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GEORGE TOWN – Can you imagine Hokkien not being spoken in Penang?
Well, this just might happen as more and more young Penangites do not speak Hokkien at all.
However, Universiti Sains Malaysia Associate Professor Goh Sang Seong thinks that Hokkien and other mother tongue-dialects will not die out if there is more awareness about the importance of passing down these dialects to the next generation.
“There are still many families, particularly those who are lowly educated, that still use dialects at home,” he said.
Secondly, there are still existing dialect-based clan associations such as the Hokkien or Teochew association that continue to organise dialect-based activities, he added.
From the time the first sinkeh (Hokkien for newcomer and what immigrants from China were called) set foot on the then-Prince of Wales island, Hokkien, mixed with a smattering of Malay and English, has been the lingua franca.
It was the language spoken by a majority of the sinkeh and it was also used to trade… so much so that even the Malays and Indians picked it up. There was even a Hokkien school back then.
Today, almost a century later, Hokkien has evolved to include a lot of Malay words; this can be attributed to the dominance of Baba Nyonya Peranakan culture here.
While Hokkien is still commonly spoken by some hawkers and market traders, many among the younger generation and urbanites do not speak it as much anymore.
Most of the younger generation, regardless of whether their mother tongue is Hokkien, Cantonese, Teochew or Hakka, either speak Mandarin or English at home instead.
Goh said most parents encouraged their children to speak Mandarin or English because they believed mother tongue-dialects to be of a lower standard in comparison.
“In terms of language development, languages taught in schools will become more dominant in any society so it is not surprising that Mandarin, which is the main language used in vernacular schools, is widely spoken and used,” he said in an email interview with Malay Mail Online.
He said it was for this reason that there is less awareness of the importance of preserving mother tongue-dialects today.
“Community perception also caused a drop in dialect use because most Chinese believed that speaking in dialect reflected a lower social status.”
Some Penang-based youths agree with Goh that mother tongue-dialects, especially Hokkien, will not die out so easily.
One of them, Roy Krsna Nair, 28, who speaks fluent Hokkien, said there are still a lot of hawkers who speak it.
He then proceeded to point out several non-Chinese friends who can speak Hokkien fluently… just like any Penangite.
“It’s true that a lot of youngsters don’t really speak it anymore and it may be dying but there is hope yet.
“We have to be proud of how Hokkien has allowed people from all walks of life to mix together, to have this sense of community.
“If a Penangite goes anywhere outside of Penang and hears another person speak Hokkien, they immediately form a connection, there is this sense of pride of being a Penang-lang,” he said.
Roy, whose mother is Chinese and father Indian, picked up Hokkien from his maternal grandmother but did not learn Tamil or his father’s mother tongue, Malayalam.
“My father speaks fluent Hokkien too because he grew up in the Air Itam area with Chinese friends,” he said. |
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Post time 19-8-2017 10:54 AM
变色卡
