Book Review
Penang Hokkien Dialect by Tan Choon Hoe
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Book Review
Penang Hokkien Dialect by Tan Choon Hoe |
Puzzling This little book fills a gap in the literature on the subject. However it contains much that puzzles. The Cantonese sound sometimes intrudes. For instance, the word, "word, " is ooah, a hard vowel sound and not wah , which suits the Cantonese tongue. Also, "I", is certainly not wah but gua. Some expressions are downright wrong. For instance the word, "who?" is rendered as chooi chooi (tipsy) rather than the correct choo-chooi (a corruption of chi-chooi ). "Night" is not are meh but arm-meh ( arm = dark). To marry is not kau-weng but kau-en (from the Malay "kahwin") Some selections need an explanation. For instance why is "banana fritters" not gorangpisang but instead the rarely used keen cheoh chnee. If Baba usage is to be avoided then why use bor toi, bag, kau-en, bus stop, and so on? Some words included are rarely used by the Baba. For instance k'uai is always used for fast and not keen, which smacks more of Amoy than Penang |
| A difference? In the chapter on "present continuous tense" tua, hardly used, appears in sentences like E tua tee chiak (He is eating) whereas tua is never used in everyday language And even more surprising are the pages on superlatives where the author uses a single tay instead of the correct expression which is tay-it (No1). But perhaps our critical remarks are skewed because the author may have perceived a difference between the peculiar language of the Baba and the "Penang Hokkien Dialect", which is the title of the booklet. A Baba would never say lawlee for lorry nor sawlee for sorry. Specialists and scholars in the subject of Hokkien would be fascinated, no doubt, if in the next edition the dialect that the author seeks to demonstrate in his booklet is isolated and defined. Some of the English sentences are puzzling. For instance, "That tail is its" on page 13. And we learn to our surprise that hiking means hill climbing (phek snua). The book will have to be carefully revised for the next edition if it is not to remain, in the author's own words, "a catalyst to spur others" but a valuable contribution to our understanding of the language of a section of Penang people that speaks a language of which we have had but a mere glimpse.# K L Chai A Guidebook to PHD: Penang Hokkien Dialect by Tan Choon Hoe. Price RM18 |
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| ____________________ The Penang File Issue 23 |