Languages of Taiwan

Last updated
Languages of Taiwan
Map of the most commonly used home language in Taiwan.svg
The most commonly used home language in Taiwan, Penghu, Kinmen and Matsu, 2010.
('cmn' = "Mandarin"
'nan' = "Hokkien"/"Min Nan"
'hak' = "Hakka"
'map' = Austronesian languages)
Official de jure: N/A
de facto: Mandarin
National
Main Mandarin
Indigenous Formosan languages (Amis, Atayal, Bunun, Kanakanavu, Kavalan, Paiwan, Puyuma, Rukai, Saaroa, Saisiyat, Sakizaya, Seediq, Thao, Truku, Tsou), Tao
Immigrant Indonesian, Tagalog (Filipino), Thai, Vietnamese, Malay
Foreign English, Indonesian, Japanese, Korean, Tagalog (Filipino), Thai, Vietnamese [4] [5]
Signed Taiwanese Sign Language
Keyboard layout

The languages of Taiwan consist of several varieties of languages under the families of Austronesian languages and Sino-Tibetan languages. The Formosan languages, a geographically designated branch of Austronesian languages, have been spoken by the Taiwanese indigenous peoples for thousands of years. Owing to the wide internal variety of the Formosan languages, research on historical linguistics recognizes Taiwan as the Urheimat (homeland) of the whole Austronesian languages family. In the last 400 years, several waves of Han emigrations brought several different Sinitic languages into Taiwan. These languages include Taiwanese Hokkien, Hakka, and Mandarin, which have become the major languages spoken in present-day Taiwan.

Contents

Formosan languages were the dominant language of prehistorical Taiwan. Taiwan's long colonial and immigration history brought in several languages such as Dutch, Spanish, Hokkien, Hakka, Japanese, and Mandarin. Due to the former Japanese occupation of the island, the Japanese language has influenced the languages of Taiwan, particularly in terms of vocabulary, with many loanwords coming from Japanese.

After World War II, a long martial law era was held in Taiwan. Policies of the government in this era suppressed languages other than Mandarin in public use. This has significantly damaged the evolution of local languages, including Taiwanese Hokkien, Hakka, Formosan languages, and the Matsu dialect. The situation had slightly changed since the 2000s when the government made efforts to protect and revitalize local languages. [6] Local languages became part of elementary school education in Taiwan, laws and regulations regarding local language protection were established for Hakka and Formosan languages, and public TV and radio stations exclusively for these two languages were also established. Currently, the government of Taiwan also maintains standards for several widely spoken languages listed below; the percentage of users are from the 2010 population and household census in Taiwan. [7]

Overview of national languages

LanguagePercentage
of home use		Recognised
variants		National
language[ clarification needed ]		Statutory language
for public transport		Regulated by
Taiwanese Mandarin 83.5%1By legal definition [a] Required nationwide Ministry of Education
Taiwanese Hokkien
(incl. Kinmen dialect)		81.9%1~6By legal definition [a] Required nationwide Ministry of Education
Taiwanese Hakka 6.6%6By legal definition [a] Required nationwide Ministry of Education

Hakka Affairs Council

Formosan languages Amis 1.4%5By legal definition [a] Discretionary Council of Indigenous Peoples
Atayal 6
Bunun 5
Kanakanavu 1
Kavalan 1
Paiwan 4
Puyuma 4
Rukai 6
Saaroa 1
Saisiyat 1
Sakizaya 1
Seediq 3
Thao 1
Truku 1
Tsou 1
Malayo-Polynesian Tao 1
Taiwan sign language <1%1By legal definition [a] N/A Ministry of Culture
Matsu dialect <1%1By legal definition [a] [ clarification needed ]Required in Matsu Islands Ministry of Culture
Department of Education,
Lienchiang County Government
Wuqiu dialect <1%1By legal definition but not listed [a] [ clarification needed ]Recognized minority language in Wuqiu Township Ministry of Culture
Department of Education,
Kinmen County Government

Indigenous languages

Families of Formosan languages before Chinese colonization, per Blust. Malayo-Polynesian (red) may lie within Eastern Formosan (purple). Note that the white section in the northwest of the country does not indicate a complete absence of aboriginal people from that part of Taiwan. On Chinese-language sources, this area is listed as the homeland of various Plains Indigenous groups (e.g. the Kulon), and certain other groups (e.g. the Taokas) are arranged slightly differently than they are on the above map. Formosan languages.png
Families of Formosan languages before Chinese colonization, per Blust. Malayo-Polynesian (red) may lie within Eastern Formosan (purple). Note that the white section in the northwest of the country does not indicate a complete absence of aboriginal people from that part of Taiwan. On Chinese-language sources, this area is listed as the homeland of various Plains Indigenous groups (e.g. the Kulon), and certain other groups (e.g. the Taokas) are arranged slightly differently than they are on the above map.
Percentage of residents using an indigenous language at home in 2010. Austronesian Languages Usage Map of Taiwan.svg
Percentage of residents using an indigenous language at home in 2010.

