Languages of Taiwan
Encyclopedia
The language with the most native speakers in Taiwan
is Taiwanese Hokkien, or "Taiwanese" for short. Hokkien
is a topolect of the Chinese family of languages originating in southern Fujian
and is spoken by many overseas Chinese
throughout Southeast Asia
. Recently there has been a growing use of Taiwanese in the broadcast media.
The language with the second most native speakers in Taiwan
is now Mandarin
. Mandarin is spoken as a first, second or third language by virtually all Taiwanese under the age of 60. Standard Chinese
has been the only officially sanctioned medium of instruction in the schools in Taiwan since the late 1940s.
Members of the Hakka
ethnic group, who are concentrated in several counties throughout Taiwan, often speak the Hakka language. The Formosan languages
are the ethnic languages of the aboriginal tribes of Taiwan
, comprising about 2% of the island's population. It's common for young and middle-aged Hakka and aboriginal people to speak Mandarin and Hokkien better than, or to the exclusion of, their ethnic languages.
As a result of the half century of Japanese rule
, many people born before 1940 also can speak fluent Japanese
.
, the Republic of China
(ROC) led by the Kuomintang
became the governing polity on Taiwan. Standard Chinese
("Mandarin") was introduced as the official language and made compulsory in schools. (Before 1945, Japanese
was the official language and taught in schools.) Since then, Mandarin has been established as a lingua franca
among the various groups in Taiwan: the majority Taiwanese-speaking Hoklo (Hokkien), the Hakka
who have their own spoken language, Mainlanders whose native tongue may be any Chinese variant in mainland China, and the aboriginals who speak aboriginal languages.
Until the 1980s the Kuomintang
administration heavily promoted the use of Mandarin and discouraged the use of Taiwanese and other vernaculars, even portraying them as inferior. Mandarin was the main language for use in the media. This produced a backlash in the 1990s. Although some more extreme supporters of Taiwan independence
tend to be opposed to Mandarin in favor of Taiwanese, efforts to replace Mandarin either with Taiwanese or with a multi-lingual standard have remained stalled. Today, Mandarin is taught by immersion starting in elementary school. After the second grade, the entire educational system is in Mandarin, except for local language classes that have been taught for a few hours each week starting in the mid-1990s.
Taiwanese Mandarin (as with Singlish
and many other situations of a creole speech community
) is spoken at different levels according to the social class and situation of the speakers. Formal occasions call for the acrolectal level of Standard Chinese (Guoyu), which differs little from the Standard Chinese (Putonghua) of mainland China. Less formal situations may result in the basilect form, which has more uniquely Taiwanese features. Bilingual Taiwanese speakers may code-switch
between Mandarin and Taiwanese, sometimes in the same sentence.
Mandarin is spoken fluently by almost the entire Taiwanese population, except for some elderly people who were educated under Japanese rule. In Taipei
, where there is a high concentration of Mainlanders whose native language is not Taiwanese, Mandarin is used in greater frequency than in southern Taiwan and more rural areas where there are fewer Mainlanders.
Zhuyin Fuhao , or "Symbols for Annotating Sounds", often abbreviated as Zhuyin, or known as Bopomofo (ㄅㄆㄇㄈ) after the first four letters of this Chinese phonemic
script (bo po mo fo), is the national phonetic system of the Republic of China
for teaching the pronunciation of Chinese characters, especially in Mandarin. (See Uses). The system uses 37 special symbols to represent the Mandarin sounds: 21 consonant
s and 16 rime
s, though it also has extensions for Hakka and Taiwanese.
These phonetic symbols sometimes appear as ruby characters printed next to the Chinese characters in young children's book
s, and in editions of classical texts (which frequently use characters that appear at very low frequency rates in newspapers and other such daily fare). In advertisements, these phonetic symbols are sometimes used to write certain particles (e.g., ㄉ instead of 的); other than this, one seldom sees these symbols used in mass media adult publications except as a pronunciation guide (or index system) in dictionary
entries. Bopomofo symbols are also mapped to the ordinary Roman character keyboard (1 = bo, q = po, a = mo, and so forth) used in one method
for inputting Chinese text when using the computer
.
