Penang Hokkien

Penang Hokkien is a local variant of spoken in Penang, Malaysia. It is the ''lingua franca'' in Penang as well as other northern states of Malaysia surrounding it, and is characterised by the pronunciation of words according to the Zhangzhou dialect, together with widespread use of and borrowed words. It is predominantly a spoken dialect: it is rarely written in , and there is no standard romanisation. This article uses the Missionary Romanisation or ''Pe?h-ōe-jī'' which is common in Taiwan.

Minnan is one of the sub-languages of the Chinese language and is mainly spoken in southern Fujian, Taiwan, Hainan and parts of Guangdong, with the main standard dialects being Hokkien, and . Within Hokkien, the Amoy dialect is the prestige dialect. It is also spoken by many overseas Chinese in Malaysia, Singapore, the Philippines and Indonesia.

Penang Hokkien is based on the dialect of Hokkien spoken in the Zhangzhou prefecture of Fujian. It is said that it most closely resembles the dialect spoken in the district of Haicang in Longhai county and in the districts of Jiaomei and Xinglin in neighbouring Xiamen prefecture. In Southeast Asia, similar dialects are spoken in the states bordering Penang, and in . In contrast, in southern Malaysia and Singapore, most Hokkien speakers speak a dialect based on the Amoy standard.

Tones

In Penang Hokkien, there are in total seven . However, as some tones are nearly identical, most native speakers of Penang Hokkien are only aware of four or five tones. The seven tones are:



The names of the tones no longer bear any relation to the tone contours, e.g. the Rising tone actually falls. As in Amoy and Zhangzhou, the Rising tone is not distinguished into upper and lower, and there is thus no 6th tone. As in Zhangzhou, the two Departing tones are virtually identical, except in their sandhi forms.

Tone sandhi

Like in other Minnan dialects, the tone of a syllable in Penang Hokkien depends on where in a phrase or sentence the relevant syllable is placed. For example, the word 牛 gu⁵ in isolation is pronounced with an ascending tone, , but when it combines with a following syllable, as in 牛肉 gu⁵-bah⁴, it is pronounced with to a low level tone, .



The rules which apply when a syllable is placed in front of a connected syllable in standard Minnan, simply put, are as follows:

* 1st becomes 7th
* 7th becomes 3rd
* 3rd becomes 2nd
* 2nd becomes 1st
* 5th becomes 7th
Checked syllables:
* 4th becomes 8th
* 8th becomes 4th

Although the two departing tones are usually difficult to tell apart in Penang Hokkien, their tone contours being and , in their sandhi forms they become and and are thus easily distinguishable. For more detailed rules on the Hokkien tone sandhi, see Taiwanese.

Minnan and Mandarin tones

There is a reasonably reliable correspondence between Hokkien and Mandarin tones:

* Upper Level: Hokkien 1st tone = Mandarin 1st tone, e.g. 雞 ke¹ / jī.
* Lower Level: Hokkien 5th tone = Mandarin 2nd tone, e.g. 龍 leng⁵ / lóng.
* Rising: Hokkien 2nd tone = Mandarin 3rd tone, e.g. 馬 bε² / mǎ.
* Departing: Hokkien 3rd/7th tones = Mandarin 4th tone, e.g. 兔 th?³ / tù, 象 chhi??⁷ / xiàng.

Words with Entering tones all end with -p, -t, -k or -h . As Mandarin no longer has any entering tones, there is no corresponding relationship for the Hokkien 4^th and 8^th tones, e.g. 國 kok⁴ / guó, but 發 hoat⁴ / fā.

Literary and colloquial pronunciations

Hokkien has not been taught in schools in Penang since the establishment of the Republic of China in 1911, when Mandarin was made the Chinese national language. As such, few if any people have received any formal instruction in the language, and it is not used for literary purposes. However, as in other variants of Minnan, most words have both literary and colloquial pronunciations, and the literary pronunciations still appear in limited circumstances, e.g.:

* in given names , e.g. 安 an¹ rather than oa?¹, 玉 giok⁸ rather than gek⁸
* in a few surnames, e.g. 葉 iap⁸ rather than hioh⁸
* in other proper names, e.g. 龍山堂 Liong⁵-san¹-tong⁵ rather than Leng⁵-soa?¹-tong⁵
* in certain set phrases, e.g. 差不多 chha¹-put⁴-to¹ rather than chhε¹-m⁷-to¹, 見笑 kien³-siau³ rather than ki?³-chhio³

Unlike in Taiwan and mainland China, the literary pronunciations of numbers higher than two are not used when giving telephone numbers, etc. Literary variants are generally eschewed in favour of colloquial pronunciations, e.g. 大學 toa⁷-oh⁸ instead of tai⁷-hak⁸.

