Penang Hokkien
| Penang Hokkien | |
|---|---|
| 槟城福建话 Pin-siâⁿ Hok-kiàn-oā Hokkien Pulau Pinang |
|
| Native to | Malaysia |
| Region | Penang, parts of Kedah and Perak |
|
Sino-Tibetan
|
|
| Language codes | |
| ISO 639-3 | – |
| Glottolog | None |
| Linguasphere | 79-AAA-jek |
Penang Hokkien (Chinese: 槟城福建话; Pe̍h-ōe-jī: Peng-siâⁿ Hok-kiàn-oā) is a local variant of Hokkien Chinese spoken in Penang, Malaysia. It is the lingua franca among the majority Chinese population in Penang as well as other northern states of Malaysia surrounding it.
Penang Hokkien is a subdialect of Zhangzhou (漳州; Hokkien: Chiang-chiu) Chinese, together with widespread use of Malay and English borrowed words. It is said that it most closely resembles that spoken in the district of Haicang (海滄) in Longhai (龍海; Hokkien: Liông-hái) county and in the districts of Jiaomei (角美) and Xinglin (杏林) in neighbouring Xiamen prefecture. In Southeast Asia, similar dialects are spoken in the states bordering Penang (Kedah, Perlis and northern Perak), as well as in Medan and North Sumatra, Indonesia. It is markedly distinct from Southern Peninsular Malaysian Hokkien and Taiwanese Hokkien.
It is predominantly a spoken dialect: it is rarely written in Chinese characters, and there is no standard romanisation.
In Penang Hokkien, the two Departing tones (3rd & 7th) are virtually identical, and may not be distinguished except in their sandhi forms. Most native speakers of Penang Hokkien are therefore only aware of four tones in unchecked syllables (high, low, rising, high falling), and two Entering tones (high and low) in checked syllables. In most systems of romanisation, this is accounted as seven tones altogether. The tones are:
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