Unlike pinyin, the sole purpose for Zhuyin in elementary education is to teach standard Mandarin pronunciation to children. Grade one textbooks of all subjects (including Mandarin) are entirely in zhuyin. After that year, Chinese character texts are given in annotated form. Around grade four, presence of Zhuyin annotation is greatly reduced, remaining only in the new character section. School
children learn the symbols so that they can decode pronunciations given in a Chinese dictionary, and also so that they can find how to write words for which they know only the sounds.
Pinyin, on the other hand, is dual-purpose. Besides being a pronunciation notation, pinyin is used widely in publications in mainland China. Some books from mainland China
are published purely in pinyin with not even a single Chinese character. Those books are targeted to minority tribal groups or Western
ers who know spoken Mandarin but have not yet learned written Chinese character
s.
system is commonly used for romanization of Chinese
in Taiwan, romanization tends to be highly inconsistent. Unlike mainland China
, Taiwan does not use the Latin alphabet
in teaching Mandarin pronunciation in schools but rather uses a system called Zhuyin. There have been efforts by the educational system to move toward a Roman-based system, but these have been slow due to bureaucratic inertia, political reluctance to follow mainland China's footsteps and the huge cost in teacher retraining. The central government adopted Tongyong Pinyin
as the official romanization in 2002 but local governments are permitted to override the standard as some have adopted Hanyu Pinyin and retained old romanizations that are commonly used. However, in August 2008 the central government announced that Hanyu Pinyin will be the only system of romanization in Taiwan as of January 2009.
spoken in Taiwan. Taiwanese is often seen as a Chinese dialect within a larger Chinese language
. On the other hand, it may also be seen as a language
in the Sino-Tibetan
family. As with most "language or dialect?" distinctions, how one describes Taiwanese may depend largely on one's political views (see Identification of the varieties of Chinese).
There are both colloquial and literary registers
of Taiwanese. Colloquial Taiwanese has roots in Old Chinese
. Literary Taiwanese, which was originally developed in the 10th century in Fujian and based on Middle Chinese
, was used at one time for formal writing, but is now largely extinct. A great part of the Taiwanese language is mutually intelligible with other dialects of Hokkien as spoken in mainland China and South-east Asia and has a degree of intelligibility with other varieties of Min Nan languages such as Teochew. It is not, however, mutually intelligible with Mandarin or other Chinese languages.
Recent work by scholars such as Ekki Lu, Sakai Toru, and Lí Khîn-hoāⁿ (also known as Tavokan Khîn-hoāⁿ or Chin-An Li), based on former research by scholars such as Ông Io̍k-tek
, has gone so far as to associate part of the basic vocabulary of the colloquial language with the Austronesian
and Tai
language families; however, such claims are not without controversy.
ancestry. Hakka is often seen as a Chinese dialect within a larger Chinese language
. On the other hand, it may also be seen as a language
in the Sino-Tibetan
family. As with most "language or dialect?" distinctions, how one describes Hakka may depend largely on one's political views (see Identification of the varieties of Chinese).
, which is located off the coast of northern Fujian.
of Taiwan
. Taiwanese aborigines currently comprise about 2% of the island's population. However, far fewer can still speak their ancestral language, after centuries of language shift
. Of the approximately 26 languages of the Taiwanese aborigines, at least ten are extinct
, another five are moribund, and several others are to some degree endangered.
All Formosan languages are slowly being replaced by the culturally dominant Mandarin Chinese. In recent decades the government started an aboriginal reappreciation program that included the reintroduction of Formosan mother tongue education
in Taiwanese schools. However, the results of this initiative have been disappointing.
was compulsorily taught while Taiwan was under Japanese rule
(1895 to 1945). Although fluency is now largely limited to the elderly, some of Taiwan's youth who look to Japan as the trend-setter of the region's youth pop culture now might know a bit of Japanese through the media, their grandparents, or classes taken from private "cram schools".
is a common foreign language, with some large private schools providing English instruction. English is compulsory in students' curriculum once they enter elementary school. English as a school subject is also featured on Taiwan's education exams.
