Yesterday, I visited the Peranakan Museum, and I came across this interesting Hokkien poem, which describes the attributes a woman is expected to have upon marriage. Today, it would have been labeled sexist, and I absolutely agree, but this poem is from a bygone era after all, and it reflects the ideals and mindsets people had in the past.
The Original Text:
” Tek Gar Kee, Mor Hor Chee
Choe Lung Sim Poo But Toe Li
Um Um Khoon, Char Char Khi
Say Thau Buah Hoon Thiam Ean Chee
Lip Chow Khar, Say Wah Tee
Lip Tua Thniah, Cheng Tok Ee
Lip Pang Lai, Siew Chiam Chi
Oh Lo Hnia, Oh Lo Tee
Oh Lo Chin Keh Chneh Emh Gow Kaw Si “
The Translation Given:
“Dried beancurd, sweet flour cakes
A daughter-in-law must know how to behave
Goes to sleep late, rises early
Combs her hair, powders her face, applies lipstick
Upon entering the kitchen, washes the dishes
Upon entering the hall, dusts the furniture
Upon entering the room, picks the embroidery needle
She speaks well of her elders and juniors
Praises to our in-laws for having brought her up so well”
The person who had documented and provided this poem is a “Mr Raymond Kwok”, who is a Peranakan man (“Baba”) from Penang, and a simple search on Google reveals that he has written numerous books about Perankans and the langauges they spoke – Baba Malay and Hokkien. For more information about him and where to get these books, click here.
However, as I’ve seen an American language enthusiast on Facebook accurately point out, this type of transliteration is designed for English speakers in the UK or the Commonwealth, and I agree with him that “forcing Hokkien into the confines of English phonology is never a good idea”. If we really want to protect and spread our language, it must be transliterated systematically, in a way which does not require the reader to guess and approximate the Hokkien pronunciation but rather making it possible to read out the intended Hokkien word accurately at first glance. Indeed, systems like the Taiwanese Romanisation System (Tai-lo) are perfect candidates to document and write in Hokkien, and if you are interested in learning how to speak or write in Hokkien, I highly recommend that you learn Tai-lo.
I have tried to transliterate the poem with Tai-lo, staying as close to the original intended pronunciation as possible, as well as add the Chinese characters:
As we all know, Roy Ngerng is a well-known (and some would argue, ‘infamous’) local blogger and activist who has been fighting for many causes, most notably his controversial stance against the Central Provident Fund (CPF) scheme.
Well, politics aside, there seems to be quite a number of netizens who were curious about Ngerng, or rather, “Ngerng”:
“We don’t care whether he’s gay or an Oppie or what; how the heck do you pronounce his name!?”
Like any young Chinese Singaporean who have ever tried to consult the Internet to clarify “just what on earth does that ‘dialect’ word mean”, we have reached the sad consensus that there is unfortunately very little resources online for southern Chinese topolects. But still, back to the question.
How on earth do you pronounce “Ngerng”!?
The two most important pieces of information that we need to have in order to pronounce names like these properly, are 1) the Chinese character(s) in question and 2) which topolect were they transliterated in.
Some readers may remember encountering Roy’s Chinese name in the news: “鄞義林”, or “Yín Yìlín” in Mandarin. Maybe there are some of you out there who share my weird hobby of trying to find out someone’s ‘dialect’ group from his/her name. But disappointingly, the Chinese part of Roy’s name was transliterated as “Ngerng Yi Ling”, which provides no other clues since the personal name is most likely transliterated using Mandarin (with a local accent).
This means that unfortunately, we will have to manually search the Chinese surname “鄞” in the different dictionaries to find out which ‘dialect’ “Ngerng” is… So here we go!
And to double check, I searched “鄞” on the 當代泉州音字彙, a dictionary for Tsuantsiu Hokkien (the Northern variant):
The Tong-tāi (that’s what I call the dictionary for short, after its first two words “當代”) uses a different romanisation system which is closer to Pinyin, but converting it into Tailo (the Taiwanese Romanisation system, which will be mentioned very frequently in the future, so take note!), we arrive at the conclusion that “鄞” is pronounced as “Gûn” in Tsuantsiu Hokkien, which is not quite the same as “Ngerng”.
“But what about Tsiangtsiu Hokkien (the Southern variant)?”
I cannot seem to find a Tsiangtsiu Hokkien dictionary online, unfortunately. But then, since “鄞” shares the same pronunciation as “銀”, let us check the entry for “銀” on the Taiwanese Hokkien Dictionary:
We arrive at the conclusion that “鄞” is pronounced “Gîrn/Gûn” in Tsuantsiu Hokkien but “Gîn” in Tsiangtsiu Hokkien. However, since neither pronunciation match “Ngerng”, so let’s move on to Teochew.
