Re: Sound changes

HS writes:

>Kou wrote:
>[snip]
>>  >Interesting. I have noticed, from my own observations, that the Hokkien
>>  >/h/ is usually /f/ in Mandarin.
>>
>>  It ain't necessarily so. As a very broad generalization, it works,
>>  but there's "hue2", "fire", Mandarin "huo3", and bazillions other
>>  counterexamples.
>
>True, true. That's why I said "usually". :-) Although that perhaps is even
>too broad a generalization...
Oops, touché.

>But it's interesting you mention "n" vs. "l". The [nN=2] in mainland
>Hokkien has become in my dialect, of all things, [la:N] (low rising, I
>forgot the tone numbers... again). So the famous Hokkien phrase
>[ka.ki.nN=2] becomes [kakilaN], and sounds really different from the
>original because for some odd reason, tone 2 here becomes low rising.
What's "kakilaN"? I can't divine.

>(Because of the odd tone shift, I suspect [la:N] is actually a borrowing
>from the local Malay _orang_, "man", which local Hokkien speakers like to
>deride as [A: laN] (black man). But I could be wrong, of course.)
If by "la:N" you mean "person", then it's just the Hokkien baihua
reading of Mandarin "ren2". It is homophonous with the Mandarin word
for "wolf", "lang2". Watch the hilarity ensue with cross-dialectal
punning.

>  (Ni jiang de hao tu. Ni de fayin zhen bu biaozhun.
>  > etc., etc.))
>[snip]
>
>LOL... I presume [tu] here is [t_hu]? That's quite an insult. It means
>"primitive", "uncultured", "aboriginal" (in the stereotypical negative
>sense).
No one was even *trying* to presume to feign being nice (actually, it
was just a good, ol' fashioned ribbing). Still, a refreshing change
from the utterly meaningless "Wow, your Chinese is absolutely
*amazing*!!!" ("Um, all I said was, 'Hi.'")

Kou

Reply