The Mission for Penang Hokkien

I am a man with a mission. My mission is to ensure the survival of Penang Hokkien, for as long as I am around, to give it respectability as a language that can be easily used for written communications and to give a sense of ownership of Penang Hokkien to all speakers, not just Hokkien people, but also the Teochews, Hakkas, Cantonese, Taishanese, Hainanese and more, all the Penang Chinese people who speak Penang Hokkien and consider it their language.

I regard Penang Hokkien the same way Americans regard English. Americans may come in all shades of skin tone, yet they speak English as their native tongue, without bearing allegiance to the British flag or the English crown, nor seek alignment with British history. In a similar fashion, Penang Hokkien should be inclusive rather than divisive. It should accept and embrace all Hokkien speakers, even if they don't have pure Hokkien blood in their veins.

To do what I want to do, I often have to challenge the powers that be - the linguists and the academics. Linguists and academics are people too. At times, they may hold a differing opinion. If a linguist does not agree with you, it does not mean you are wrong. It just means you haven't found one who agrees. Bear in mind, even academics may disagree among themselves.

In the course of accomplishing this mission, I have had to disagree with many academics if their mission is not aligned to mine. I am clear in my mission and I remain steadfast in the course.

My advice to Penang Hokkien enthusiasts is, always arm yourself with knowledge, do your independent research; you don't have to take everything I say as fact, weigh what I say, understand why I do what I do.

My mission is a good thing for Penang Hokkien. And it provides ownership of the language, not only to the Hokkien people, but to all peoples who speak the language.

Let's accomplish it.

Read also Penang Hokkien Vocabulary

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About this website

Dear visitor, thank you so much for reading this page. My name is Timothy Tye and my hobby is to find out about places, write about them and share the information with you on this website. I have been writing this site since 5 January 2003. Originally (from 2003 until 2009, the site was called AsiaExplorers. I changed the name to Penang Travel Tips in 2009, even though I describe more than just Penang but everywhere I go (I often need to tell people that "Penang Travel Tips" is not just information about Penang, but information written in Penang), especially places in Malaysia and Singapore, and in all the years since 2003, I have described over 20,000 places.

While I try my best to provide you information as accurate as I can get it to be, I do apologize for any errors and for outdated information which I am unaware. Nevertheless, I hope that what I have described here will be useful to you.

To get to know me better, do follow me on Facebook!