Penang Hokkien - Literary and Colloquial Pronunciations

Literary and Colloquial Pronunciations

Hokkien has not been taught in schools in Penang since the establishment of the Republic of China in 1911, when Mandarin was made the Chinese national language. As such, few if any people have received any formal instruction in the language, and it is not used for literary purposes. However, as in other variants of Minnan, most words have both literary and colloquial pronunciations, and the literary pronunciations still appear in limited circumstances, e.g.:

• in given names (but generally not surnames), e.g. 安 an rather than oaⁿ, 玉 giȯk rather than gėk;
• in a few surnames, e.g. 葉 iȧp rather than hiȯh
• in other proper names, e.g. 龍山堂 Liông-san-tông rather than *Lêng-soaⁿ-tông
• in certain set phrases, e.g. 差不多 chha-put-to rather than *chhε-m̄-to, 見笑 kièn-siàu rather than *kìⁿ-chhiò

Unlike in Taiwan and mainland China, the literary pronunciations of numbers higher than two are not used when giving telephone numbers, etc.; e.g. 二五四 jī-gơ̄-sì instead of jī-ngớ-sù. Literary variants are generally eschewed in favour of colloquial pronunciations, e.g. 大學 toā-ȯh instead of tāi-hȧk.