Missing Characters

We, Chinese, have over 60 thousand characters. A dictionary, 漢語大字典 from Taiwan, which has listed all [perhaps most] of our characters and this process has taken many decades and over 400 people helped to compile the dictionary, which comes in eight volumes.  However, only very few of these characters are in the unicode list. 

The last time when such great work was done, was during the period of the Great Emperor Kangxi, during the Qing dynasty.

The Japanese based their characters on this dictionary, which was compiled during the period of this Great Emperor and the Japanese therefore calls Chinese characters "Kanji" to name them after Emperor Kangxi.

So how do Teochew dictionaries come up with missing unicode characters? 

Let us take just one character "diang" and discuss one way in which this problem is solved.

We say di2diang5 for whom or who [誰 in Chinese] and u6diang5si5 for sometimes [有時候 in Chinese].

So what character can we use for diang?

We know dzi7diang2 字典 for character dictionary.  So one of the writers of one my dictionaries use 唺 to represent this diang5 sound. We know that this diang character is only used for its sound because it has 口 as its radical. 

So now we can write u6diang5si5 as 有唺時 and di2diang5 as 哋唺.

Then you can say to me - Well, we can say u6diang5si5 as u6si5 有時 and we say di2diang7 as di2nang7 哋人. Of course you can and then the problem of not having a character for diang5 will disappear. Then how about di2 哋? Well, the problem with di2 is solved in the same way as diang5, described above. 

Alternatively, you could say to me, but the diang in both words have different tones. Yes, the diang in u'diang'si changes from tone 5 to tone 7 because the character is in the middle of the word and we say it as u3diang7si5. 

For this reason, many ghua'di'nang 外地人 finds learning Teochew very difficult in China.

I hope you have found this post interesting and it has helped you to understand some aspect of the uniqueness and beauty of our Teochew ue. 

Thank you for reading this post. God bless!

lo2 - to show action in progress

We all say this. Sometimes we even say it without noticing. That is to say lo2 to indicate the present continuous tense.

For example:

i1 lo2 ziah8 伊裸食 - He is eating. [In Chinese it would be 他在吃 ]

I have not seen a character for lo2 until I started reading Zhang XiaoShan.  He uses 裸 for this lo2, and the character actually means naked in Chinese.

So why did Zhang XiaoShan chose this character for lo2? I wonder!

In other dictionaries, they use 在 without indicating the PêngIm.

In Chinese it would be 正在 to mean in the middle of doing something, but of course we do not use this in our spoken language, unless we were reading formal Teochew as in reading for a news broadcast or something.

So, next time you say lo2, think about 裸. And remember, we have tenses too in Teochew. 

Thanks for reading this post. Sorry it is so short. God bless!

Another use of 調

Zhang XiaoShan in his dictionary 新潮汕字典  on page 623 wrote this sentence, which I thought would be interesting to discuss, so I can have some deep learning and we all can benefit together.

口畔風呾伊慾上調。

I would read this as Kao2boiⁿ5 huang1daⁿ3 i1 aiⁿ3 zio ⁿ6tiao5.

So, let us unpack this sentence.

First - kao2boiⁿ5 is explained as 外邊 in Mandarin and we would normally be saying 外邊 as ghua7boiⁿ5 外畔 in Teochew. Ah-Hog 阿福, the lad who is mentally challenged in Teochew sketches, uses this word ghua7boiⁿ5 外畔 to mean outside as ghua7kao2 外口 .

Zhang XiaoShan uses kao2boiⁿ5 口畔 to mean outside or it could mean other places other than one's home or even boarder regions, depending on use.  So let us take kao2boiⁿ5 口畔 to mean not at one's immediate vicinity. 

Then how about huang1daⁿ3 風呾  ? This is a Teochew word. Another way of saying this is hong1siaⁿ1 風聲. Both huang1daⁿ3 and hong1siaⁿ1, both our own Teochew words, mean "it is rumoured". 

You already know i1 and aiⁿ3 to mean "he" and "want" respectively. 