Teochew:
There are fewer resources online for Teochew as compared to Hokkien, but fortunately this website does give the Teochew pronunciation of words. Indeed, a search for the word “鄞” gave me this:
Jackpot! We find that in Teochew, “鄞” is pronounced “Ngêrng” in Teochew (converting it into Tailo). It seems quite plausible that Roy’s surname is meant to be read in Teochew.
Just to confirm, I checked the Cantonese pronunciation (“ngan4” in Jyutping) and the Hakka pronunciation (“ngiun2”), neither of which matches the rather unusual surname’s pronunciation in question.
Hence, we can safely conclude that “Ngerng” is pronounced /ŋəŋ/:
“ŋ”: as in “ngóo-hiong” (the food);
“ə”: as in how a Singaporean would pronounce “blogger“;
“ŋ”: as in “ngóo-hiong” (again!)
Continuing from my previous post, here’s the second half of the essay.
“5) The collection of the famous “Three Hundred Tang Dynasty Poems” (唐诗三百首) sound better when recited in Hokkien/Teochew if compared to Mandarin.”
As mentioned previously, the literary pronunciations are used to read classical texts, and this set of readings mostly entered Hokkien the Tang and Song dynasties. Therefore, it is no wonder that poems written in that era would rhyme better in Hokkien, as well as other topolects like Cantonese and Hakka. Also, a higher number of tones (6 in Hakka, 7 in Hokkien, 9 in Cantonese) mean that a richer variety of dynamics is present when using these topolects to recite poems than, say, using Mandarin.
Since the checked tones (入聲) are largely intact in southern topolects like Hokkien, poems written to rhyme in the stop endings, like “滿江紅”, would generate a much more majestic effect when read in Hokkien, with the abrupt stops of the rhyming syllables creating a sense of anger and agitation.
“6) Consider this for a moment: Today, the Hokkien Nam Yim Ochestral performance still has its roots in ancient Tang dynasty music. Here’s the proof: The formation of today Nam Yim ensemble is typically seen in ancient Tang dynasty paintings of musicians.”
To be more exact, “Nam Yim”, or Lâm-im (“南音”; literally “southern sounds”) here refers to a form of Chinese classical music from Quanzhou (泉州), not the different art of the same name from the Guangdong province (廣東省). It is generally believed that Lâm-im was brought to Fujian (福建) towards the end of the Tang Dynasty when there was political unrest and refugees fled south, along with their arts. Many modern Lâm-im pieces are based on orchestral pieces in the Tang and Song Dynasties with verifiable origins.
A Lâm-im performance.
“More astonishingly: Although not genetically-related, Hokkiens, Koreans and Japanese share many similar words (which are different from Mandarin). Example: news – 新闻 shimbun, world – 世界 sekai in Japanese). That’s because Hokkien was the official language of the powerful Tang Dynasty whose influence and language spread to Japan and Korea (just like Latin – [from] where many words were borrowed by the English, French, Italian, etc).”
“新聞” and “世界” are examples of what we call “wasei-kango” (和製漢語), or Chinese terms coined by the Japanese. When Japan first opened its doors to the Western world, it was introduced to whole new concepts, which Japanese scholars translated by recycling and inventing new terms using Chinese characters. These terms were, in turn, brought back and spread widely by Chinese students who studied in Japanese universities.
Many Western technologies, such as steam engines, were imported into Japan during the Meiji Restoration. As such, new Japanese terms had to coined to express all the different concepts flooding into the nation.
The Japanese can pronounce Chinese characters, or kanji, in either the native Japanese pronunciations (kun’yomi) or their original Chinese pronunciations (on’yomi). The most common set of Chinese pronunciations used is known as the “Kan’on” (漢音), which was adapted from the form of Middle Chinese spoken in Chang’an (長安; today’s 西安), Tang Dynasty’s capital. This was about the same time the literary pronunciations came into Hokkien, which explains why “新聞” and “世界” sound similar when pronounced in Hokkien and Japanese.
Korean, on the other hand, had extensive ties with the Tang Dynasty as well, so Korean pronunciations of Chinese words may sound similar to Hokkien due to the same reasons.
Simply because “新聞” and “世界” are not pronounced the same way in Mandarin does not mean that Mandarin “does not use them”, as the author suggests by the sentence “Hokkiens, Koreans and Japanese share many similar words (which are different from Mandarin)”. This two terms are shared amongst the different Chinese topolects, and simply because they are pronounced differently does NOT mean that they are not derived from the same origin.