Taiwan
Taiwan , also known, especially in the past, as Formosa , is the largest island of the same-named island group of East Asia in the western Pacific Ocean and located off the southeastern coast of mainland China. The island forms over 99% of the current territory of the Republic of China following...
is Taiwanese Hokkien, or "Taiwanese" for short. Hokkien
Hokkien
Hokkien is a Hokkien word corresponding to Standard Chinese "Fujian". It may refer to:* Hokkien dialect, a dialect of Min Nan Chinese spoken in Southern Fujian , Taiwan, South-east Asia, and elsewhere....
is a topolect of the Chinese family of languages originating in southern Fujian
Fujian
' , formerly romanised as Fukien or Huguing or Foukien, is a province on the southeast coast of mainland China. Fujian is bordered by Zhejiang to the north, Jiangxi to the west, and Guangdong to the south. Taiwan lies to the east, across the Taiwan Strait...
and is spoken by many overseas Chinese
Overseas Chinese
Overseas Chinese are people of Chinese birth or descent who live outside the Greater China Area . People of partial Chinese ancestry living outside the Greater China Area may also consider themselves Overseas Chinese....
throughout Southeast Asia
Southeast Asia
Southeast Asia, South-East Asia, South East Asia or Southeastern Asia is a subregion of Asia, consisting of the countries that are geographically south of China, east of India, west of New Guinea and north of Australia. The region lies on the intersection of geological plates, with heavy seismic...
. Recently there has been a growing use of Taiwanese in the broadcast media.
The language with the second most native speakers in Taiwan
Taiwan
Taiwan , also known, especially in the past, as Formosa , is the largest island of the same-named island group of East Asia in the western Pacific Ocean and located off the southeastern coast of mainland China. The island forms over 99% of the current territory of the Republic of China following...
is now Mandarin
Taiwanese Mandarin
Taiwanese Mandarin is a variant of Mandarin derived from the official Standard Mandarin spoken in Taiwan Area of the Republic of China . The latter's standard lect is known in Taiwan as 國語 , based on the phonology of the Beijing dialect together with the grammar of Vernacular Chinese...
. Mandarin is spoken as a first, second or third language by virtually all Taiwanese under the age of 60. Standard Chinese
Standard Chinese
Standard Chinese, or Modern Standard Chinese, also known as Mandarin or Putonghua, is the official language of the People's Republic of China and Republic of China , and is one of the four official languages of Singapore....
has been the only officially sanctioned medium of instruction in the schools in Taiwan since the late 1940s.
Members of the Hakka
Hakka people
The Hakka , sometimes Hakka Han, are Han Chinese who speak the Hakka language and have links to the provincial areas of Guangdong, Jiangxi, Guangxi, Sichuan, Hunan and Fujian in China....
ethnic group, who are concentrated in several counties throughout Taiwan, often speak the Hakka language. The Formosan languages
Formosan languages
The Formosan languages are the languages of the indigenous peoples of Taiwan. Taiwanese aborigines currently comprise about 2% of the island's population. However, far fewer can still speak their ancestral language, after centuries of language shift...
are the ethnic languages of the aboriginal tribes of Taiwan
Taiwanese aborigines
Taiwanese aborigines is the term commonly applied in reference to the indigenous peoples of Taiwan. Although Taiwanese indigenous groups hold a variety of creation myths, recent research suggests their ancestors may have been living on the islands for approximately 8,000 years before major Han...
, comprising about 2% of the island's population. It's common for young and middle-aged Hakka and aboriginal people to speak Mandarin and Hokkien better than, or to the exclusion of, their ethnic languages.
As a result of the half century of Japanese rule
Taiwan under Japanese rule
Between 1895 and 1945, Taiwan was a dependency of the Empire of Japan. The expansion into Taiwan was a part of Imperial Japan's general policy of southward expansion during the late 19th century....
