I have written a post and posted it in my Teochew culture blog and you may want to view it and it is about how to say "not feeling well".
I have been wanting to discuss about 上 and its equivalent in Teochew.
First we have 上面 - we say in Teochew dêng2boin2 頂畔 for on top of
and we have 地上 and we say this as tou5ê6 塗下 for the ground
for 樓上 we say lao5dêng2 樓頂 for upstairs
for 馬上 we say ziag4si5 即時 as in immediately
and I can go on and on systematically translating a Mandarin dictionary.
However, I came across a sentence and I thought how it could be translated and it pertains to 路上 as on a road or on the surface of a road.
一棵大樹躺在路上 - a big tree lies on a road.
As usual, we omit 一 in Teochew.
We substitute 棵 the measure word with our own measure word which is zang5 叢 - see LLL page 54
as for 躺 we say do2 倒 [see ZXS page 859]
and then the problem begins with 路上 - I know we could not possibly say lou7dêng2 路頂 and we definitely do not say lou7zion6 路上 and definately not lou7siang6.
Therefore, I think we should omit 上.
Hence 一棵大樹躺在路上 could be said in Teochew as
zang5 dua7 ciu7 do2 do6 lou7 叢大樹倒在路 - a big tree lies on a road
Do you have a better suggestion?
My next problem is how do we say 堂上 [as in 堂上書生空白頭] in Teochew - which means in the hall? Do we say it as deng5lai6 堂內? I know I would read it as deng5zion6 ze1sêng1 kong1bêh8tao5 堂上書生空白頭 which a line from Du Fu's Tang Dynasty poem - which means Du Fu in the hall - as Du Fu's nicknames are both 書生 and 空白頭.
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I have been thinking how our parents, grand-parents, who did not have any Teochew dictionaries continued to pass on our language on to us.
For myself, I think the only way I can improve my Teochew is to 落力學習潮洲話 [努力學習潮洲話].
This whole idea of one not writing in Teochew is rather silly. If this is the case, then how do I make notes to learn, revise and remember?
Then the other argument is why am I writing in Traditional characters? This is because I am Tang Dynasty descendent and I cannot face our ancestors not knowing how to read and write in our most beautiful characters which they used. I make notes quickly with pen and paper using Simplified characters - but when I write properly, I write in proper Chinese characters. Just like when I write properly, I write in proper Chinese and not in Teochew.
I also have been thinking of how to say 帥哥 [apparently 率 also said as shuai4 means 漂亮 according to my Chinese dictionaries] in Teochew. I saw yesterday on the Internet and it writes as 阿兄雅死 and I would prefer to say it as 阿兄過雅 and I suppose my parents would say this as 阿兄真雅.
So how do you say say 帥哥 in Teochew?
