The Oxford English Dictionary, a major authority on the English language, has published its quarterly update of newly added words, which interestingly includes three that are transliterations from Southern Min, which is spoken in Taiwan, the southern part of China’s Fujian Province and parts of Southeast Asia.
It is better to call them “Southern Min” rather than “Taiwanese” words, because the additions came from Southeast Asia, not from Taiwan. Not calling them “Southern Min” words would be presumptuous and inappropriate when they are being used by ethnic Chinese in Southeast Asia, while Taiwanese is generally called Hoklo.
Two of the three words come from Singapore and Malaysia: bak kut the, a kind of bone broth, and bak kwa, meaning cured, dried meat. The third word, which comes from the Philippines, is bakya, meaning wooden clogs.
These three Southern Min words have long been widely used in Southeast Asian English, so the dictionary is simply describing an objective reality. After analyzing and judging potential entries, its editors sort and record them. Given its mission, Oxford consults with experts in Southern Min and offers the word’s correct spelling in the etymology.
The majority of words of Chinese origin in English dictionaries are spelled based on their Mandarin pronunciations. The remainder are words from the Chinese-language family, with Cantonese and Southern Min having a share.
Cantonese words, which account for most of the English words from the Chinese-language family, arrived via old Chinese emigrant communities and Hong Kong, while Southern Min words arrived through use in Singapore, Malaysia and the Philippines. Over the past few years, the number of Southern Min words has been catching up with Cantonese.
Two hundred or 300 years ago, Southern Min gave English words such as tea, ketchup, bohea (teas grown in the Wuyi Mountains in China’s Fujian Province), pekoe (downy young tea leaves) and cumshaw (a small present or tip, from the Southern Min word for “thank you”).
Over the past century, English has absorbed a dozen or more Southern Min words from Southeast Asia, such as bihon (rice noodles), lumpia and popiah (both meaning unfried spring rolls), pancit and mee (both meaning wheat noodles), char kway teow (flat rice noodles), Ah Beng (ruffian), ang moh (“Westerner”; literally, “red hair”), ang pow (red envelope, traditionally used for gifts of money), kiasu (afraid of losing out) and kopitiam (coffee shop).
What about Taiwan’s variety of Southern Min? What contributions has it made to English? The only word it seems to have contributed so far is “nunchuck,” the two-sectioned “rice flail” weapon made famous by Bruce Lee (李小龍).
This word is a contraction of the Okinawan word nunchaku, but that in turn probably originated from the Taiwanese word neng tsat kun (兩截棍), which likewise means a two-sectioned stick or baton.
Considering the precedents set by Singapore, Malaysia and the Philippines, and the many things that the English-speaking world finds interesting about Taiwan, it will probably not be long before more Taiwanese words find their way into English.
Hugo Tseng is an associate professor and former chair of Soochow University’s English language and literature department.
Translated by Julian Clegg
The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) has long been expansionist and contemptuous of international law. Under Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平), the CCP regime has become more despotic, coercive and punitive. As part of its strategy to annex Taiwan, Beijing has sought to erase the island democracy’s international identity by bribing countries to sever diplomatic ties with Taipei. One by one, China has peeled away Taiwan’s remaining diplomatic partners, leaving just 12 countries (mostly small developing states) and the Vatican recognizing Taiwan as a sovereign nation. Taiwan’s formal international space has shrunk dramatically. Yet even as Beijing has scored diplomatic successes, its overreach
After more than a year of review, the National Security Bureau on Monday said it has completed a sweeping declassification of political archives from the Martial Law period, transferring the full collection to the National Archives Administration under the National Development Council. The move marks another significant step in Taiwan’s long journey toward transitional justice. The newly opened files span the architecture of authoritarian control: internal security and loyalty investigations, intelligence and counterintelligence operations, exit and entry controls, overseas surveillance of Taiwan independence activists, and case materials related to sedition and rebellion charges. For academics of Taiwan’s White Terror era —
On Feb. 7, the New York Times ran a column by Nicholas Kristof (“What if the valedictorians were America’s cool kids?”) that blindly and lavishly praised education in Taiwan and in Asia more broadly. We are used to this kind of Orientalist admiration for what is, at the end of the day, paradoxically very Anglo-centered. They could have praised Europeans for valuing education, too, but one rarely sees an American praising Europe, right? It immediately made me think of something I have observed. If Taiwanese education looks so wonderful through the eyes of the archetypal expat, gazing from an ivory tower, how
After 37 US lawmakers wrote to express concern over legislators’ stalling of critical budgets, Legislative Speaker Han Kuo-yu (韓國瑜) pledged to make the Executive Yuan’s proposed NT$1.25 trillion (US$39.7 billion) special defense budget a top priority for legislative review. On Tuesday, it was finally listed on the legislator’s plenary agenda for Friday next week. The special defense budget was proposed by President William Lai’s (賴清德) administration in November last year to enhance the nation’s defense capabilities against external threats from China. However, the legislature, dominated by the opposition Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) and Taiwan People’s Party (TPP), repeatedly blocked its review. The
RSS