Bungieen kab peqoe

Bungieen kab peqoe 🔊 / Bunpek ixthok 🔊 (文白異讀; Literary and colloquial readings of Chinese characters)

Literary vs colloquial

• Colloquial readings (pegthok (白讀)) are usually used in normal speech.
• Literary readings (bunthok (文讀)) of Harnji are usually used in formal loan words or names, when reading aloud and in formal settings.
• For example, 白 has two readings:
  • Colloquial: peh 🔊, as in peqzhaix 🔊 (Chinese cabbage)
  • Literary: pek 🔊, as in zuxpek 🔊 (confession)
• Some characters have multiple and unrelated pronunciations, adapted to represent Hokkien words. For example, the word baq ("meat") may be written with the character 肉, which has etymologically unrelated colloquial and literary readings:
  • Colloquial: hek 🔊
  • Literary: jiok 🔊, as in kutjiok (骨肉 flesh and blood; kindred)
• Vernacular readings, marked siok (俗), are relatively rare. See pof (埠), lok (錄), kiok (劇), for example.

Examples

The following examples show differences in literary and colloquial readings in Taiwanese Hokkien.

Harnji Readings

The following chart illustrates some of the more commonly seen sound shifts:

Colloquial	Literary	Example
[p-], [pʰ-]	[h-]	分	Template:X2	Template:X2	divide
[ts-], [tsʰ-], [tɕ-], [tɕʰ-]	[s-], [ɕ-]	成	Template:X2	Template:X2	to become
[k-], [kʰ-]	[tɕ-], [tɕʰ-]	指	Template:X2	Template:X2	finger
[-ã], [-uã]	[-an]	看	Template:X2	Template:X2	to see
[-ʔ]	[-t]	食	Template:X2	Template:X2	to eat
[-i]	[-e]	世	Template:X2	Template:X2	world
[-e]	[-a]	家	Template:X2	Template:X2	family
[-ia]	[-i]	徛† / 企	Template:X2	Template:X2	to stand

Amoy_dialect#Literary_and_colloquial_readings

Hokkien Numerals

This feature extends to Hokkien numerals, which have both literary and colloquial readings. Literary readings are typically used when the numerals are read out loud (e.g. phone numbers), while colloquial readings are used for counting items (see sorji and tiexn'oe).

	1	2	3 / 三	4 / 四	5 / 五	6 / 六	7 / 七	8 / 八	9 / 九	10 / 十
Peh	cit (蜀)	nng (兩)	svaf	six	go	lak	chid	pøeq	kao	zap
Buun	id (一)	ji (二)	safm	sux	gvor	liok		pad	kiuo	sip

More details

• Hokkien dictionaries in Taiwan often differentiate between such character readings with the prefixes 文 (buun) for literary readings, and 白 (pek / peh) for colloquial readings (see Taioaan Banlamguo Siong'iong-Suu Sutiern).
• The bulk of literary readings are based on pronunciations of the vernacular during the Tang dynasty and mainly used in formal phrases and written language (e.g. philosophical concepts, surnames, and some place names).
• Literary readings tend to be more similar to the pronunciations of the Tang standard of Middle Chinese than their colloquial equivalents.
• The colloquial (or vernacular) readings are basically used in spoken language and vulgar (ordinary/common) phrases.
• The divergence between literary and colloquial is due to several "strata" in the Min lexicon. See Proto-Min_language#Strata

Sources

• Hokkien#Literary_and_colloquial_readings
• Taioaan Banlamguo Siong'iong-Suu Sutiern

See also

• theaji