Philippine Hokkien is a dialect of the
Hokkien language of the
Southern Min branch, primarily spoken
vernacularly by
Chinese Filipino
Chinese Filipinos; tl, Tsinoy, / Tsinong Pilipino, ; Philippine Hokkien , Mandarin (also known as Filipino Chinese in the Philippines) are Filipinos of Chinese descent, mostly of southern Fujianese ancestry, where the majority are bor ...
s in the
Philippines
The Philippines (; fil, Pilipinas, links=no), officially the Republic of the Philippines ( fil, Republika ng Pilipinas, links=no),
* bik, Republika kan Filipinas
* ceb, Republika sa Pilipinas
* cbk, República de Filipinas
* hil, Republ ...
, where it serves as the local
Chinese
Chinese can refer to:
* Something related to China
* Chinese people, people of Chinese nationality, citizenship, and/or ethnicity
**''Zhonghua minzu'', the supra-ethnic concept of the Chinese nation
** List of ethnic groups in China, people of v ...
''
lingua franca
A lingua franca (; ; for plurals see ), also known as a bridge language, common language, trade language, auxiliary language, vehicular language, or link language, is a language systematically used to make communication possible between groups ...
'',
primarily spoken as an
oral language
A spoken language is a language produced by articulate sounds or (depending on one's definition) manual gestures, as opposed to a written language. An oral language or vocal language is a language produced with the vocal tract in contrast with a s ...
, within the
overseas Chinese community in the Philippines and acts as the
heritage language
A heritage language is a minority language (either immigrant or indigenous) learned by its speakers at home as children, and difficult to be fully developed because of insufficient input from the social environment. The speakers grow up with a ...
of a majority of
Chinese Filipinos.
The use of Hokkien in the
Philippines
The Philippines (; fil, Pilipinas, links=no), officially the Republic of the Philippines ( fil, Republika ng Pilipinas, links=no),
* bik, Republika kan Filipinas
* ceb, Republika sa Pilipinas
* cbk, República de Filipinas
* hil, Republ ...
is influenced by
Philippine Spanish
The Philippines (; fil, Pilipinas, links=no), officially the Republic of the Philippines ( fil, Republika ng Pilipinas, links=no),
* bik, Republika kan Filipinas
* ceb, Republika sa Pilipinas
* cbk, República de Filipinas
* hil, Republ ...
,
Filipino (
Tagalog) and
Philippine English
Philippine English (similar and related to American English) is any variety of English native to the Philippines, including those used by the media and the vast majority of educated Filipinos and English learners in the Philippines from adja ...
.
Terminology
The term ''Philippine Hokkien'' is used when differentiating the variety of
Hokkien spoken in the
Philippines
The Philippines (; fil, Pilipinas, links=no), officially the Republic of the Philippines ( fil, Republika ng Pilipinas, links=no),
* bik, Republika kan Filipinas
* ceb, Republika sa Pilipinas
* cbk, República de Filipinas
* hil, Republ ...
from those spoken in
China
China, officially the People's Republic of China (PRC), is a country in East Asia. It is the world's List of countries and dependencies by population, most populous country, with a Population of China, population exceeding 1.4 billion, slig ...
,
Taiwan
Taiwan, officially the Republic of China (ROC), is a Country, country in East Asia, at the junction of the East China Sea, East and South China Seas in the northwestern Pacific Ocean, with the China, People's Republic of China (PRC) to the n ...
,
Malaysia
Malaysia ( ; ) is a country in Southeast Asia. The federal constitutional monarchy consists of thirteen states and three federal territories, separated by the South China Sea into two regions: Peninsular Malaysia and Borneo's East Malay ...
,
Singapore
Singapore (), officially the Republic of Singapore, is a sovereign island country and city-state in maritime Southeast Asia. It lies about one degree of latitude () north of the equator, off the southern tip of the Malay Peninsula, bo ...
,
Indonesia
Indonesia, officially the Republic of Indonesia, is a country in Southeast Asia and Oceania between the Indian and Pacific oceans. It consists of over 17,000 islands, including Sumatra, Java, Sulawesi, and parts of Borneo and New Guine ...
, and other
Southeast Asia
Southeast Asia, also spelled South East Asia and South-East Asia, and also known as Southeastern Asia, South-eastern Asia or SEA, is the geographical south-eastern region of Asia, consisting of the regions that are situated south of mainland ...
n countries.
Historically, it was also known in
Philippine English
Philippine English (similar and related to American English) is any variety of English native to the Philippines, including those used by the media and the vast majority of educated Filipinos and English learners in the Philippines from adja ...