Like how Hokkien is a Chinese language while Japanese and Korean borrowed words from the Chinese language, French and Italian are Romance languages (descendants of Latin) while English simply borrowed words from the Romance languages. Thus, it is incorrect to claim that French and Italian “borrowed” words from Latin – they descended from it.
To give an example, take the Latin word “monēta”.
The French word “monnaie” is DESCENDED from Latin.
The English word “money” is BORROWED from French (and indirectly Latin).
Trivia: The original English term representing this concept would be “schat” which is no longer used.
“To all 49 Million Hokkien Speakers: Be proud of your ancient Hokkien heritage & language! Speak it loud and clear. Teach your future generation this Imperial Language, lest it fades away. Be proud, Children of the Tang Emperors.
To all Mandarin-speaking friends out there — do not look down on your other Chinese friends who do not speak Mandarin – whom you guys fondly refer to as “Bananas”. In fact, they are speaking a language which is much more ancient & linguistically complicated than Mandarin.
Keep in mind that Mandarin is just: 1) A Northern Chinese dialect 北方话 (heavily influenced by non-Han Chinese) that was elevated to the status of National Language by Sun Yat Sen (孙中山，原名孙逸仙) for the sake of China’s national unity. Mandarin was never spoken by your proud, imperial Tang Dynasty ancestors. It was probably spoken by the Northern (Non-Han) Jurchen, Mongols and Manchu minority. Start speaking the language of your ancestors today.”
[Credits to Leonard Luar for providing this useful historical information. ]
When the Qing Dynasty was established, Manchu became the national language, being after all the language of the Manchu rulers. However, the de facto language used in court was a predecessor of Mandarin, a Northern Chinese topolect spoken in the capital and surrounding areas spoken since the Ming Dynasty. In fact, in 1728, under Yongzheng Emperor (雍正皇帝), schools were built in the Fujian and Guangdong provinces to teach the officials and scholars Mandarin, showing that it was already of an unofficial national status.
In 1913, after the Qing Dynasty was abolished and the KMT came to power, it was decided that in order to unify the country, a “national language” (國語) should be set. To tackle this problem, scholars incorporated elements from both Northern and Southern Chinese topolects to form what is now known as the “老國音”. Both the retroflex consonants (捲舌音) and checked tones (入聲) coexisted in this new national language.
However, many scholars objected; instead they were in favour of directly adopting the Peking (Beijing; 北京) dialect of Mandarin as the national language. One of them argued that the 老國音 had such complicated phonology that only Chao Yuen-jen (趙元任, a Chinese polyglot/linguist who supported the 老國音) could speak it. To give you an idea of how the 老國音 would have sounded like, listen to how the elderly people around you speak Mandarin, with varying degrees of southern accents, like pronouncing “八” into something like “霸”(again, due to the checked tones, or 入聲).
After years of debate, in 1920, the 新國音 replaced the 老國音, its pronunciations based solely on Mandarin, to the strong objection of scholars like Chang T’ai-yen (章太炎) who called Mandarin “金元虜語” (the language of the Northern barbarians) – not that different as the author’s attitude towards Mandarin, I guess?
Standard Mandarin in Taiwan largely follows the 新國音 when the KMT fled to Taiwan in 1949, bringing along their languages. When the Communists took over Mainland China, they made modifications to Mandarin and in 1956, made it the official language of the country.
And the Sun Yat-sen story? Well, it was simply fabricated by Cantonese enthusiasts and spread by unknowing Cantonese web-users who wanted to emphasise how Cantonese was no less impressive than Mandarin. To set the record staright as well, Sun Yat-sen’s original name was “孫文”, not “孫逸仙”.
“I’m a politician, not a linguist. Common sense tells you that I wouldn’t be the one choosing the ‘national language’, right?”
Finally, the passage phrases itself in a way which suggests that Jurchens, Mongols, and Manchus co-existed with the Tang Dynasty and had already begun to speak Mandarin. This is absolute nonsense. The Mongols and Jurchens (who were ancestors of the Manchus – the Jurchens only, I meant) only rose to power during the Song Dynasty, which was a few centuries AFTER the Tang Dynasty. The Manchus only came about and defeated the Ming Dynasty, two whole dynasties (and about another 400 years) after the Song Dynasty. There is still debate over whether the Manchu language shaped modern Mandarin or that Mandarin’s distinctive features (like the loss of checked stops) was already present when the Manchus came.