As for zioⁿ6tiao5 上調   - this is a Chinese word and in Mandarin is said as shang4tiao2, which means to increase prices. Could Zhang XiaoShan have used ki2gê3 起價 instead?

So to put all of these together, the above sentence written by Zhang XiaoShan means, "It is rumoured, from elsewhere, he wants to increase prices."

I have written the above, and other posts, in a way in which if you cannot read Chinese characters, you can still follow my discussions. I have this need to help all of us to improve our bho'ghe 母語 - mother tongue. I imagine by now you know about mogher website to help us in improving our bho'ghe language proficiency. 

Zhang XiaoShan uses Simplified characters and I write in Traditional characters because when I first started learning Chinese, everybody suggested I learn Traditional characters and I followed their advice - even friends from China. Once I have learnt traditional characters, it is very easy to learn simplified. Nowadays, I have to know both, as my learning resources are from Taiwan and Swatow. 

Thank you for reading this post. God bless! 

調 - diao3, diao5, diao7, tiao3, tiao5

I have been studying this character 調  the whole of yesterday, which can take the sounds of diao3, diao5 , diao7, tiao3 and tiao5 depending on use.

One of the words I learnt yesterday with this character 調 was diao5zing1 調真 and it was marked by Zhang XiaoShan as one of our words, which means you cannot go and read it in Mandarin tiao'zhen, thinking people will understand you. There is no such word in Mandarin. 

I would just say zo'liao 做了 and I suppose I can now say diao5zing1!

So Zhang XiaoShan on page 118 of his dictionary [2009 edition] shows how to use this word. He writes:

作業做未調真孬出來。

So how do I read this in our Teochew uê.

I would read it as "Zag4ngiab8 bhuê7 zo3 diao5zing1 mo2 cug4lai5."

I have two questions which I want to ask Zhang XiaoShan. 

1. Why did he write cug'lai instead of cug'ke 出去 ?
2. Why did he use zag4ngiab8 instead of gang1kuê3 功課 ? I am glad he used zag4ngiab8 as it is a new word which I have learnt.

I suppose he did not write bhuê7 zo'liao and used bhuê7 zo3 diao5zing1 so he could illustrate how to use diao5zing1.

If you are wondering - if he does write all the PêngIm out? No, he does not and he just expects the reader to know how to read Chinese characters in Teochew. So, do not go out there and buy the dictionary and spend £50 thinking Zhang XiaoShan writes out all the PêngIm and you can learn Teochew quickly. Not at all!

I have learnt to read in Teochew because I have spent years reading in our language. 

I think you all know that I am English educated, never attended a single Chinese lesson, and learnt Chinese in London years ago in my 20's. As for Teochew, I have a teacher who taught me over the phone every weekend for 8 months and who lives in E'Meung [Xiamen], China. So, I am a good example of a repented banana! LOL

Going back to Zhang XiaoShan's example, what does 作業做未調真孬出來。 mean?

zag'ngiab 作業 means work, assignment as in school work

zo'bhue diao'zing 做未調真 means not completed

mo2 孬 means cannot

cug'lai 出來  come out

all together = (If the) work (is) not completed, (then) cannot come out.

All the words in brackets are added by me to give some sense in English.

Do notice the person who is doing the work is not mentioned in the sentence. 

Do you know of any shortcuts to read 調 as diao3, diao5, diao7, tiao3 or tiao5?  I do not and I have to learn all the words of by hard! 

The character 一 for one or first

The character 一 which stands for one or first is the easiest to write and the hardest to learn, if you are learning Teochew. 

Why do I say this? This character 一 can be said as zêg8, ig4, iao1, be omitted or substituted with another character.

If we are saying cardinal numbers, like 1, 2, 3 etc, then we say zêg8, no6 etc.

In Zhang XiaoShan's dictionary, he gave an example "Lai5 guê3 zêg8 zua7." 來過一帀 as an example of using the measure word zua7 帀, which means came before once.

