k
  finals and developed the ? glottal stop.

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Pumindian (???)

• Xiamen University in China has developed a
  romanization system based on Pinyin, which has
  been published in a dictionary (Minnan Fangyan -
  Putonghua Cidian ?????????) and a language
  teaching book, which is used to teach the
  language to foreigners and Chinese non-speakers

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Consonants listed in Pumindian (???)

• b(?? bo zua), bb(?? bbn nam),
• p (?? po ton),bb (?? qia bbm)
• d(?? di bba),
• t (?? po ton )
• n (?? gue ni), lng (?? gei lng)
• l (?? luk guan)
• g (?? geig dak)
• gg (?? ggu lieng)
• k(?? kei tiang)
• h(?? huan lok)
• Zi (?? ji qi ), ji (??han ji),
• si(?? xi bbo), z (?? bo zuak)
• r (?? ra ting)
• c(?? cam ga), s (?? su huat)

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Vowels listed in Pumindian (???)

• a (?? a jiu), ap (?? ap lie), at (?? giang cat)
• ak (?? ak zui??), ah (??gu mah)
• na (??),
• oo (??ou sik ??)
• ok (?? dion gok)
• Noo
• o (?? o jiu)
• e (?? e po ??)
• ne,
• I (?? yi hak),
• Ien (?? yien bi)
• ieng (?? ieng gok)

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ContdVowels listed in Pumindian (???)

• ik(?? huan yik), in(?? beng in),
• ai (?? ai jiang), nai
• au (?? aou jiu), am (?? am xi ??),om
• m (?? a m ??),
• ong (?? ong lai ??)
• ng (?? ng xik)
• u (?? u)
• ua (?? guak kek)
• ue (?? gong ue)
• uan (?? jin uan)
• i(?? di mba),
• niu(?? niu zui)

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8 Tones

• 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
• ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ?
• san te kho khoah lang e phi
  tit
• High 1268
• Middle___________________________7_____
• Low ______3____4________5________________

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• Tone is the use of pitch in language to
  distinguish lexical or grammatical meaningthat
  is, to distinguish or inflect words.
• In Hokkien and Mandarin, tones are distinguished
  by their shape (contour). Most syllables carry
  their own tone, and many words are differentiated
  solely by tone.
• Tone tends to play almost no grammatical role

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Examples of tones

• A high level tone /á/ (pinyin ltagt)
• A tone starting with mid pitch and rising to a
  high pitch /a/ (pinyin ltágt)
• A low tone which dips briefly before, if there is
  no following syllable, rising a high pitch /à/
  (pinyin ltagt)
• A sharply falling tone, starting high and falling
  to the bottom of the speaker's vocal range /â/
  (pinyin ltàgt)
• A neutral tone, sometimes indicated by a dot ()
  in Pinyin, has no specific contour its pitch
  depends on the tones of the preceding and
  following syllables. Mandarin speakers refer to
  this tone as the "light tone" (??).
• These tones combine with a syllable such as dng"
  to produce different wordds in Hokkien language
• dng (high tone) to share the responsibility" na
  zu han hou dong dng
• dng (second tone) long jin dng
• dng (third tone, low ) to put down li e yin na
  dng lui qi (stamp your chop)
• dng (fourth tone) to break off dng ki a
• dng (sharp falling ) to spin ,Dng (sharp
  falling shorter) to return li dng lai

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Scripts and orthographies

• Like most ethnic Chinese, whether from mainland
  China, Taiwan, Singapore, or other parts of
  Southeast Asia, Hokkien speakers write their
  language with Chinese characters.
• However, the inventory used for Mandarin in not a
  complete match for Hokkien, and there are a
  number of informal characters which are unique to
  Hokkien.
• Where standard Chinese characters are used, they
  are not always etymological or genetic the
  borrowing of similar-sounding or similar-meaning
  characters is a common practice.
• However, unlike Cantonese, Hokkien does not have
  a standardized character set and thus there is
  some variation in the characters used to express
  certain words. Currently, the Ministry of
  Education of the Republic of China is formulating
  and releasing a standard character set to
  overcome these difficulties.

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Romanization

• Hokkien is sometimes transcribed with the Latin
  alphabet using one of several Romanized
  orthographies. Of these the most popular is
  Pe?h-oe-ji ("vernacular writing") -POJ
• POJ was developed first by Presbyterian
  missionaries in China and later by the indigenous
  Presbyterian Church in Taiwan.
• Use of the orthography has been actively promoted
  since the late 19th century. The use of a mixed
  orthography of Han characters and romanization is
  also seen, though remains uncommon.

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Common Greetings

• pêng-yiú, lín-hó. Lín chia?h-pá--be? U-êng, to?h
  lâi gún chia che--ô! ??,????????????????!)

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Chorus reading

• ??? gong dai yi, ??? gong dai yi
• ??? xiong cu mi,
• ??,?? dua lang, ging na,
• ????? gong ga qio mi mi?
• http//www.taiwanwe.com.tw/1.htm

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• ???? jo mum ji le
• ???? jo mum ji le
• ?????? li gio sha me mia?
• ??? ? li gui hue?
• ????? li dua da?

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Simple words and phrases

• Gua (I) gun (we)
• Li (you) lin (you, plural)
• Yi (he, she), yin (they)
• Shi to be
• gua shi, li shi, yi shi
• Goodbye- lai qi
• Thankyou do xia

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Numbers, dates

• Ji, ng, saa, xi, go, lak, qi, bei, gao, zap
• Ji ba (100), ji qng (1000), ji bang (10,000)
• Ji ko (a dollar), ng ko (two dollars)
• Gin na ri shi xi gei zap lak ho, lei bai go
• (Today is April 16, Saturday)

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Examples of Hokkien proverbs

• ?????(The head of a toger but the tail of a rat)
• ????? (a stiff bill on a dead duck)
• ??????? (a puffed up frog is mostly wind)
• ????? (the turtle laughs at the terrapins tail)
• ???, ??????? (Catch a golden hen when one
  stumbles over)