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张少林个“肯涯正晓出头”

人穷爱肯涯正晓出头
平时努力人系饿毋瘦
完家大细一大楸
来负担系好愁
早晨由暗做杉几十穷
涯到拨病骨头痛又
做到瘦
还惊饿死老婆屋又臭
做到 汗流
周时爱当借靠老朋友
年轻爱食苦 做事莫怕羞
出头个日子还有

Nyin khiung oi hen ngai tsang hiau chut-theu
Phin-sii nu-lit nyin he ngo m seu
Won ka thai-se yit thai chiu
Loi fu-tam he hau seu
Tsau-sin yu am tso sam ki sip khiung
Ngai tau pot-phiang kut-theu thung yiu
Tso tau siu
Han kiang ngo-si lau-pho wuk yiu chiu
Tso tau hon liu
Tsiu-sii oi tong cia khau lau phen-yiu
Nyien-khiang oi sit-khu tso-sii mok pha siu
Chut-theu ke nyit-tsii han yu

When poverty allows me, I will succeed
People who work hard in common times are not scarce in hunger
The whole family, young and old people, are a big tree
And holding it up is rather sad (?)
In the morning from when it's still dark I make clothes in the tens.
If I fall ill and my bones hurt, I still
Work till I'm thin
I still fear I'll starve to death and my wife abd my house will be poor again
I work till my sweat flows
I often have to rely on old friends for borrowing [stuff]
When you're young you must suffer work and not be afraid of disgrace
There will still be a day of success

The above is my character approximation, transliteration, and translation attempt for a Hakka song by Zhang Shaolin. I am unsure about the following:

  1. Translating 愁 as sad is the only option given the character, but I would expect something more like "hard, difficult" than "sad"; is that correct, or is there another seu/siu which fits best? Or maybe 楸 is the wrong character?
  2. Is my reading of 早晨由暗做杉几十穷 correct?
  3. That 当借 feels a bit like it should be a single verb, but I can't find it; is my translation fine?

Any other inputs are of course welcome.

EDIT

The first line is extremely prone to misinterpretation, because:

  1. 人穷 is reported by Minhakka… um, seems to be reported by Minhakka as "poverty", the culprit being «人窮起盗心», translated to «poverty leads to thievery» when a more literal (i.e. structure-reflecting) translation is «if a man is poor he will grow a thief's heart»;
  2. 肯 also means "allow";
  3. The sound "ngai" is, in my mind, automatically matched to the pronoun "ngâi", meaning "I"; however, it is also the verb 捱, meaning "to endure, to suffer".

So after clearing up point 1, only one option is left:

人穷爱肯捱正晓出头 | If a man is poor, only when he is willing to endure hardships will he succeed

With point 1 not cleared, the obvious interpretation is what I gave at the beginning. If we change the interpretation of 肯捱 without clearing up point 1, we end up with:

人穷爱肯捱正晓出头

interpreted as:

Only when (正) [I] will (爱) be willing (肯) to endure (捱) [my] poverty (人穷) can (晓) [I] succeed (出头).

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24
  • It should be 人穷爱肯[捱][至]晓出头
    – Tang Ho ♦
    May 9, 2018 at 12:20
  • @TangHo concerning ngai, I follow the convention of the fb group Hakka Verse, which uses that character, and I also have a source with yet another radical (the person radical) suggested, so unless that is not the pronoun ngai I will keep that character. Concerning tsang, [Minhakka](minhakka.ling.sinica.edu.tw) actually supports my spelling for the word "chàng" meaning "just, exactly", and only reads 至 as chì, which is not what is heard in the song, so why should I use 至?
    – MickG
    May 9, 2018 at 12:25
  • I agree with @tang ho , 肯捱 is the proper term. both 捱 and 涯 pronounce as ngai in hakka, this is Hans character, you cannot simply use 涯 because it pronounce the same.
    – mootmoot
    May 9, 2018 at 14:06
  • @mootmoot On what basis are you suggesting I change the spelling of this pronoun?
    – MickG
    May 9, 2018 at 14:11
  • Go check out zdic.net if you insist to use 涯. All the Chinese dialect are using the same unified mandrain character, you cannot simply redefine the meaning.
    – mootmoot
    May 9, 2018 at 14:16

3 Answers 3

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  1. 来负担系好愁 = to burden oneself is very worrisome
  1. Is my reading of 早晨由暗做杉几十穷 correct?

