Mark, although not all, nonetheless there are many native Hokkien speakers in Indonesia - especially those who received Chinese education or have learned Mandarin - who can understand Hokkien news from Taiwan or China. Indeed my mom, relatives and many people from my hometown mainly watch Taiwanese ...

Initial 'y-' in Mandarin can be 'g' or 'i' in Hokkien, 'yu-' can be 'gu-' or 'u-'. 月 and 越 are both yue4 in Mandarin, but in Hokkien the former is guat8 (col. ger8/ge8/gue8) and the latter is uat8. 研, 延, 鹽 all are yan2 in Mandarin, but respectively gian2, ian5 and iam5 in Hokkien. 員 can be uan5 or g...

I am not sure about the exact composition of Cuanciu, Ciangciu and E-mng Hokkien in Indonesia as there is no census done. From my experience: Hokkien in the northern part of Sumatra is very similar to those in the northern part of Malaysia, and in the eastern part of Sumatra is very similar to the s...

Mark, I think there are still quite a number of people especially in Taiwan and Fujian who still can recite classical works using literary reading. Unfortunately most young people are not able to do that. Indeed literary quotes like those won't be easily understood by most native Hokkien speakers. E...

Hi Sim Indeed it's a popular Hokkien folk song! This webpage http://edu.ocac.gov.tw/lang/taiwanese/s6.htm has the song, just click the gramophone icon to play the sound and illustration. Many years ago I watched a Hong Kong movie on tv with children choir singing this song beautifully. I don't remem...

Aurelio & Heruler, thank you for interesting linguistic lessons. Hopefully both of you will keep posting more.

Heruler, glad to have you back here. Sorry to hear that your luggage especially those notes were stolen. Hopefully you'll remember and even have more findings!

Sim, thanks for the poem. It's funny and interesting. Regarding our discussion last time, actually I also don't really remember until I read those postings again.... so no worry about repetition of similar questions. About "田葛蛤" (chan kua-kap), I'm not sure if it's the same as "田蛤仔" (chan5-kap8-a8, ...

Sim, you're welcome. Thanks for the encouragement, I hope to record them in near future. Btw I found similar versions of those children rhymes in internet. Beside the song, Theresa Teng also sang several Hokkien songs such as 燒肉粽 sio1-ba4-cang3 (hot dumpling) and 一粒流星 cit8-liap8-liu5-chi*1 (a meteor).

Sim, I don't know about the poem but it sounds interesting. Could you post the entire text here? Flea is 虱母 sat4-bu2 ("flea-mother"). Bedbug is 木虱 bak7-sat4 ("wood-flea"). The latter was borrowed into Malay/Indonesian as "bangsat" to mean "bedbug" or "a jerk or scoundrel". I don't know about "khoo2"...

Sim, I heard of this song and remember the story but not the lyric. In 繁體 [正寫 cia*3-sia2] Traditional Form 象 chiu*7/siong7/siang7 is used for "elephant" & "image", 像 - same pronunciation - for "likeness" & "image". Both are just 象 in 簡體 [簡寫 kan2-sia2] Simplified Form. So 亲象 is 親像 chin1-chiu*7 means ...

Hi Sim: Wow, that's really good! :D Actually I ever thought of keeping records of the traditional children rhymes [such as: 月娘刀鈍, 兒仔刀利 .... ger8-niu5 to1 tun1, gi5-na8 to1 lai7 ....] that I used to as a child in Hokkien town of Bagansiapiapi. Yet due to busyness and - particularly - lack of persiste...

Hi Sim :D Really glad that you're back and others (Aurelio, Mark) too! Also that we have "new" friends here such as Heruler! And of course also Hong with his continuous participation and interesting links! Hopefully this forum will always be lively! Sim, what research have you been doing? Do please ...

Hi Mark Glad to have you back here. :D From what I know, it's kho2-che4 [POJ: kho2-chheh4], so the characters are indeed 考冊. It seems unlikely that the character 測 chik4/chhek4 is also read as che4/chheh4. In my dialect, we also use kho2-cy1 [POJ: kho2-chu1] 考書. Same for thak8-cy1 讀書 and thak8-che4 ...

ong wrote:www.lib.ndhu.edu.tw/libhtml/series/200204/4-331-400.pdf

Hong, thanks for this very interesting link!

Although "wind" may be not a convincing match, nonetheless I'm amazed to see the similar linguistic pattern! May be this kind of similarities can be found in other languages also. After all we all are related!