Lan-nang Totally Explained

Everything about Lan-nang totally explained

Lan-nang, or more properly known as 'Lan-nang-ōe' (咱人話, also 咱儂話), is the Philippine variant of Min Nan, also known as Southern Fujianese or Hokkien. The name lan-nang-ōe means 'our (lán) people's (lâng) language (oé)'. Its mother dialect is the Amoy dialect of Xiamen, China. Lan-nang is spoken among the Chinese residing in the Philippines. It is characterized by borrowings from Tagalog, Spanish, and Cantonese languages. It is also characterized by the heavy usage of words which are considered as colloquial forms in both China and Taiwan. About 592,200 people, or 98.7% of all Chinese in the Philippines speak it as their mother language. Although Lan-nang isn't recognized in the linguistic academe, in this article, however, it's treated as a variant of the Amoy dialect, and not as a dialect, per se.

Phonetics

In some situations, Lan-nang is written in the Latin alphabet. But because there seems to be no standard form for romanisation for the Philippine variant, many groups have come up with different spellings (often to the confusion of outsiders).
To an average English speaker, it could look something like this simplified system:

a
-- animal
b
-- boy
c
-- cheese, never hard as in country or crown (sometimes spelt as ch)
d
-- dog
e
-- fun
eh
elephant
g
-- good
h
-- why (like hw)
i
--- see
k
-- bucket
kh
curl
l
--- lemon
m
- Melt (can stand as a word on its own)
n
-- never
o
-- born
p
-- pepper
ph
page
s
-- sizzle
t
-- butter
th
teeth
u
- loose
w
(added to u to form a “oo” sound, for example wu)
y
- (added to i to form a “ee” sound, for example yi)
z
- mints, never like zebra (sometimes spelt as ts)

Diphthongs:

eye

Like in “say”

--- wand (Like Taiwanese goá)

ueh

- sweat

--- (like ueh)

sweet

yeah

Roughly equal to yawn

“ee” + “u” in “urn”

--- pure

Extras:

abc'

- Glottal stop

abcⁿ

Nasal sound

Sample phrases

Hello!:Dí hō, dí hō? (lit. "[Are] you well, you well?) ;I don't know.:Guá m̄ zai yaⁿ.

Do you know how to speak Lan-nang?:Dí eh-hiao kong Lan-nang-oé bâ? ;Where is the soap?:Hï-gé sá-bun tí-to-lò'? ť Note: 'sá-bun', though sounds similar to the Tagalog sabon, is not borrowed from that language. In Taiwanese, which is a variation of Minnan that isn't influenced by Tagalog, it's pronounced as sap-bûn. Etymologically speaking, perhaps both Taiwanese and Tagalog ultimately derive sap-bûn/sabon from the Romance languages that had brought the concept of soap to them (Portuguese sabão and Spanish jabón respectively).

Can you get me a glass?:Dí e zuì-dit ká-oá tuè ji pui bo? ť Note: "Ji pui" (一杯) literally means "one glass" and fluent speakers of the language use this. However, the Tagalog word "baso" is also sometimes used.

;Do you eat noodles?:Dí e ziá' mì bâ? ť Note: Some people would use the Tagalog "pansit" instead of "mi" for noodles. But this doesn't happen often.

Do you eat sweet potatoes?: Dí e ziá' ka-mú-ti bâ? ť Note: 'ka-mú-ti' is borrowed from Tagalog kamote, and ultimately from Spanish camote.

;When are you going to China?:Dí ti-si beh'-khï Tňg-soaⁿ? ť Note: 'Tňg-soaⁿ(唐山)', meaning China, is the colloquial term for 'Tiong-kok (中國)'. In the Lan-nang variant of the Amoy dialect, the former is more used.

His friend is in the hospital:Yi e siong-hó ti piⁿ-chù. ť Note: 'siong-hó' (相好), meaning "friend", is the colloquial term for 'pêng-iú' (朋友), while 'piⁿ-chù' (病厝), meaning "hospital" or "house for the sick", is the colloquial term for 'yi-î'.

;Where are you going?:Dí beh'-khí to-lò'?

Geographic Spread

Lan-nang-ōe is spoken throughout the Philippines where there are significant numbers of Min Nan Chinese. Cities in the Philippines that have a significant number of Chinese include Metro Manila, Angeles City, Davao City, Vigan, Ilocos Sur, San Fernando City, Pampanga, Ilagan, Isabela, Cauayan City, Cabatuan, Isabela, Naga City, Cebu City, Iloilo City, Bacolod City, Cagayan de Oro City, and Zamboanga City.

Uniqueness

Although Lan-nang-ōe is generally mutually comprehensible with both Min Nan and Taiwanese, certain words in Lan-nang-ōe are only used in the Philippines. Often, this results in confusion in Lan-nang-ōe speakers, especially in China. Other aspects of Lan-nang-ōe's uniqueness is its massive use of Min Nan colloquial words (see Sample Phrases above). Because there's an absence of a central agency governing Lan-nang-ōe, various subvarieties have developed. In Cebu, for example, instead of Tagalog, Cebuano words are also incorporated. The vast majority of the Chinese who came to the Philippines had their ancestral roots in China, so Lan-nang-ōe is closer to the Min Nan dialects spoken in China.

Further Information

Get more info on 'Lan-nang'.

External Link Exchanges

Do you know how hard it is to get a link from a large encyclopaedia? Well we're different and will prove it. To get a link from us just add the following HTML to your site on a relevant page:

<a href="http://lan-nang.totallyexplained.com">Lan-nang Totally Explained</a>

Then simply click through this link from your web page. Our crawlers will verify your link, extract the title of your web page and instantly add a link back to it. If you like you can remove the words Totally Explained and embed the link in article text.
As long as your link remains in place, we'll keep our link to you right here. Please play fair - our crawlers are watching. Your site must be closely related to this one's topic. Any kind of spamming, dubious practises or removing the link will result in your link from us being dropped and, potentially, your whole site being banned.