,
Filipino (
Tagalog), and other
Philippine languages
The Philippine languages or Philippinic are a proposed group by R. David Paul Zorc (1986) and Robert Blust (1991; 2005; 2019) that include all the languages of the Philippines and northern Sulawesi, Indonesia—except Sama–Bajaw (language ...
as ''Fookien''
or ''Fukien'' across the country, derived from the
Chinese postal romanization
Postal romanization was a system of transliterating Chinese place names developed by postal authorities in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. For many cities, the corresponding postal romanization was the most common English-language for ...
of the
Nanjing court dialect Mandarin
Mandarin or The Mandarin may refer to:
Language
* Mandarin Chinese, branch of Chinese originally spoken in northern parts of the country
** Standard Chinese or Modern Standard Mandarin, the official language of China
** Taiwanese Mandarin, Stand ...
reading of
Fujian
Fujian (; alternately romanized as Fukien or Hokkien) is a province on the southeastern coast of China. Fujian is bordered by Zhejiang to the north, Jiangxi to the west, Guangdong to the south, and the Taiwan Strait to the east. Its ca ...
province in
China
China, officially the People's Republic of China (PRC), is a country in East Asia. It is the world's List of countries and dependencies by population, most populous country, with a Population of China, population exceeding 1.4 billion, slig ...
, such as in the old newspaper, ''
The Fookien Times
''The Fookien Times'' () was a daily broadsheet newspaper in the Philippines written in the Chinese language. Founded by Dee C. Chuan in 1926, it was once the Philippines' largest Chinese-language newspaper in terms of circulation.
Although the ...
''.
The
endonym
An endonym (from Greek: , 'inner' + , 'name'; also known as autonym) is a common, ''native'' name for a geographical place, group of people, individual person, language or dialect, meaning that it is used inside that particular place, group, ...
used by speakers of the dialect itself or the
Hokkien language in general though is typically, ;
Tâi-lô: ''Lán-nâng-uē / Lán-lâng-uē / Nán-nâng-uē.
''
Sociolinguistics
Only 12.2% of all ethnic Chinese in the Philippines have a
variety of Chinese
Chinese, also known as Sinitic, is a branch of the Sino-Tibetan language family consisting of hundreds of local varieties, many of which are not mutually intelligible. Variation is particularly strong in the more mountainous southeast of mai ...
as their mother tongue. Nevertheless, the vast majority (77%) still retain the ability to understand and speak Hokkien as a second or third language.
History
From the late 16th century to the early 17th century,
Spanish friars in the Philippines, such as the
Dominican Order
The Order of Preachers ( la, Ordo Praedicatorum) abbreviated OP, also known as the Dominicans, is a Catholic mendicant order of Pontifical Right for men founded in Toulouse, France, by the Spanish priest, saint and mystic Dominic of Ca ...
specifically in
Manila
Manila ( , ; fil, Maynila, ), officially the City of Manila ( fil, Lungsod ng Maynila, ), is the capital of the Philippines, and its second-most populous city. It is highly urbanized and, as of 2019, was the world's most densely populated ...
, produced materials documenting the Hokkien varieties spoken by the Chinese trading community who had settled there in the late 16th century:
*''Doctrina Christiana en letra y lengua China'' (1593), a Hokkien translation of the ''
Doctrina Christiana
The ''Doctrina Christiana'' ( eng, Christian Doctrine) was an early book on the catechism of the Catholic Church, written in 1593 by Fray Juan de Plasencia, and is believed to be one of the earliest printed books in the Philippines.
Title
S ...
''.
*''Dictionario Hispanico Sinicum'' (1604), a Spanish-Hokkien dictionary, giving equivalent words, but not definitions.
*''Bocabulario de la lengua sangleya'' (c. 1617), a Spanish-Hokkien dictionary, with definitions.
*''Arte de la Lengua Chiõ Chiu'' (1620), a grammar written by a Spanish missionary in the Philippines.
These texts appear to record a
Zhangzhou dialect of Hokkien, from the old port of
Yuegang
Yuegang () was a seaport situated at the estuary of the Jiulong River near Zhangzhou in Fujian, China. Known as a smuggling hub since the early Ming dynasty, Yuegang rose to prominence in the 16th century as the Ming government cracked down on ot ...
(modern-day
Haicheng, an old port that is now part of
Longhai), which Klöter (2011) calls as ''Early Manila Hokkien (EMH)''.