Differences from standard Minnan

Most of the differences between Penang Hokkien and Amoy Hokkien exist also in Zhangzhou, e.g.:

* The use of -ui? where Amoy has -ng, e.g. 門 mui?⁵, 飯 pui?⁷, 酸 sui?¹, etc.;
* The use of -ε and -ε? where Amoy has -e and -i?, e.g. 家 kε¹, 蝦 hε⁵, 生 sε?¹;
* The use of -oe where Amoy has -e and ''vice versa'', e.g. 火 hoe², 未 boe⁷, 地 te⁷, 細 se³;
* The use of -oa where Amoy has -oe, e.g. 話 oa⁷, 花 hoa¹, 瓜 koa¹;
* The use of -i?? where Amoy has -iu?, e.g. 羊 i??⁵, 丈 ti??⁷, 想 si??⁷;
* The use of -iang where Amoy has -iong, e.g. 上 siang⁷, 香 hiang¹;
* The use of j- in some words where Amoy has l-, e.g. 入 jip⁸, 熱 joah⁸, 日 jit⁸;
* The use of Zhangzhou pronunciations such as 糜 moai⁵ , 先生 sin¹-sε?¹ , etc.;
* The use of Zhangzhou expressions such as 挑羹 thau¹-kiong¹

Differences from the Zhangzhou dialect

Although Penang Hokkien is obviously based on the Zhangzhou dialect, there are some obvious differences, which in many cases result from the influence of other Minnan dialects, e.g.:

* The lower-entering tone in Penang, which is pronounced high as in Amoy and many other parts of Fujian, whereas in most Zhangzhou dialects it is low with a slight lilt ;
* The use of -u in some words such as 汝 lu², 豬 tu¹, 魚 hu⁵, etc., where Zhangzhou has li², ti¹ and hi⁵. This is a characteristic of dialects in other parts of Zhangzhou and Xiamen prefectures.
* The adoption of pronunciations from : e.g. 我 wa² , 我人 uang²¹, 汝人 luang²¹, 伊人 iang¹
* The adoption of Amoy and Quanzhou pronunciations like 否勢 phai?²-se³ , 百 pah⁸ , etc.
* The use of unique variants such as 甚物 ha?²-mih⁸ .

Borrowed words

Malay

Like other dialects in Malaysia and Singapore, Penang Hokkien borrows heavily from Malay, but sometimes to a greater extent, e.g.:

*''balai'': police station
*''balu '': new, just now
*''batu'': stone
*''berlian'': diamond
*''jamban'': toilet
*''jambu'': guava
*''kahwin'': marry
*''kisien '': pity
*''mana'': as if?, since when?
*''mata'': police
*''manik'': bead
*''loti '': bread
*''sabun'', soap
*''suka'', to like
*''tapi'', but
*''tuala'', towel
*''sampah'', garbage

There are also many Hokkien words which have been borrowed into Malay, often with slightly different meanings, e.g. 樓頂 ''loteng'' , 馬車 ''beca'' , 麵 mi , 米粉 ''bihun'' , 先生 ''sinseh'' , 茶 ''teh'' , 茶壺 ''teko'' , 粿 ''kuih'' , 豆腐 ''tauhu'' , 中華 ''Tionghua'' , 鮭汁 ''kicap'' , 瓜子 ''kuaci'' , 日本 ''Jepun'' , etc.

English

Penang Hokkien has also borrowed some words from English, some of which may have been borrowed via Malay, but these tend to be more technical and less well embedded than the Malay words, e.g. brake, park, pipe, pump, etc.

English words borrowed from Hokkien include 茶 tea and 鮭汁 ketchup.