Accents

We all speak Teochew differently with different accents depending where our ancestors are from. My roots are in Swatow and I therefore speak Swatow Uê.

However, I can hear some differences between how I speak Teochew with some Teochew people who are living in Swatow.

For example:

silver or money: I say ngeng5 and I hear in lots of videos and some people living in Swatow call money or silver nging5.

sleep: I say ngh8 and some people from Swatow say inh8 and people in Teochew City says ug8. 

banana: I say ging1zio1 for banana and many people in our homeland say gêng1zio1

Whatever you say, just remember so long as we understand one another, it is alright. 

AND experts say our people living in Dio'Ioⁿ 潮陽 speaks closest to Middle Chinese, where our language originates from, even before anybody spoke Mandarin. 

There say there are no pigs in Dio'Ioⁿ because they call pigs - du1 instead of de1 and you as lu2 instead of le1 and in Gig'Ioⁿ they change i into ê !

However, Chinese language experts will tell you Middle Chinese say you as lu2! Even our cousins, the Hokkien people say the same thing. One of their experts say, it is strange that Middle Chinese arrives in Teochew you becomes le2 and arrives in Hokkien and becomes li2 and from the lu2 in Middle Chinese. 

I wonder why he did not say that people in Dio'Ioⁿ say lu2 for you!

Today we have Mogher and Czyzd to tell us how our people speak and we can celebrate our diversity in our various accents. 

I also speak an old fashion Teochew for example:

outside - I say ghua7kao2 and people in our homeland would say kao2 - and they would say ke3 kao2 ziah8 muêh8giaⁿ6 - go out and eat.

I say têng1mung5 for window and nowadays people just say têng1. 

The most important thing is for us to improve our Teochew and learn new words each day. 

Let us be proud of being Teochew - learn to speak Teochew well and also do not forget to learn Mandarin, for it is wonderful that we can converse with one another in Mandarin. 

Never mind if you speak a funny kind of Mandarin. Do listen to 鳥嘴嬸 Ziao2cui3 Sim3 speaks Mandarin and be encouraged and have a good laugh. 

鳥嘴嬸 Ziao2cui3 Sim3 says to take a picture as pai'ziao 拍照 ha ha! So it is ok to speak in broken Mandarin! 

I suppose you know how to say to take a picture in Teochew. [There is no character for ho3!]

ho3sion3 □相 A □像	to take a photograph	zhao4xiang4 照相 A 照像 she4ying3 攝影｜摄影 pai1zhao4 拍照
niab4ian2 攝影｜摄影	to take a photograph, photography, to take a film	she4ying3攝影｜摄影