However, one thing is for sure:
The Manchus did NOT exist in the Tang Dynasty, and neither did the Mongols and Jurchens speak Mandarin in the Tang dynasty.
Some points that the original text made were quite valid, but overall I found it to be a little too biased towards Hokkien to make a good article. Besides, the way that the author phrases himself, his wording, makes the whole article seem like an advertisement for Hokkien or something. And the sheer number of factual inaccuracies is worrying.
While I am glad that in the age of the Internet, people are expressing the pride they have in their own cultures (judging from how many people shared the text), it is a bit worrying to see that they are misled by false statements and exaggerated claims, some even becoming Hokkien chauvinists (story for another time) after being spurred by such texts.
Ah! My first post in this blog. I have been posting a lot on Facebook prior to the creation of this blog, and since I am too lazy to think of new content don’t really know where to begin, here’s a post that I have written last year. It refutes the exaggerated and erroneous claims of a particular text about the “antiquity of Hokkien” which has been spreading somewhat like wildfire on the Internet.
I have broken it down, section by section, and debunking some serious mistakes that the text has made. Don’t misunderstand me, I think it’s really heartwarming that so many fellow Hokkiens are so passionate and proud of their own culture and language as well. However, this is no excuse to blatantly misattribute facts in order to raise the awareness of Hokkien.
(By the way, the text can be found here in full, but the chunks I quote below can pretty much be pieced up to form the entire text as well. :p)
Let the fun begin!
“HOKKIEN IS THE SOLE SURVIVING CHINESE LANGUAGE FROM THE TANG DYNASTY 2,000 YEARS AGO.
If you’re a Hokkien, did you know that Hokkien is the Ancient Imperial Language of China – 2,000 years ago? If you’re a Hokkien: take note! You’ll be surprised. You have heard it. You, your parents, or grandparents may still be speaking this ancient, archaic language! Yes, it’s Hokkien (Fujian/Minnan Hua 福建话/闽南话)!”
Dang! We’re only at the title and there’s already a serious mathematical error: Tang Dynasty, two thousand years ago!? A simple search on Google will tell us that the Tang Dynasty lasted from 618CE to 907CE, which, even if you count from the first year, is just 1397 years ago (as of 2015). Even if one were to round the number off to one significant digit, it would still yield 1000 years, not 2000. Someone hasn’t been listening in Mathematics class, eh?
Secondly, languages evolve; to claim that Hokkien is the “sole surviving Chinese language from the Tang Dynasty” is about as inaccurate as it probably can. Historically, Middle Chinese would have been spoken during the Tang Dynasty, and many Chinese topolects today descends from Middle Chinese, like Cantonese or Hakka. But neither of the two can claim to be the exact language spoken in the Tang or Song Dynasties.
Yes, they might have retained some characteristics from Middle Chinese, vocabulary-wise and pronunciation-wise, but fundamentally Cantonese and Hakka have already evolved in the past centuries to become different languages. Similarly, languages like Italian and French cannot claim to be the sole surviving “language” from the Roman times – both are simply descendants of the Romans’ language, Latin.
Imagine if speakers of the Romance languages argued that they were each speaking the “sole surviving form of Latin”!
Just to clarify beforehand, whenever I refer to the “Chinese language”, I am referring to the Han language (漢語) – that is, inclusive of various topolects like Mandarin or Hokkien. Some argue that the Chinese language is more of a language family really, and that the ‘topolects’ are by right individual languages, but that’s a story for another day.
Note: “topolect”, from the Greek words topo (land) and lect (language), is a more accurate translation of the Chinese term “方言”. “方言” is commonly translated as “dialect”, which is strange because Cantonese and Mandarin, for example, would considered “dialects” of the same language, and yet are hardly mutually intelligible at all.
“Hokkien is:
1) The surviving language of the Tang Dynasty (唐朝, 618 – 907AD), China’s Golden Age of Culture. Note: The Hokkien we hear today may have “evolved” from its original form 2,000 years ago, but it still retains the main elements of the Tang Dynasty Language.”
Wait what? The author actually gave the years for the Tang Dynasty, and yet proceeds to claim again that it is already “two thousand years ago”. Seriously, does nobody notice this?
To clarify, we must first understand that Hokkien has two sets of pronunciations – the vernacular (白讀) and the literary (文讀) pronunciations. For instance, for the word “學” (to learn), the vernacular reading “o̍h” is used, but in certain compound words, like “学生” (student), the literary reading “hak” is used, as in “ha̍k-seng” in the example.
