Penang Hokkien: Meaning (information, definition, explanation, facts)

Penang Hokkien is a local variant of Minnan (Southern Min) spoken in Penang, Malaysia. It is the lingua franca in Penang, and is characterised by the widespread use of Malay and English borrowed words. It is predominantly a spoken dialect: it is rarely if ever written in Chinese characters, and there is no standard romanisation. This article uses the Missionary Romanisation or Peh⁸-oe⁷-ji⁷ (白話字) which is common in Taiwan.

Minnan is one of the sub-languages of the Chinese language and is mainly spoken in southern Fujian and Taiwan. It is also spoken by many overseas Chinese in Malaysia, Singapore, the Philippines and Indonesia, and is known in Southeast Asia as "Hokkien" (福建話; pinyin Fújiàn huà; Minnan: Hok⁴-kien³-oa⁷). Strictly speaking, it should be known as Southern Hokkien to distinguish it from Minbei (Northern Min), the language of Fuzhou, the capital of Fujian province.

Sino-Tibetan ⊃ Chinese ⊃ Min ⊃ Southern Min ⊃ Penang Hokkien

In particular, Penang Hokkien is based on the dialect of Minnan spoken in the Zhangzhou (漳州 Hokkien: Chiang¹-chiu¹) prefecture of Fujian. It is said that it most closely resembles the dialect spoken in Longhai (龍海 Hokkien: Liong⁵-hai²) county, around the city of Haicheng (海澄 Hokkien: Hai²-teng⁵). In Southeast Asia, similar dialects are spoken in the states bordering Penang, and in Medan and Port Klang.

Tones

The tones in Penang Hokkien are:

1. 陰平 Yin-ping |55|
2. 上聲 Shang-sheng |51|
3. 陰去 Yin-qu |21|
4. 陰入 Yin-ru |2|
5. 陽平 Yang-ping |25|
6.  
7. 陽去 Yang-qu |21|
8. 陽入 Yang-ru |5|

The numbers in | | reflect the tone contours, with 5 being the highest and 1 the lowest.

As in the Xiamen (Amoy) standard, the Shangsheng is not distinguished into Yin and Yang, and there is thus no 6^th tone. However, as in the Zhangzhou dialect the two Qu tones are virtually identical, except in their sandhi forms.

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 is pronounced with a rising |25| tone, but when it is placed in front of another syllable in 牛肉 gu⁵-bah⁴ is pronounced with to a low |21| tone.

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

• 1^st becomes 7^th
• 7^th becomes 3^rd
• 3^rd becomes 2^nd (sometimes sounds like 1^st in Penang Hokkien)
• 2^nd becomes 1^st

• 5^th becomes 7^th

• 4^th becomes 8^th
• 8^th becomes 4^th

For more detailed rules on Minnan tone sandhi, see Taiwanese (linguistics).

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

• The use of -uiⁿ where Xiamen has -ng, e.g. 門 mui^{n 5}, 飯 pui^{n 7}, 酸 sui^{n 1}, etc.;
• The use of -ε and -εⁿ where Xiamen has -e and -iⁿ, e.g. 家 kε¹ 蝦 hε⁵ 生 sε^{n 1};
• The use of -oe where Xiamen has -e and vice versa, e.g. 火 hoe² 未 boe⁷ 細 se³;
• The use of -oa where Xiamen has -oe, e.g. 話 oa⁷ 花 hoa¹; 瓜 koa¹;
• The use of -io·ⁿ (or -iauⁿ) where Xiamen has -iuⁿ, e.g. 羊 io·^{n 5} 丈 tio·^{n 7} (or tiau^{n 7}) 想 sio·^{n 7} (or siau^{n 7});
• The use of Zhangzhou forms such as 糜 moai⁵ (Xiamen: be⁵), 先生 sin¹-sε^{n 1} (Xiamen: sien¹-si^{n 1}), etc.

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 Yang-ru (8^th) tone in Penang, pronounced high |5| as in Xiamen and other forms of Minnan, where in Zhangzhou it is low with a slight lilt |12|;
• The use of -u in some words such as 你 lu², 豬 tu¹, 魚 hu⁵, etc., where Zhangzhou has li², ti¹ and hi⁵. This is a characteristic of other variants of Minnan, such as the dialects of Tongan (同安 Hokkien: Tang⁵-oa^{n 1}) and some of the villages on Amoy island.
• The adoption of variant pronunciations: e.g. 我 wa² from Teochew (Zhangzhou: goa²);
• The use of unique variant pronunciations: e.g. 什麼 ha^{n 2}-mih⁸ (Zhangzhou: sa^{n 2}-mih⁸).

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 (baru): new(ly), just now
• batu: stone
• berlian: diamond
• jamban: toilet
• jambu: guava
• kisien (kesihan): pity
• mana: as if?, since when?
• mata: police
• manik: bead
• loti (roti): bread
• sabun, soap (borrowing by Malay from the Portuguese language; also present in Taiwanese)
• suka, to like
• tapi, but
• tuala, towel (borrowing by Malay from the English language)