, many people born before 1940 also can speak fluent Japanese
Japanese language
is a language spoken by over 130 million people in Japan and in Japanese emigrant communities. It is a member of the Japonic language family, which has a number of proposed relationships with other languages, none of which has gained wide acceptance among historical linguists .Japanese is an...
.
Mandarin
In 1945, following the end of World War IIWorld War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
, the Republic of China
Republic of China
The Republic of China , commonly known as Taiwan , is a unitary sovereign state located in East Asia. Originally based in mainland China, the Republic of China currently governs the island of Taiwan , which forms over 99% of its current territory, as well as Penghu, Kinmen, Matsu and other minor...
(ROC) led by the Kuomintang
Kuomintang
The Kuomintang of China , sometimes romanized as Guomindang via the Pinyin transcription system or GMD for short, and translated as the Chinese Nationalist Party is a founding and ruling political party of the Republic of China . Its guiding ideology is the Three Principles of the People, espoused...
became the governing polity on Taiwan. Standard Chinese
Standard Chinese
Standard Chinese, or Modern Standard Chinese, also known as Mandarin or Putonghua, is the official language of the People's Republic of China and Republic of China , and is one of the four official languages of Singapore....
("Mandarin") was introduced as the official language and made compulsory in schools. (Before 1945, Japanese
Japanese language
is a language spoken by over 130 million people in Japan and in Japanese emigrant communities. It is a member of the Japonic language family, which has a number of proposed relationships with other languages, none of which has gained wide acceptance among historical linguists .Japanese is an...
was the official language and taught in schools.) Since then, Mandarin has been established as a lingua franca
Lingua franca
A lingua franca is a language systematically used to make communication possible between people not sharing a mother tongue, in particular when it is a third language, distinct from both mother tongues.-Characteristics:"Lingua franca" is a functionally defined term, independent of the linguistic...
among the various groups in Taiwan: the majority Taiwanese-speaking Hoklo (Hokkien), the Hakka
Hakka people
The Hakka , sometimes Hakka Han, are Han Chinese who speak the Hakka language and have links to the provincial areas of Guangdong, Jiangxi, Guangxi, Sichuan, Hunan and Fujian in China....
who have their own spoken language, Mainlanders whose native tongue may be any Chinese variant in mainland China, and the aboriginals who speak aboriginal languages.
Until the 1980s the Kuomintang
Kuomintang
The Kuomintang of China , sometimes romanized as Guomindang via the Pinyin transcription system or GMD for short, and translated as the Chinese Nationalist Party is a founding and ruling political party of the Republic of China . Its guiding ideology is the Three Principles of the People, espoused...
administration heavily promoted the use of Mandarin and discouraged the use of Taiwanese and other vernaculars, even portraying them as inferior. Mandarin was the main language for use in the media. This produced a backlash in the 1990s. Although some more extreme supporters of Taiwan independence
Taiwan independence
Taiwan independence is a political movement whose goals are primarily to formally establish the Republic of Taiwan by renaming or replacing the Republic of China , form a Taiwanese national identity, reject unification and One country, two systems with the People's Republic of China and a Chinese...
tend to be opposed to Mandarin in favor of Taiwanese, efforts to replace Mandarin either with Taiwanese or with a multi-lingual standard have remained stalled. Today, Mandarin is taught by immersion starting in elementary school. After the second grade, the entire educational system is in Mandarin, except for local language classes that have been taught for a few hours each week starting in the mid-1990s.
Taiwanese Mandarin (as with Singlish
Singlish
Colloquial Singaporean English, also known as Singlish, is an English-based creole language spoken in Singapore.Singlish is commonly regarded with low prestige in Singapore. The Singaporean government and many Singaporeans alike heavily discourage the use of Singlish in favour of Standard English...
and many other situations of a creole speech community
Post-creole speech continuum
The Post-creole continuum or simply creole continuum refers to a situation wherein a creole language consists of a spectrum of varieties between those most and least similar to the superstrate language...
