Comments on: Penang Hokkien in Decline?

By: Moonbat

Moonbat — Tue, 13 Jan 2009 23:25:03 +0000

Interesting – I have both read that this was the case, and seen Teo-chew and Taiwanese speakers struggle in vain to have a conversation before giving up.

I’ll try that video out on a few native speakers and report back!

My parents are native Taiwanese speakers. They have met some native speakers of Teochew. My mother says that mutual intelligibility is about 70%, as long as they stick to rudimentary topics.

Most Teochew have had some contact with Hokkien speakers though, so it is possible that Teochew code-switch to Hokkien upon encountering Taiwanese speakers or Hokkien speakers.

By: sjcma

sjcma — Mon, 08 Sep 2008 20:32:32 +0000

> Speaking of Singapore- is there any
> reason why Singaporean Mandarin
> sounds so similar to Taiwanese
> Mandarin?

Those sharing a common mother tongue will sound similar when speaking another language. This is, of course, equally true for native Minnan speakers speaking Mandarin, whether they’re from Taiwan, Singapore, other SE Asian countries or from the source of it all, Xiamen and surrounding areas.

More than once I’ve mistaken mainlanders from Xiamen for Taiwanese. Their accents are just so bloody similar.

By: 暗生番

暗生番 — Sun, 07 Sep 2008 08:48:03 +0000

Is there room for international Hohlo/Hokkien media? Sports, music, news, “culture”, politics, cooking, religion, travel, business, securities, etc., weather reports centered on the South China Sea and surrounding area…

By: sjcma

sjcma — Sun, 07 Sep 2008 04:47:29 +0000

http://www.chinahistoryforum.com/index.php?showtopic=26459

Links to a discussion of the same topic in another forum. The last comment is quite interesting.

By: admin

admin — Tue, 02 Sep 2008 06:39:00 +0000

I would guess because the majority of Singaporean Chinese are Hokkien/Hoklo people, like Taiwan. The phonetic values of Mandarin have been adapted, largely to fit the pre-existing sounds of Hokkien. The lack of retroflex sounds (the “sh”, “ch” and “zh” of Mandarin, for example) in southern Chinese languages means that these sounds merge with existing sounds in Hokkien, so ch > c, sh > s, zh > z and so on.

By: Silenus

Silenus — Mon, 01 Sep 2008 21:47:32 +0000

Speaking of Singapore- is there any reason why Singaporean Mandarin sounds so similar to Taiwanese Mandarin?

By: Johan

Johan — Tue, 22 Jul 2008 08:39:47 +0000

As for Singapore, English rather than Chinese seems now responsible for the demise of Hokkien, since English is increasingly replacing Chinese. Here’s one link to a recent survey:
http://www.dlsu.edu.ph/research/journals/taper/pdf/200706/zhao.pdf

By: GnuDoyng

GnuDoyng — Thu, 17 Jul 2008 08:10:29 +0000

Yup. It’s not at all surprising that they’d probably give up such a conversation, because the tonal values are quite different and thus both speakers may sound awkward to one another. But that doesn’t mean both languages are mutually unintelligible.

By: admin

admin — Thu, 17 Jul 2008 01:14:48 +0000

Interesting – I have both read that this was the case, and seen Teo-chew and Taiwanese speakers struggle in vain to have a conversation before giving up.

I’ll try that video out on a few native speakers and report back!

By: GnuDoyng

GnuDoyng — Wed, 16 Jul 2008 16:31:32 +0000

Tio-chiu language is not “almost completely unintelligible” to that of E-mng. If you are a native Taiwanese speaker I’m pretty sure you’ll understand most part of this video:

http://www.tudou.com/v/z5Mr7Hd19V4