What is the difference in Hokkien dialects?

[Mavericker]

What is the differewnce between Hokkien spoken in Taiwan, as opposed to Hokkien spoken in Singapore and Malay?

[achiese]

Minnanese in taiwan is a mixture of 漳州話 and 泉州話 bascially.

It's very similar to minnanese spoken in 廈門 , cause 廈門話 is also

a mixture of those two.

There will be no diffculty for taiwanese and 廈門人 to communicate with

each other.

It might be a little bit hard for a taiwanese to understand 漳州話, 泉州話,

unless he used to their accent.

Several places in taiwan keep intact 漳州話 and 泉州話 still.

泉州話--鹿港

漳州話--宜蘭

I have no idea how hokkien spoken in singapore and malay is.

I only saw a singaporean movie once, and I couldn't understand their

hokkien very well.

[Mark Yong]

There are several variants of Hokkien spoken in Malaysia, depending on the locality. The "Penang Hokkien" (which is actually a misnomer, since it really covers an area from as far south as the town of Taiping, all the way to the Thai border) is largely based on 漳州 Chiang Chew Hokkien. In the southern states, the dialect is mostly based on 泉州 Chuan Chew Hokkien.

Over the past two centuries, the dialect has absorbed a considerable number of local Malay words. This is particularly so with the Hokkien dialect as spoken on Penang Island. For those who are very familiar with the Penang Hokkien dialect, they will probably be sub-consciously aware that there are two general types of Hokkien spoken there, i.e. the Baba Hokkien, which tends to use more Malay loan words, and the 新客 Sin Khek Hokkien, which tends to be more pure in vocabulary.

[Ah-Bin]

There are vocabulary differences between Amoy Hokkien and Taiwanese Hokkien.

As I remember

"Khia" means "to live" in Amoy. Taiwanese use "toa" (I don't know the characters)

車頭 "chhia-thau" means "railway station" in Taiwan, but in Amoy they didn't understand until I said 車站 "chhia-cham".

Amoy Taiwan

tam-po-a chit-tiam-tiam 一點點 "a little bit" (the Taiwanese one comes from Mandarin)

oh thng 學堂 hakhau 學校 "school" (the Taiwanese one is from Japanese, same as Mandarin)

toa-oh 大學 taihak 大學 (here the word is the same but the pronunciation is different)

Hoan-a 番仔 a-tok-a "westerner"

There are many more, but I can't think of them at the moment.

In Southeast Asia there are lots of other words that are different, some of them are Malay, but some are older Hokkien words that are not used any more in Taiwan or in China, like 紅毛人 angmolang for westerners, and phoe-chun 飛船 for aeroplanes.

Also I think the Hokkien spoken in Singapore and Penang tends towards the Chang-chou 漳州 style, because they say "pui" and "mui" for 飯 and 門 instead of Chuan-chou 泉州 Amoy and (most of ) Taiwan "png" and "mng".

[Mark Yong]

Ah-Bin wrote: Also I think the Hokkien spoken in Singapore and Penang tends towards the Chang-chou 漳州 style, because they say "pui" and "mui" for 飯 and 門 instead of Chuan-chou 泉州 Amoy and (most of ) Taiwan "png" and "mng".

Not entirely true. It is only in Penang and its neighbouring states where the Hokkien dialect that is spoken tends towards Chiang Chew 漳州, where 飯 is "pnui" and 門 is "mnui" (note that I have deliberately marked the pronunciations with a nasal tone).

It is further down south in the state of Johor all the way to Singapore that 飯 is "png" and 門 is "mng", similar to Chuan Chew 泉州 and Amoy 廈門 Hokkien.

[Ah-Bin]

Not entirely true. It is only in Penang and its neighbouring states where the Hokkien dialect that is spoken tends towards Chiang Chew 漳州, where 飯 is "pnui" and 門 is "mnui" (note that I have deliberately marked the pronunciations with a nasal tone).

I think I must blame my sources for my ignorance. I've never been to Singapore or Malaysia, and I was just relying on the few people I knew (who must all have been Chang-chiu) for my information!

[Ah-Bin]

Not entirely true. It is only in Penang and its neighbouring states where the Hokkien dialect that is spoken tends towards Chiang Chew 漳州, where 飯 is "pnui" and 門 is "mnui" (note that I have deliberately marked the pronunciations with a nasal tone).

I think I must blame my sources for my ignorance. I've never been to Singapore or Malaysia, and I was just relying on the few people I knew (who must all have been Chang-chiu) for my information!

[Mavericker]

Are any of the Hokkien slangs used in Singapore used in Taiwan also.

I was told, Pai kia, for example used used in both places.

[Xi'Er Dun]

汝好無 Lu Hou Bbo

Hi everyone

It's good to see many others with knowledge or keen interest in varieties of Hokkien.

I too myself have an interest in learning Hokkien, but more notably Singapore Hokkien which I am told is more a traditional sort opf Hokkien than that spoken in Penang.

Is there an online source like a helpful website, downloadable audio files or maybe pdf courses that someone quite familiar with online Hokkien learning materials could kindly like me to. If they could do that for me I would be quite thankful.

When it comes to the written Hokkien style though, is a form of written Hokkien only found in Taiwanese, rather than Malaysian or Singaporean Hokkien Varieties.