) is spoken at different levels according to the social class and situation of the speakers. Formal occasions call for the acrolectal level of Standard Chinese (Guoyu), which differs little from the Standard Chinese (Putonghua) of mainland China. Less formal situations may result in the basilect form, which has more uniquely Taiwanese features. Bilingual Taiwanese speakers may code-switch
Code-switching
In linguistics, code-switching is the concurrent use of more than one language, or language variety, in conversation. Multilinguals—people who speak more than one language—sometimes use elements of multiple languages in conversing with each other...
between Mandarin and Taiwanese, sometimes in the same sentence.
Mandarin is spoken fluently by almost the entire Taiwanese population, except for some elderly people who were educated under Japanese rule. In Taipei
Taipei
Taipei City is the capital of the Republic of China and the central city of the largest metropolitan area of Taiwan. Situated at the northern tip of the island, Taipei is located on the Tamsui River, and is about 25 km southwest of Keelung, its port on the Pacific Ocean...
, where there is a high concentration of Mainlanders whose native language is not Taiwanese, Mandarin is used in greater frequency than in southern Taiwan and more rural areas where there are fewer Mainlanders.
Written Chinese
Taiwan uses Traditional Chinese characters. In mainland China these characters have been replaced by Simplified Chinese characters.Chinese phonetics
Phoneme
In a language or dialect, a phoneme is the smallest segmental unit of sound employed to form meaningful contrasts between utterances....
script (bo po mo fo), is the national phonetic system of the Republic of China
Republic of China
The Republic of China , commonly known as Taiwan , is a unitary sovereign state located in East Asia. Originally based in mainland China, the Republic of China currently governs the island of Taiwan , which forms over 99% of its current territory, as well as Penghu, Kinmen, Matsu and other minor...
for teaching the pronunciation of Chinese characters, especially in Mandarin. (See Uses). The system uses 37 special symbols to represent the Mandarin sounds: 21 consonant
Consonant
In articulatory phonetics, a consonant is a speech sound that is articulated with complete or partial closure of the vocal tract. Examples are , pronounced with the lips; , pronounced with the front of the tongue; , pronounced with the back of the tongue; , pronounced in the throat; and ,...
s and 16 rime
Rime
Rime is a coating of ice:*Hard rime, white ice that forms when water droplets in fog freeze to the outer surfaces of objects, such as trees*Soft rime, similar to hard rime, but feathery and milky in appearance...
s, though it also has extensions for Hakka and Taiwanese.
These phonetic symbols sometimes appear as ruby characters printed next to the Chinese characters in young children's book
Book
A book is a set or collection of written, printed, illustrated, or blank sheets, made of hot lava, paper, parchment, or other materials, usually fastened together to hinge at one side. A single sheet within a book is called a leaf or leaflet, and each side of a leaf is called a page...
s, and in editions of classical texts (which frequently use characters that appear at very low frequency rates in newspapers and other such daily fare). In advertisements, these phonetic symbols are sometimes used to write certain particles (e.g., ㄉ instead of 的); other than this, one seldom sees these symbols used in mass media adult publications except as a pronunciation guide (or index system) in dictionary
Dictionary
A dictionary is a collection of words in one or more specific languages, often listed alphabetically, with usage information, definitions, etymologies, phonetics, pronunciations, and other information; or a book of words in one language with their equivalents in another, also known as a lexicon...
entries. Bopomofo symbols are also mapped to the ordinary Roman character keyboard (1 = bo, q = po, a = mo, and so forth) used in one method
Chinese input methods for computers
Hundreds of Chinese input methods are available for entry of Chinese characters into computers, but most keyboard-based methods rely on either pinyin phonetic readings or root shapes in Chinese characters...
for inputting Chinese text when using the computer
Computer
A computer is a programmable machine designed to sequentially and automatically carry out a sequence of arithmetic or logical operations. The particular sequence of operations can be changed readily, allowing the computer to solve more than one kind of problem...