It is not Mandarin or Cantonese, I am not sure if your pinyin is correct or not, but sound like O.K to me.

  1. 当= 典当 (to pawn); 借= to borrow. The two verbs together means "to pawn and borrow"

[周时][爱][当][借][靠老朋友]= Often pawn, borrow and rely on (support from) old friends

Edit:

MickG wrote:

Would I then be right in translating «完家大细一大楸 来负担系好愁» as «All my family, older and younger [people], is a big tree, and burdening myself [with it] is very worrysome»?

完家大细 = the entire family (old and young) ; 一大楸 = a big bundle 来负担系好愁 = it is very worrisome to burden myself (with all of them)

"完家大细一大楸 来负担系好愁" means " the entire family old and young, is a big bundle, to burden (myself with it) is very worrisome"

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5
  • The transliteration is an approximation of what I hear. In particular, the pairs c-ts, ch-tsh and sh-s may exhibit switchings w.r.t. Minhakka. The rest should be correct.
    – MickG
    May 9, 2018 at 12:41
  • Would I then be right in translating «完家大细一大楸 来负担系好愁» as «All my family, older and younger [people], is a big tree, and burdening myself [with it] is very worrysome»?
    – MickG
    May 9, 2018 at 12:48
  • See my edition at the bottom.
    – Tang Ho ♦
    May 9, 2018 at 12:58
  • So it's using the name of a tree as a metaphor for a heavy burden. Does such a thing happen in Mandarin too or should I provide a gloss on a blog post where I gloss every non-Mandarin word with matching Mandarin translations?
    – MickG
    May 9, 2018 at 13:41
  • 週時愛當借靠老朋友 in Hakka has nothing to do with simply pawning or borrowing. 愛 mean needs or 需要, 當 has nothing to do with pawn， it should be read as 當借靠老朋友 , it means you should get help from your folks when in needs.
    – mootmoot
    May 9, 2018 at 14:19
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I'm transcribing this out of my memory from years ago.

人穷爱肯挨正晓出头 (same as 捱 endure -- i prefer 挨 as it's more common)
When you are poor, only by being able to endure can you succeed

平时努力人系饿毋瘦
Working hard daily, you might be hungry but not gaunt

完家大细一大湊 or 潮
The whole family, big and small, a big group

来负担系好愁
Is a burden, really worrisome

早晨又暗做三二十塊
Morning and night working (for) 30-20 dollars

挨到發病骨头痛又做到瘦

The rest is correct :)

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0

The following should settles it?

https://youtu.be/GrzCAlssHoI

BTW, for years this has been my favourite Hakka karaoke song.

There is also the "original" Hokkien version and a Cantonese version, though the lyrics of all 3 are different, they share the same general theme, i.e. "one has to work hard, endure hardships and not depend too much on mother luck to succeed in life"

Since I could sing all 3 versions, I put the Hokkien and Cantonese versions below for anyone interested.

Hokkien version"-

https://youtu.be/wflMFaDSJDo

Cantonese version:-

https://youtu.be/r5lFyMS1Mh8

Enjoy, I hope.

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2
  • The hidden problem or linguistic trap when using one set of written Chinese characters to verbalize a certain dialect is that the dialect speakers merely borrows the "sound" of the Character and not its meaning. A good example is the very first line which has brought about much confusion and arguments for non-Hakka speakers, and it is the common "mandarin" word, 爱, as in 人穷爱肯捱 . A non-Hakka speaker would be forgiven for saying it means -- "A poor person loves to suffer or endure hardships..." The 爱 here dose not mean "love" or "have affection for", but means simply -- "be willing or need to"
    – Wayne Cheah
    Mar 17, 2020 at 6:58
  • Oh, BTW, when Hakkas write "love" they use "爱" as well.
    – Wayne Cheah
    Mar 17, 2020 at 7:03

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