However by 1873,
Carstairs Douglas
Carstairs Douglas () (born 27 December 1830 in Kilbarchan, Renfrewshire; died 26 July 1877 in Xiamen, China) was a Scottish missionary, remembered chiefly for his writings concerning the Southern Min language of Fujian, in particular his ''Chine ...
writes in his dictionary that
By 1941, Vicente Lim publishes a dictionary in Manila, titled ''"Chinese-English-Tagalog-Spanish Business conversation and social contact with Amoy pronunciation".
''
Education
During the late 20th century, despite
Standard Chinese (
Mandarin
Mandarin or The Mandarin may refer to:
Language
* Mandarin Chinese, branch of Chinese originally spoken in northern parts of the country
** Standard Chinese or Modern Standard Mandarin, the official language of China
** Taiwanese Mandarin, Stand ...
) taking the place as the usual
Chinese
Chinese can refer to:
* Something related to China
* Chinese people, people of Chinese nationality, citizenship, and/or ethnicity
**''Zhonghua minzu'', the supra-ethnic concept of the Chinese nation
** List of ethnic groups in China, people of v ...
class subject taught in
Chinese Filipino schools as the topic of study, some schools had Chinese teachers that used
Amoy
Xiamen ( , ; ), also known as Amoy (, from Hokkien pronunciation ), is a sub-provincial city in southeastern Fujian, People's Republic of China, beside the Taiwan Strait. It is divided into six districts: Huli, Siming, Jimei, Tong'an, ...
Hokkien as
medium of instruction in order to teach
Mandarin Chinese
Mandarin (; ) is a group of Chinese (Sinitic) dialects that are natively spoken across most of northern and southwestern China. The group includes the Beijing dialect, the basis of the phonology of Standard Chinese, the official language o ...
to native-
Hokkien-speaking
Chinese Filipino
Chinese Filipinos; tl, Tsinoy, / Tsinong Pilipino, ; Philippine Hokkien , Mandarin (also known as Filipino Chinese in the Philippines) are Filipinos of Chinese descent, mostly of southern Fujianese ancestry, where the majority are bor ...
students, but decades later around the
Marcos Era, regulations became stricter and the
medium of instruction for teaching
Standard Chinese (
Mandarin
Mandarin or The Mandarin may refer to:
Language
* Mandarin Chinese, branch of Chinese originally spoken in northern parts of the country
** Standard Chinese or Modern Standard Mandarin, the official language of China
** Taiwanese Mandarin, Stand ...
) in Chinese classes shifted from
Amoy Hokkien Chinese to purely
Mandarin Chinese
Mandarin (; ) is a group of Chinese (Sinitic) dialects that are natively spoken across most of northern and southwestern China. The group includes the Beijing dialect, the basis of the phonology of Standard Chinese, the official language o ...
(or in some schools to
English
English usually refers to:
* English language
* English people
English may also refer to:
Peoples, culture, and language
* ''English'', an adjective for something of, from, or related to England
** English national ide ...
). Also, due to the increased rural to urban migration of Chinese Filipinos, Chinese Filipino schools in urban areas increased but those in the provinces gradually declined, some closing down or some turning into ordinary Philippine schools, where some tried to preserve their "Chinese" characteristic by instead teaching
Hokkien as their Chinese
class subject, deeming it as more practical in the Philippine-Chinese setting.
, the
Ateneo de Manila University
, mottoeng = Light in the Lord
, type = Private, research, non-profit, coeducational basic and higher education institution
, established = December 10, 1859
, religious_affiliation = Roman Catholic (Jesuits)
, academic_a ...
, under their Chinese Studies Programme, offers Hokkien 1 (Chn 8) and Hokkien 2 (Chn 9) as electives.
Chiang Kai Shek College
Chiang Kai-shek College ( tl, Kolehiyo ng Chiang Kai Shek; ) is a Chinese Filipino institution of higher learning founded by Chinese Filipinos, recognized by the government of the Republic of the Philippines and the Republic of China (Taiwan). ...
offers Hokkien classes in their CKS Language Center.
Linguistic features
Philippine Hokkien is largely derived from the
Jinjiang dialect of
Quanzhou but has possibly also absorbed influences from the
Amoy
Xiamen ( , ; ), also known as Amoy (, from Hokkien pronunciation ), is a sub-provincial city in southeastern Fujian, People's Republic of China, beside the Taiwan Strait. It is divided into six districts: Huli, Siming, Jimei, Tong'an, ...
dialect of
Xiamen
Xiamen ( , ; ), also known as Amoy (, from Hokkien pronunciation ), is a sub-provincial city in southeastern Fujian, People's Republic of China, beside the Taiwan Strait. It is divided into six districts: Huli, Siming, Jimei, Tong'an, ...
and
Nan'an dialects of
Quanzhou.