.
Unlike pinyin, the sole purpose for Zhuyin in elementary education is to teach standard Mandarin pronunciation to children. Grade one textbooks of all subjects (including Mandarin) are entirely in zhuyin. After that year, Chinese character texts are given in annotated form. Around grade four, presence of Zhuyin annotation is greatly reduced, remaining only in the new character section. School
School
A school is an institution designed for the teaching of students under the direction of teachers. Most countries have systems of formal education, which is commonly compulsory. In these systems, students progress through a series of schools...
children learn the symbols so that they can decode pronunciations given in a Chinese dictionary, and also so that they can find how to write words for which they know only the sounds.
Pinyin, on the other hand, is dual-purpose. Besides being a pronunciation notation, pinyin is used widely in publications in mainland China. Some books from mainland China
Mainland China
Mainland China, the Chinese mainland or simply the mainland, is a geopolitical term that refers to the area under the jurisdiction of the People's Republic of China . According to the Taipei-based Mainland Affairs Council, the term excludes the PRC Special Administrative Regions of Hong Kong and...
are published purely in pinyin with not even a single Chinese character. Those books are targeted to minority tribal groups or Western
Western world
The Western world, also known as the West and the Occident , is a term referring to the countries of Western Europe , the countries of the Americas, as well all countries of Northern and Central Europe, Australia and New Zealand...
ers who know spoken Mandarin but have not yet learned written Chinese character
Chinese character
Chinese characters are logograms used in the writing of Chinese and Japanese , less frequently Korean , formerly Vietnamese , or other languages...
s.
Romanization
Although the Wade-GilesWade-Giles
Wade–Giles , sometimes abbreviated Wade, is a romanization system for the Mandarin Chinese language. It developed from a system produced by Thomas Wade during the mid-19th century , and was given completed form with Herbert Giles' Chinese–English dictionary of 1892.Wade–Giles was the most...
system is commonly used for romanization of Chinese
Romanization of Chinese
The romanization of Mandarin Chinese is the use of the Latin alphabet to write Chinese. Because Chinese is a tonal language with a logographic script, its characters do not represent phonemes directly. There have been many systems of romanization throughout history...
in Taiwan, romanization tends to be highly inconsistent. Unlike mainland China
Mainland China
Mainland China, the Chinese mainland or simply the mainland, is a geopolitical term that refers to the area under the jurisdiction of the People's Republic of China . According to the Taipei-based Mainland Affairs Council, the term excludes the PRC Special Administrative Regions of Hong Kong and...
, Taiwan does not use the Latin alphabet
Latin alphabet
The Latin alphabet, also called the Roman alphabet, is the most recognized alphabet used in the world today. It evolved from a western variety of the Greek alphabet called the Cumaean alphabet, which was adopted and modified by the Etruscans who ruled early Rome...
in teaching Mandarin pronunciation in schools but rather uses a system called Zhuyin. There have been efforts by the educational system to move toward a Roman-based system, but these have been slow due to bureaucratic inertia, political reluctance to follow mainland China's footsteps and the huge cost in teacher retraining. The central government adopted Tongyong Pinyin
Tongyong Pinyin
Tongyong Pinyin was the official Romanization of Mandarin Chinese in the Republic of China between 2002 and 2008. The system was unofficially used between 2000 and 2002, when a new romanization system for the Republic of China was being evaluated for adoption. The ROC's Ministry of Education...
as the official romanization in 2002 but local governments are permitted to override the standard as some have adopted Hanyu Pinyin and retained old romanizations that are commonly used. However, in August 2008 the central government announced that Hanyu Pinyin will be the only system of romanization in Taiwan as of January 2009.