The literary pronunciations did, indeed, have it roots from Middle Chinese. During the Tang, Song, and Yuan Dynasties, the port of Quanzhou (泉州; Tsuân-tsiu) was a prosperous port, and the arts flourished in this cultural melting pot. Thus, the “court language”, or Middle Chinese as spoken in the capital, was adapted into Hokkien and used to read classical texts – thus “literary” – and is still used daily in some compound words or occasionally on their own.
The vernacular pronunciations, however, originated much earlier, in the Jin Dynasty (晉朝). Around 310CE, years of political unrest led to the nomadic tribes of the North seizing the chance and attacking China (五胡亂華). Some of the Han people fled south, and a few batches settled in what is now southern Fujian, in Quanzhou. With them, they brought along their language, which now form the base of Hokkien, the vernacular pronunciations, used in everyday language.
Most modern Chinese topolects have labiodental fricatives, like /f/ (as in “fish”). This is a change that had occurred only around 600CE (Early Middle Chinese). Therefore, Hokkien, having branched off earlier, doesn’t have /f/ in its phonology: in Mandarin, “芳” is pronounced “fāng”; in Hokkien, “phang”.
“2) Hokkiens are the surviving descendants of the Tang Dynasty — When the Tang Dynasty collapsed, the people of the Tang Dynasty fled South and sought refuge in the Hokkien (Fujian 福建省) province. Hence, Hokkien called themselves Tng-lang (唐人比喻为唐朝子孙) Tang Ren or People of the Tang Dynasty) instead of Hua Lang (华人 Hua Ren).”
It is true that the Hokkiens refer to the Han people as “唐儂” (Tn̂g-lâng). However, there were two major waves of migration from the North, first during the Jin Dynasty (晉朝), and second during the Tang Dynasty (唐朝). At the same time, Hokkiens also have Baiyue blood, the Baiyue being the original inhabitants of the southern part of China before the Han people came.
The Zhuang people (壯族) are said to be the descendants of the Baiyue.
“3) Hokkien has 8 tones instead of Mandarin’s 4. Linguists claim that ancient languages tend to have more complex tones.”
Please name me one linguist who has ever claimed that “ancient languages tend to have more complex tones”.
The truth is quite the opposite, in fact: it has been hypothesised that the Chinese language did not have tones until around the Jin Dynasty (晉朝) – this can be seen in other Sino-Tibetan languages related to the Chinese language, such as Classical Tibetan, which has no tones. Besides, many languages which we deem “ancient” do not even have complex tone systems – or any tones at all, for that matter. The Egyptian language, for instance, did not have tones, and neither did Sanskrit.
Also, Hokkien did have all eight tones originally, but today only seven distinguishable tones remain, with the seventh tone either merging with the sixth (southern) or the third (northern).
“4) Hokkien retains the ancient Chinese pronunciation of “k-sounding” endings (for instance, 学生 hak seng (student), 大学 tua ok (university), 读册 thak chek (read a book/study) — the “k” sounding ending is not found in Mandarin.”
This claim is not completely false, albeit misleadingly phrased and contains a few mistakes. The “k-ending” is written as /k̚/ in IPA. In Hokkien, there are four such endings: “-k” (/k̚/), “-p” (p̚), “-t” (k̚), and “-h” (a glottal stop; ie /ʔ/). These are what we call “checked tones”, or “入聲” in Chinese, referring to “a voiceless stop that has no audible release”. In other words, “-p” would be something like how Singaporeans would pronounce the “p” in “tap” or “stop” – the “p” is not pronounced, but the lips are shaped in the position.
The three examples used are “學生”, “大學”, and “讀冊”; in Tai-lo: “ha̍k-sing”, “tuā-o̍h”, and “tha̍k-tsheh”. As you can see, the words “學” (the vernacular reading, as in the second example) and “册” are not “-k” ending words, but “-h” ending words. The author has, unfortunately, confused the “-k” and “-h” endings, similar to how some young speakers of Hokkien might mispronounce “食” (to eat) as “tsia̍k” instead of “tsia̍h”.
At the same time, it is true that Mandarin no longer has “checked tones” (入聲) – views vary, but it is generally believed that they disappeared completely by the time the Qing Dynasty (清朝) was established (ie stop blaming the Manchus for everything!). If you are interested, do Google for “入聲脫落” (the disappearance of checked tones).
This is only half of the original essay; it’s quite long, so I have broken it into two parts. I will post the second half in the future, and if you liked or did not like this post, please do leave your replies. ^_^
Greetings! I am a Chinese Singaporean teenager of Hokkien and Hakka descent, and I have created this blog to share about what I’m passionate about: history and languages, although the contents of this blog is by no means restricted to this two rather broad categories.