Although Philippine Hokkien is generally mutually comprehensible especially with other
Quanzhou Hokkien variants, including
Singaporean Hokkien
Singaporean Hokkien is a local variety of the Hokkien language spoken natively in Singapore. Within Chinese linguistic academic circles, this dialect is known as Singaporean Ban-lam Gu. It bears similarities with the Amoy spoken in Amoy, now be ...
and
Quanzhou-based Taiwanese Hokkien
Taiwanese Hokkien () (; Tâi-lô: ''Tâi-uân-uē''), also known as Taigi/Taigu (; Pe̍h-ōe-jī/ Tâi-lô: ''Tâi-gí / Tâi-gú''), Taiwanese, Taiwanese Minnan, Hoklo and Holo, is a variety of the Hokkien language spoken natively by about ...
variants, the local vocabulary,
tones, and
Filipino or
Philippine Spanish
The Philippines (; fil, Pilipinas, links=no), officially the Republic of the Philippines ( fil, Republika ng Pilipinas, links=no),
* bik, Republika kan Filipinas
* ceb, Republika sa Pilipinas
* cbk, República de Filipinas
* hil, Republ ...
and
English
English usually refers to:
* English language
* English people
English may also refer to:
Peoples, culture, and language
* ''English'', an adjective for something of, from, or related to England
** English national ide ...
loanwords as well as the extensive use of
contractions and
colloquialisms (even those which are now unused or considered
archaic or
dated in China) can result in confusion among Hokkien speakers from outside of the Philippines.
Some terms have been shortened into one syllable. Examples include:
*dī-tsa̍p/lī-tsa̍p () > dia̍p/lia̍p ( / ): twenty; 20 (same format for 20–29, i.e. 二十一
1is "dia̍p-it" 廿一)
*saⁿ-tsa̍p () > sap (): thirty; 30 (same format for 30–39, i.e. 三十二
2is "sa̍p-dī" 卅二)
*sì-tsa̍p () > siap (): forty; 40 (same format for 40–49, i.e. 四十三
3is "siap-saⁿ" 卌三)
Vocabulary
Philippine Hokkien, like other Southeast Asian variants of Hokkien (e.g.
Singaporean Hokkien
Singaporean Hokkien is a local variety of the Hokkien language spoken natively in Singapore. Within Chinese linguistic academic circles, this dialect is known as Singaporean Ban-lam Gu. It bears similarities with the Amoy spoken in Amoy, now be ...
,
Penang Hokkien
Penang Hokkien (; Tâi-lô: ''Pin-siânn Hok-kiàn-uā''; ; ) is a local variant of Hokkien spoken in Penang, Malaysia. It is spoken as a mother tongue by 63.9% of Penang's Chinese community, and also by some Penangite Indians and Penangi ...
,
Johor Hokkien and
Medan Hokkien), has borrowed words from other languages spoken locally, specifically
Spanish,
Tagalog and
English
English usually refers to:
* English language
* English people
English may also refer to:
Peoples, culture, and language
* ''English'', an adjective for something of, from, or related to England
** English national ide ...
. Examples include:
* ''manis'' : "corn", either from Spanish ' or Tagalog '
* ''lettuce'' : "lettuce", from either English ' or Spanish ''
lechuga'' + Hokkien (chhài, "vegetable")
* ''pamkin'' : "pumpkin", from English '
* ''ka kaó'': "cocoa", either from Spanish ' or Tagalog '
* ''kape'': "coffee", either from Spanish ' or Tagalog '
* ''pà-chî'': "potato", either from Spanish ' or Tagalog ' + Hokkien (chî, "potato")
* ''kam-á-tit'': "tomato", either from Tagalog ' or directly from Spanish '
* ''sap-bûn'': "soap", from Early Modern Spanish ' or Tagalog '
Philippine Hokkien also has some vocabulary that is unique to it compared to other varieties of Hokkien:
* : "chauffeur"
* : "country bumpkin"
* : "cemetery" (used in the sign for
Manila Chinese Cemetery)
* : "potato"
* : "bread"
* : "hospital"
Hokaglish
Hokaglish is
code-switching
In linguistics, code-switching or language alternation occurs when a speaker alternates between two or more languages, or language varieties, in the context of a single conversation or situation. Code-switching is different from plurilingualism ...