Also, with the difference in major Hokkien styles, I have found pronounciations used by Singaporeans to be quite different to what is used by the Taiwanese. Also the surnames found in Singapore and Malaysia (which is 黄 Huang in Mandarin) can be either Eng (Ng) or Ooi (Wee) these must be from quite different varieties of Hokkien?

So if anyone who has a great knowledge of what's available for *free* in the online in reagrds to helpful resource materials to learn Hokkien, the Singapore variety would be preferable but not only, then would they be kind enough to link me to some handy sources.

感謝

Gam Sia

[wai ming]

I don't know how useful this would be to you, since you say you are more interested in Singaporean Hokkien, but you can listen to a podcast in Penang Hokkien here.

Also, Taiwanese Hokkien resources (in Chinese) here.

[Xi'Er Dun]

Thankyou user Wai Ming, as on numerous occasions including this one you have contributed in answering my question and helpfully linking me to useful material.

Also a thanks to other users who have contributed to this thread too.

[Lu]

Xi'erdun, there's another rather useful thread elsewhere in the forums, mostly on romanization but it also lists some resources for learning Taiwanese (Hokkien).

[Jialihai Jiejie]

What is the differewnce between Hokkien spoken in Taiwan, as opposed to Hokkien spoken in Singapore and Malay?

Correction: Did you mean "...and Malaysia?"

Hmm... I think TW Hokkien is slightly 'purer' than SG and MY Hokkien. Having said that, SG & MY Hokkien could be more 'colourful' than TW Hokkien as they also mix and use a lot of other local dialects in their version of Hokkien.

Jialihai Jiejie

[Lu]

Taiwan Hokkien has been influenced by Japanese and Mandarin. Not entirely pure either. Perhaps one has to go to Fujian to find the purest Hokkien.

[Ah-Bin]

Pure Hokkien?

I don't know where to find that and I have been looking for it for a while. The Taiwanese version has some of Japanese, the Penang one Malay and English...but the ones in Fujian are getting full of Mandarin! Of course it often doesn't sound like Mandarin, because they take the related words and change the pronunciation, but there are lots of old Hokkien words that have gone out of use in China but are still used in Malaysia or Singapore. I think Hong-chhia for car, Phe-chun for plane and Ang-mo or hoan-a for westerner were all the original Hokkien words, in Fujian they use khi-chia, hui-ki , and goa-kok-lang which are just Mandarin 汽車 飛機 外國人.

[greenarcher]

the chinese here in the philippines also speak fookien/hokkien

though the accent has already been influenced by the local language and maybe english.

[yuensin]

There is no difference. Singapore Hokkien, Malaysian Hokkien are the same as Taiwan Hokkien. It is call Hokkien in Singapore and Malaysia but Tai Yue or Min Nan Wah in Taiwan. But because Singapore and Malaysia are countries with other race..Malay, Hokkien in Singapore and Malaysia have some Malays words for example roti..., aMalay word meaning bread, mata...meaning police man and also the accent is a bit different that is all. By and large it is the same.

I do not know of any English to Hokkien or Hokkien to English dictionary. The nearest is a very good Hokkien dictionary from china "MINNAN FANGYAN DA CIDIAN" meaning Minnan dialiect dictrionary. The ISBN is 7-211-03896-9. But this dictionary is in Mandarin with romanized pronunciation in Hokkien and I think in Mandarin also. If you do not know Mandarin then I think you will have to buy a Mandarin Chinese to English dictionary to cross translate from Hokkien to Mandarin to English.

I bought this dictionary from one of the bookshop in Singapore. The Singapore Hokkien Association wanted to publish a Hokkien dictionary, but I do not know whether it is Hokkien to English or whether is already on sale.

Regards

Sin

[yhjow]

Singapore Hokkien is based primarily on Amoy (Xiamen) hokkien, but mixed with Malay and other dialect words such as Teochew, Cantonese etc. The official Hokkien news in 95.8 radio broadcasted it as "Xiayu Xinwen 廈語新聞", meaning that Singapore Hokkien is based primarily on Amoy (Xiamen) hokkien. That's why it shares a fair amount of intelligibility with Taiwanese hokkien which is close to Amoy Hokkien.

Most of the Hokkien Chinese in Singapore originated from Amoy region, as well as Zhangzhou, Quanzhou, TongAn, Hui-An. Essentially, it's a mixed form of Hokkien, similar to what Amoy Hokkien/Taiwanese Hokkien is etc.

The nearest is a very good Hokkien dictionary from china "MINNAN FANGYAN DA CIDIAN" meaning Minnan dialiect dictrionary. The ISBN is 7-211-03896-9. But this dictionary is in Mandarin with romanized pronunciation in Hokkien and I think in Mandarin also.

Quite a good Hokkien dictionary. I've also got it. The chief editor is a hokkien linguistics professor from Xiamen university by the name of 周長揖.

[chaxiu]

Maryknoll has some good dictionaries for Taiwanese/Hokkien/Amoy/Minnanhua. They have English/Hokkien and Hokkien/English etc.

They're are quite good quality and cheap. Most of there publications are of a religious nature, but the dictionaries are just dictionaries.

See here

http://mklanguage.homestead.com/Lang_Bk_List_2008_12_31online.htm

I have the English to Hokkien version 英語閩南話字典.

The English word is followed by the Hokkien(POJ), then Chinese Character(s)(Mandarin). It also give some example sentences English to POJ.

Hope it helps

Chaxiu

[calibre2001]

What do you guys think of his Hokkien??