Taiwanese Hokkien
Taiwanese Hokkien, commonly known as "Taiwanese", is a variant of HokkienHokkien
Hokkien is a Hokkien word corresponding to Standard Chinese "Fujian". It may refer to:* Hokkien dialect, a dialect of Min Nan Chinese spoken in Southern Fujian , Taiwan, South-east Asia, and elsewhere....
spoken in Taiwan. Taiwanese is often seen as a Chinese dialect within a larger Chinese language
Chinese language
The Chinese language is a language or language family consisting of varieties which are mutually intelligible to varying degrees. Originally the indigenous languages spoken by the Han Chinese in China, it forms one of the branches of Sino-Tibetan family of languages...
. On the other hand, it may also be seen as a language
Language
Language may refer either to the specifically human capacity for acquiring and using complex systems of communication, or to a specific instance of such a system of complex communication...
in the Sino-Tibetan
Sino-Tibetan languages
The Sino-Tibetan languages are a language family comprising, at least, the Chinese and the Tibeto-Burman languages, including some 250 languages of East Asia, Southeast Asia and parts of South Asia. They are second only to the Indo-European languages in terms of the number of native speakers...
family. As with most "language or dialect?" distinctions, how one describes Taiwanese may depend largely on one's political views (see Identification of the varieties of Chinese).
There are both colloquial and literary registers
Register (linguistics)
In linguistics, a register is a variety of a language used for a particular purpose or in a particular social setting. For example, when speaking in a formal setting an English speaker may be more likely to adhere more closely to prescribed grammar, pronounce words ending in -ing with a velar nasal...
of Taiwanese. Colloquial Taiwanese has roots in Old Chinese
Old Chinese
The earliest known written records of the Chinese language were found at a site near modern Anyang identified as Yin, the last capital of the Shang dynasty, and date from about 1200 BC....
. Literary Taiwanese, which was originally developed in the 10th century in Fujian and based on Middle Chinese
Middle Chinese
Middle Chinese , also called Ancient Chinese by the linguist Bernhard Karlgren, refers to the Chinese language spoken during Southern and Northern Dynasties and the Sui, Tang, and Song dynasties...
, was used at one time for formal writing, but is now largely extinct. A great part of the Taiwanese language is mutually intelligible with other dialects of Hokkien as spoken in mainland China and South-east Asia and has a degree of intelligibility with other varieties of Min Nan languages such as Teochew. It is not, however, mutually intelligible with Mandarin or other Chinese languages.
Recent work by scholars such as Ekki Lu, Sakai Toru, and Lí Khîn-hoāⁿ (also known as Tavokan Khîn-hoāⁿ or Chin-An Li), based on former research by scholars such as Ông Io̍k-tek
Ong Iok-tek
Ong Iok-tek was a Taiwanese scholar and early leader of the Taiwan independence movement. He is considered to be an authority on the Min Nan language family and the Taiwanese language....
, has gone so far as to associate part of the basic vocabulary of the colloquial language with the Austronesian
Austronesian languages
The Austronesian languages are a language family widely dispersed throughout the islands of Southeast Asia and the Pacific, with a few members spoken on continental Asia that are spoken by about 386 million people. It is on par with Indo-European, Niger-Congo, Afroasiatic and Uralic as one of the...
and Tai
Tai languages
The Tai or Zhuang–Tai languages are a branch of the Tai–Kadai language family. The Tai languages include the most widely spoken of the Tai–Kadai languages, including standard Thai or Siamese, the national language of Thailand; Lao or Laotian, the national language of Laos; Burma's Shan language;...
language families; however, such claims are not without controversy.
Hakka
Hakka is mainly spoken on Taiwan by people who have HakkaHakka people
The Hakka , sometimes Hakka Han, are Han Chinese who speak the Hakka language and have links to the provincial areas of Guangdong, Jiangxi, Guangxi, Sichuan, Hunan and Fujian in China....
ancestry. Hakka is often seen as a Chinese dialect within a larger Chinese language
Chinese language
The Chinese language is a language or language family consisting of varieties which are mutually intelligible to varying degrees. Originally the indigenous languages spoken by the Han Chinese in China, it forms one of the branches of Sino-Tibetan family of languages...
