Translations

[Thomas Chin]

Also take note that characters sometimes have a literary reading and a colloquial pronunciation.

/bod5/ is such an example.
The literary sound is /fad5/, so when reading texts, Hakka teachers used to teach it to read it as /fad5/ (e.g /fad5 tai3 fung1/) 50 years ago. But in spoken Hakka you say /bod5 tai3 fung1/. In my dialect we do not say /fad5 tai3 fung1/.
Nowadays, linguists consider the use of colloquial pronunciations for reading also correct, so reading /bod5 tai3 fung1/ is not considered wrong.

Regards,

Thomas

[Dylan Sung]

Right, let me first introduce some stuff about Middle Chinese sound system. It is summed up in my pages (see Historical Chinese Phonology/Philology section of)

http://www.sungwh.freeserve.co.uk/chinese

In the table on Guangyun rimes

http://www.sungwh.freeserve.co.uk/chinese/gy-pshy.htm

the 206 rimes of Guangyun are found in the center. They were later reduced by merging some of them together to give 106 rimes known as the PingShui rimes found on the far right. Later, the whole list of rimes were simplified to form rime categories, known as the 16 She. The main types of endings -m, -n, -ng, -p, -t, -k, and vowels type ending, and depend on vowel heights too.

The way Hakka has developed has meant the colloquial and literary readings that Thomas talks about. The main group of rime category types which exhibit dual reading characters (and difference in endings) come from the 梗 She (12 in the table on the far left column).
It incorporates the rime types no.44 庚 梗 映 , no. 45 耕 耿 諍, no. 46. 清 靜勁, no. 47 青 迥 徑 , whose Ru type counterparts 陌, 麥, 昔, 錫 respectively, and the ・She (13 in the far left column) type rimes, incorporating no. 48 蒸 拯 證 and no. 49 登 等 嶝 type rimes whose Ru type counterparts are 職 and 德 respectively.

In She 12 梗 and 13 ・ the characters often have dual readings for example the festival of Qing Ming is cin min in some dialects of Hakka, but ciang miang in other dialects. Both readings cin/ciang and min/miang are therefore derived from the same source. Somewhere down the line, Hakka -ng ending rimes and -k ending rimes become merged with -k and -t ending rimes respectively, hence gwok/gwet, and sang/sin.

Note that where the original -ng or -k ending occurs, the vowels are often low vowels (-a-). But where they've changed to -n and -t respectively, a mid level vowel (-e-) or high vowel (-i-) and probably some on-glide (-ie-) is responsible.

So, 職 is /tsik/ in Cantonese, but /tsit/ in Hakka. Cantonese is thus more conservative, since the original -k ending is retained. Hakka has a high vowel notice the change in ending.

錫 is /sek/ in Cantonese, but /siak/ in Hakka. Notice Hakka has a low vowel /-a-/ and the ending is preserved.

Dyl.

[Dylan Sung]

I do not know what happened but it all became encoded in Japanese!

For the latter two examples, Cantonese/Hakka words

tsik/tsit is work or profession,
sek/siak is the metal 'tin'.

For country gwok/guet see Hakka has a front mid vowel. I forgot to mention it has to be "front" and mid-high for there to be a change in Hakka's end consonant from -ng to -n or -k to -t.

see the vowel chart

http://www.sungwh.freeserve.co.uk/chinese/vchart.htm

Dyl.

[Koo]

Hi Thomas ,

Iam Hakka from Brunei Darussalam. My father from Guangdong province. He arrived at Brunei before world war 2, he married local woman i.e my mother who is not chinese. My father died about 18 yrs ago.We speak a mixture of Hakka and malay but more malay than hakka. Yr translations as well as Dylan have helped me a lot not only to recall but learn new words and phrases - I copy them especially the everyday words and phrases into my notebook - to prepare myself to visit my long lost family (from my father first marriage) whom we manage to contact lately. They live somewhere in the county of Meizhou. Would u translate some more everyday words if u have time

Thank you.

Koo

[Thomas]

Hi Thomas ,

Iam Hakka from Brunei Darussalam. My father from Guangdong province. He arrived at Brunei before world war 2, he married local woman i.e my mother who is not chinese. My father died about 18 yrs ago.We speak a mixture of Hakka and malay but more malay than hakka. Yr translations as well as Dylan have helped me a lot not only to recall but learn new words and phrases - I copy them especially the everyday words and phrases into my notebook - to prepare myself to visit my long lost family (from my father first marriage) whom we manage to contact lately. They live somewhere in the county of Meizhou. Would u translate some more everyday words if u have time

Thank you.

Koo

I suggest to post them on the forum, so people can have a look at them, if you don't mind.

Thomas

[lan xian dapu hak]

Yes, in Dapu Fa, we use 'put' in many instances. We never use 'fak tao foon' except when you use 'fak ten' (go crazy). All the expressions listed above are also used in Dapu Hakka.

[lan xian dapu hak]

I mean 'fak tai foon', not 'fak tao foon'. Sorry for typing error.

[tfc.chin]

Is it 'fak' or 'fat' you use (for 發)?

Regards,

Thomas

[lan xian dapu hak]

It sounds similar to Kungfufa (Cantonese). It sounds more like 'fark' but definitely not 'fat' as in the English word 'fat' (overweight).

[susanspy]

Hello all,

i am really thnkfull to all who have posted here, i am a great fan of china dono why but i like it a lot well might be coz of their food, have been there many times & have eaten like a pig i like teh language as well i am learning the same 7 this posts help me a lot with the same i get to knwo new words here, please keep posting.

Cheers!!!