involving Philippine Hokkien, Tagalog and English. Hokaglish shows similarities to
Taglish (mixed
Tagalog and
English
English usually refers to:
* English language
* English people
English may also refer to:
Peoples, culture, and language
* ''English'', an adjective for something of, from, or related to England
** English national ide ...
), the everyday
mesolect
A post-creole continuum (or simply creole continuum) is a dialect continuum of varieties of a creole language between those most and least similar to the superstrate language (that is, a closely related language whose speakers assert or asserte ...
register of spoken
Filipino language
Filipino (; , ) is an Austronesian language. It is the national language ( / ) of the Philippines, and one of the two official languages of the country, with English. It is a standardized variety of Tagalog based on the native dialect, spo ...
within
Metro Manila
Metropolitan Manila (often shortened as Metro Manila; fil, Kalakhang Maynila), officially the National Capital Region (NCR; fil, link=no, Pambansang Punong Rehiyon), is the seat of government and one of three defined metropolitan areas in ...
and its environs.
Both ways of speaking are very common among Chinese Filipinos, who tend to code-switch these languages in everyday conversation, where it can be observed that older generations typically use the Hokkien Chinese sentence structure base while injecting English and Tagalog words while the younger ones use the Filipino/Tagalog sentence structure as the base while injecting the few Hokkien terms they know in the sentence. The latter therefore, in a similar sense with Taglish using
Tagalog grammar
Tagalog grammar (Tagalog: ''Balarilà ng Tagalog'') is the body of rules that describe the structure of expressions in the Tagalog language, the language of the Tagalog region of the Philippines.
In Tagalog, there are nine basic parts of speech: ...
and
syntax
In linguistics, syntax () is the study of how words and morphemes combine to form larger units such as phrases and sentences. Central concerns of syntax include word order, grammatical relations, hierarchical sentence structure ( constituenc ...
, tends to
code-mix via
conjugating the Hokkien terms the way they do for Filipino/Tagalog words.
See also
*
Hokkien architecture
*
Hokkien culture
Minnan culture or Hokkien/Hoklo culture (Hokkien Pe̍h-ōe-jī: Bân-lâm bûn-hòa; ), also considered as the Mainstream Southern Min Culture, refers to the culture of the Hoklo people, a group of Han Chinese people who have historically been the ...
*
Hokkien media
*
Hoklo people
*
Holopedia
*
Mandarin Chinese in the Philippines
*
Medan Hokkien
*
Penang Hokkien
Penang Hokkien (; Tâi-lô: ''Pin-siânn Hok-kiàn-uā''; ; ) is a local variant of Hokkien spoken in Penang, Malaysia. It is spoken as a mother tongue by 63.9% of Penang's Chinese community, and also by some Penangite Indians and Penangi ...
*
Pe̍h-ōe-jī
(; ; ), also sometimes known as the Church Romanization, is an orthography used to write variants of Southern Min Chinese, particularly Taiwanese and Amoy Hokkien.
Developed by Western missionaries working among the Chinese diaspora in South ...
*
Singapore Hokkien
*
Southern Malaysia Hokkien
*
Speak Hokkien Campaign
*
Taiwanese Hokkien
Taiwanese Hokkien () (; Tâi-lô: ''Tâi-uân-uē''), also known as Taigi/Taigu (; Pe̍h-ōe-jī/ Tâi-lô: ''Tâi-gí / Tâi-gú''), Taiwanese, Taiwanese Minnan, Hoklo and Holo, is a variety of the Hokkien language spoken natively by about ...
*
Taiwanese Romanization System
Taiwanese may refer to:
* Taiwanese language, another name for Taiwanese Hokkien
* Something from or related to Taiwan (Formosa)
* Taiwanese aborigines, the indigenous people of Taiwan
* Han Taiwanese, the Han people of Taiwan
* Taiwanese people, ...
*
Written Hokkien
Hokkien, a Min Nan variety of Chinese spoken in Southeastern China, Taiwan and Southeast Asia, does not have a unitary standardized writing system, in comparison with the well-developed written forms of Cantonese and Vernacular Chinese (Mandarin). ...
Notes
References
Further reading
* - An analysis and facsimile of the ''Arte de la Lengua Chio-chiu'' (1620), the oldest extant grammar of Hokkien.
* – Hokkien translation of the ''
Doctrina Christiana
The ''Doctrina Christiana'' ( eng, Christian Doctrine) was an early book on the catechism of the Catholic Church, written in 1593 by Fray Juan de Plasencia, and is believed to be one of the earliest printed books in the Philippines.
Title
S ...
''.
* – A manual for learning Hokkien written by a Spanish missionary in the Philippines.
*
*
{{Chinese language
Chinese-Filipino culture
*
Hokkien-language dialects