. On the other hand, it may also be seen as a language
Language
Language may refer either to the specifically human capacity for acquiring and using complex systems of communication, or to a specific instance of such a system of complex communication...
in the Sino-Tibetan
Sino-Tibetan languages
The Sino-Tibetan languages are a language family comprising, at least, the Chinese and the Tibeto-Burman languages, including some 250 languages of East Asia, Southeast Asia and parts of South Asia. They are second only to the Indo-European languages in terms of the number of native speakers...
family. As with most "language or dialect?" distinctions, how one describes Hakka may depend largely on one's political views (see Identification of the varieties of Chinese).
Min Dong
A dialect of the Min Dong language is spoken on the Matsu IslandsMatsu Islands
The Matsu Islands are a minor archipelago of 19 islands and islets in the Taiwan Strait administered as Lienchiang County , Fujian Province of the Republic of China . Only a small area of what is historically Lienchiang County is under the control of the ROC...
, which is located off the coast of northern Fujian.
Formosan
The Formosan languages are the languages of the aboriginal tribesTaiwanese aborigines
Taiwanese aborigines is the term commonly applied in reference to the indigenous peoples of Taiwan. Although Taiwanese indigenous groups hold a variety of creation myths, recent research suggests their ancestors may have been living on the islands for approximately 8,000 years before major Han...
of Taiwan
Taiwan
Taiwan , also known, especially in the past, as Formosa , is the largest island of the same-named island group of East Asia in the western Pacific Ocean and located off the southeastern coast of mainland China. The island forms over 99% of the current territory of the Republic of China following...
. Taiwanese aborigines currently comprise about 2% of the island's population. However, far fewer can still speak their ancestral language, after centuries of language shift
Language shift
Language shift, sometimes referred to as language transfer or language replacement or assimilation, is the progressive process whereby a speech community of a language shifts to speaking another language. The rate of assimilation is the percentage of individuals with a given mother tongue who speak...
. Of the approximately 26 languages of the Taiwanese aborigines, at least ten are extinct
Extinct language
An extinct language is a language that no longer has any speakers., or that is no longer in current use. Extinct languages are sometimes contrasted with dead languages, which are still known and used in special contexts in written form, but not as ordinary spoken languages for everyday communication...
, another five are moribund, and several others are to some degree endangered.
All Formosan languages are slowly being replaced by the culturally dominant Mandarin Chinese. In recent decades the government started an aboriginal reappreciation program that included the reintroduction of Formosan mother tongue education
First language
A first language is the language a person has learned from birth or within the critical period, or that a person speaks the best and so is often the basis for sociolinguistic identity...
in Taiwanese schools. However, the results of this initiative have been disappointing.
Japanese
The Japanese languageJapanese language
is a language spoken by over 130 million people in Japan and in Japanese emigrant communities. It is a member of the Japonic language family, which has a number of proposed relationships with other languages, none of which has gained wide acceptance among historical linguists .Japanese is an...
was compulsorily taught while Taiwan was under Japanese rule
Taiwan under Japanese rule
Between 1895 and 1945, Taiwan was a dependency of the Empire of Japan. The expansion into Taiwan was a part of Imperial Japan's general policy of southward expansion during the late 19th century....
(1895 to 1945). Although fluency is now largely limited to the elderly, some of Taiwan's youth who look to Japan as the trend-setter of the region's youth pop culture now might know a bit of Japanese through the media, their grandparents, or classes taken from private "cram schools".
English
EnglishEnglish language
English is a West Germanic language that arose in the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms of England and spread into what was to become south-east Scotland under the influence of the Anglian medieval kingdom of Northumbria...
is a common foreign language, with some large private schools providing English instruction. English is compulsory in students' curriculum once they enter elementary school. English as a school subject is also featured on Taiwan's education exams.
Further reading
- Weingartner, F. F. (1996). Survey of Taiwan aboriginal languages. Taipei: [s.n.]. ISBN 9579185409
External links
- How to Forget Your Mother Tongue and Remember Your National Language by Victor H. Mair