However, normal Teochew people would omit to say zêg8 一  normally, and they would say  Iⁿ2zoiⁿ5  lai5 guê3 以前來過 - which means "came before".

So in front of a measure word or sometimes known as classifier, one could say zêg8 for 一 as in one. 

You can hear this again in a song which a Thai Teochew nang sung, whose title of the song is 

tiⁿ1dêng2 zêg8 ziah4 gho5 - 天頂一隻鵝

And for correct Teochew grammar, it should have been "tiⁿ1dêng2 u6 ziah4 gho5 天頂有隻鵝" where the zêg8 一 is substituted by u6 有 - Heaven has a goose, rather than tiⁿ1dêng2 zêg8 ziah4 gho5 - 天頂一隻鵝 which means one goose in heaven.

Let us see more substitution examples.

In a short play, this lad was selling two eggs for a dollar, and he said

"gai5-ngeng5 no6 liab8 個銀二粒" and here we can hear him substituting zêg8 一 for gai5 個.   

Another example is for the first building in a place - the first building is not said as doiⁿ6ig4 goiⁿ1 第一間 but said as tao5goiⁿ1 頭間 .

I have noticed many more substitution and omission examples in my study notes, but I now like to move on to the use of ig4.

So for ordinal numbers, we say ig4.  For example, as doiⁿ6ig4 第一 for first and ciu1ig4 初一 for first day of the lunar month.

We also say ig4 for 11 and 1 o'clock - zab8ig4 diam2 十一點 for 11 o'clock and ig4 diam2 一點 for one o'clock. 

And how about iao1 一 and we say this for giving off telephone numbers, especially over the phone, like 110 is said as iao1 iao1 kang3 一一空.

The above are only some examples of how to say one in Teochew. I imagine you must be sufficiently confused by now if you have heard this for the first time. 

The key here is to forget Mandarin when you are speaking Teochew and do not do direct Mandarin Teochew translations. Otherwise you will be laughed at like the way my sister laughed at me when I first spoke Teochew to her after many years, translating directly from Mandarin to Teochew.  

二 no6 or ri7

In our Chaoshan hua 潮汕話 or Teochew 潮洲話, we can say 二 as no6 or ri7. So when do we say no6 and when to say ri7 for 二?

For ordinal numbers, such as second - then we say ri7, like ri7 hiaⁿ1 二兄 for second brother.

When referring to time, like two o'clock or 12 o'clock, we say ri7 diam2 二點 or zab8ri7 diam2 十二點, respectively.

BUT for two hours, we say no6 diam2 zêng1 二點鐘 and it is not correct to say no6 zhong1 tao5 二鐘頭 for two hours and this is half Mandarin and half Teochew. 

For two minutes, we say no6 hung1 zêng1 二分鐘 or for two seconds we say no6 miao2 二秒. 

However when we are referring to the number of people or things - like two people - we say no6 nang5 二人 or say two hundred people no6 bêh8 nang5 二百人.

So, I think I have covered all the common mistakes I have heard people say and perhaps together we can improve our proficiency in our bhoghe 母語. 

Multiple use of 香

I was reading a post about learning Taiwanese MinNan Hua which is dialect of Teochew.

It is about the use of the xiang 香 character.

The writer gave an example in Mandarin 阿香去香港買回來的香很香 and the rest you can read from the link above.

So how we say the above sentence in Teochew.

Modern Teochew: 阿香去香港買轉來個香過芳

Ah-Hiang ke3 HiangKang bhoi2 deng2lai2 gai7-hioⁿ1 guê3 pang1

and my parents would say 阿香去香港買轉來個香真芳 where they would say zing1 pang1 rather than gue3 pang1 for very fragrant. 

Ah-Hiang went to HongKong bought [and took] home incense which is very fragrant. 

In this example, xiang 香, can be used as a name of a person, a name of a place, a word to mean fragrant or to mean incense as in joss sticks. Do note that in Teochew fragrant is said as pang1 芳.