Wednesday, October 19, 2011

Teochew Words That are Hard to Translate into English

For a change, I thought I'd make an original (wow!) post, so I wanted to throw in some fun words that I think are relatively hard to translate into English (or require many words to describe). Now, some of these may have easy translations into other languages, but it's takes some creativity to say it in Engbhūng.


Gáogoit
Rubbed off dead skin. This is my favorite, because I don't know of any other languages that have a word for this. Perhaps someone can enlighten me. All good Teochew parents teach their children how to clean themselves, and it takes a daily regimen of rubbing away gáogoit.



Mimi
Something shut closed but with a slit or small crack of showing. Mākmimi is someone's eye's that are closed so tight you can only see the slits. Perhaps "chink" would work.


 


Bhọlẹng-ūi
There's nothing you can do about it, there's no satisfactory way to do anything about this.



Lōng
To slide an object into a relatively small opening. Something like sliding a chopstick into a hole, or reach in with one's hand into a bag.




Tīktō
This one doesn't describe anything unique, but encompasses vacations, play, leisure, and doing anything for fun or enjoyment.

Have any more? Share them in comments!

Saturday, October 8, 2011

Teochew Accents!

Time to hear some accents from around the Teochew world, we'll start with Vietnam and Cambodia. I'm gonna analyze how these individuals speak Teochew and perhaps we can understand some "typical" characteristics of regional Teochew speech (keep in mind some of it may be individual aberrations):



1. Vietnam - Thuan Loi's Gang-hu Dē Demonstration (quite good actually to see a hạose:nāng doing this)

- Any tone 5 (such as 個 gāi) becomes more of a tone 6 (so, 個 gái)
- 杯 bue, sounds more like bui
- 沖茶 chongdē, becomes songdē (this is a very typical change CH -> S for Vietnamese TC speakers)




2. Cambodia - Teochew People Celebrating New Year's Eve (aka Sa:japmē) in Phnom Penh

- (.48) 好就 hòjiụ is a very common connector between sentences, means "and then"
- (4.55) 零顆 lạnglò, meaning "some", very common
- (6.35) 每 mué is pronounced múi
- ang-he meaning "this way"