Spelling Penang Hokkien using Taiji Romanisation

The whole purpose of a writing system is to achieve effective communication in the language. You have attained literacy in a language when you are able to read something written in it in a specific writing system, and it means something to you. In order for that to happen, you have to discard the spell-as-you-please method and follow a specific system.

As far as possible, my writing system attempts to mimic how a person with English/Malay education spells, and how a person with Mandarin education tones. So, I do earnestly believe this is the easiest system for Malaysians to learn. The second reason is because I am making available all existing Penang Hokkien material (all the old poems, nursery rhymes, vocabulary lists, etc.) in this writing system, so learning it helps you read all that material.

If you are a Penang Hokkien speaker, at some point in time you will be tempted to say, "But why should I spell it this way, and not my own way?" Well, you can spell it your own way, if you are willing to compile a dictionary to help others make sense of your words. Without that in place, you are the only one to understand what you are writing.

The two corner stones of a writing system are a dictionary and the rules. For Penang Hokkien, the dictionary is right here: https://www.penang-traveltips.com/dictionary/index.htm

It is free for everybody to use, anywhere in the world. Although at some point in the future I might publish that dictionary in book form, that is not the priority. My priority is to make the dictionary freely available to all, and that is achieved through the web.

The second thing to put forth is the grammatical rules governing the writing system. While the dictionary may provide the meaning and examples of how words are used, it doesn't explain why or how you form sentences. That's where grammar comes into the picture.

I use the term "canonisation" to mean the act of deciding how to spell a word, to put it into the dictionary. As far as possible, I try to spell the word so that a person who already speaks Penang Hokkien can roughly guess how it is pronounced on sight, intuitively. A person who is unfamiliar to Penang Hokkien should consult the dictionary, where he can hear how that word is pronounced.

At times, a word may be pronounced in various ways, yet a speaker will understand all the different variants. How then should that word be spelled? The word for "that", for example, may be spelled heh1-leh1, ha1-leh1 and hi1-leh1. You can learn all three if you want to, or you can settle for one. And I do give a recommendation of which variant to select as the main one. In the dictionary, you will find that heh1-leh1 is marked CAF (meaning "canonical form"). That's the main type I use in my writing. The others are marked ALF (meaning "alternative form"). These are "good to know but optional".

You might well ask, "But then, why canonize all the variants?" Because, I am preparing the writing system for future literature. Someone in the future might want to write a novel where a specific character always speaks in a certain way, the availability of the variants allows him to flush out the differences.

What to look out for in the Writing System

Although I attempt to follow local writing convention, there are instances where local convention isn't clear. Pay attention to the following: The initial "c" and "ch". If a syllable starts with "c", it is pronounced like the "c" in Malay, such as "cari", "cuba", and so on. If you see a "ch", it is pronounced like the word "char koay teow". I point this out because local convention tends to spell both sounds with "ch", which blurs the difference. With the difference sorted out, you can differentiate a word "co3" (meaning "to do") from "cho3 (meaning "wrong"). Hence, co1 cho3 means "to do wrong".

Another point to note is nasalization. When a syllable has a nasal sound, an "n" is inserted, usually after the first letter. So, child is written knia4. I observe that local convention spells it "kia", without the "n", but that overlaps on the spelling of a non-nasalized syllable, like kia3 (meaning "to send"). The problem with local convention is that words are spelled without considering the broad implication. Thus, spelling "kia" for child makes sense if you never have to consider how to spell for "send". But when every word has to find its place in the dictionary, we cannot "spell for the moment". Every word has to fit into the system.

The "o" is pronounced as in the "o" of open, while "or" is as the "or" in "either or". However, if the o is followed by ng, as in "long4" or "tong4", it is pronounced "or", the same as the English words long and tong.

As you can see, every syllable is followed by a number. We will look at the numbering in the next lesson.

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