The Taiwanese indigenous languages or Formosan languages are the languages of the Taiwanese indigenous peoples. Taiwanese aborigines currently comprise about 2.3% of the island's population. [10] However, far fewer can still speak their ancestral language after centuries of language shift. It is 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. Of the approximately 26 languages of the Taiwanese aborigines, at least ten are extinct, another five are moribund, [11] and several others are to some degree endangered. The government recognizes 16 languages and 42 accents of the indigenous languages.

ClassificationRecognized languages (accents)
Formosan Atayalic Atayal (6), Seediq (3), Truku (1)
Rukaic Rukai (6)
Northern Formosan Saisiyat (1), Thao (1)
Eastern Formosan Amis (5), Kavalan (1), Sakizaya (1)
Southern Formosan Paiwan (4), Bunun (5), Puyuma (4)
Tsouic Tsou (1), Kanakanavu (1), Saaroa (1)
Malayo-Polynesian Batanic (Philippine) Tao (1)

The governmental agency Council of Indigenous Peoples maintains the orthography of the writing systems of Formosan languages. Due to the era of Taiwan under Japanese rule, a large number of loanwords from Japanese also appear in Formosan languages. There is also Yilan Creole Japanese as a mixture of Japanese and Atayal.

All Formosan languages are slowly being replaced by culturally dominant Mandarin. 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. [12] [13] The television station Taiwan Indigenous Television and radio station Alian 96.3 were created as efforts to revive the indigenous languages. Formosan languages were made an official language in July 2017. [14] [15]

The Amis language is the most widely spoken aboriginal language on the eastern coast of the island, where Hokkien and Hakka are less present than on the western coast. The government estimates put the number of Amis people at a little over 200,000, but the number of people who speak Amis as their first language is lower than 10,000. [16] Amis has appeared in some mainstream popular music. [17] Other significant indigenous languages include Atayal, Paiwan, and Bunun. In addition to the recognized languages, there are around 10 to 12 groups of Taiwanese Plains Indigenous Peoples with their respective languages.

Some indigenous people and languages are recognized by local governments. These include Siraya (and its Makatao and Taivoan varieties) to the southwest of the island. Some other language revitalization movements are going on Basay to the north, Babuza-Taokas in the most populated western plains, and Pazeh bordering it in the center west of the island.

Sinitic languages

Quadrilingual broadcasting on a bus in New Taipei City, in Mandarin, Hokkien, Hakka, and English.

Taiwanese Mandarin

Mandarin is commonly known and officially referred to as the national language (國語; Guóyǔ) in Taiwan. In 1945, following the end of World War II, Mandarin was introduced as the de facto 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, the aboriginals who speak aboriginal languages; as well as Mainland Chinese immigrated in 1949 whose native tongue may be any Chinese variant.

People who emigrated from mainland China after 1949 (12% of the population) mostly speak Mandarin Chinese. [18] Mandarin is almost universally spoken and understood. [19] It was the only officially sanctioned medium of instruction in schools in Taiwan from late 1940s to late 1970s, following the handover of Taiwan to the government of the Republic of China in 1945, until English became a high school subject in the 1980s and local languages became a school subject in the 2000s.

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 of Taiwan (國語; Guóyǔ), which differs little from the Standard Chinese of China (普通话; Pǔtōnghuà). 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.

Many Taiwanese, particularly the younger generations, speak Mandarin better than Hakka or Hokkien, and it has become a lingua franca for the island amongst the Chinese dialects. [20]

Taiwanese Hokkien

Commonly known as Taiwanese (臺語, Pe̍h-ōe-jī :Tâi-gí) and officially referred as Taiwanese Hokkien (臺灣閩南語; Tâi-oân Bân-lâm-gú); Taiwanese Hokkien is the most-spoken native language in Taiwan, spoken by about 70% of the population. [21] [22] Linguistically, it is a subgroup of Southern Min languages variety originating in southern Fujian province and is spoken by many overseas Chinese throughout Southeast Asia.

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. Due to the era of Taiwan under Japanese rule, a large number of loanwords from Japanese also appear in Taiwanese. The loanwords may be read in Kanji through Taiwanese pronunciation or simply use the Japanese pronunciation. These reasons make the modern writing Taiwanese in a mixed script of traditional Chinese characters and Latin-based systems such as pe̍h-ōe-jī or the Taiwanese romanization system derived from pe̍h-ōe-jī in official use since 2006.

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. Recently there has been a growing use of Taiwanese Hokkien in the broadcast media.

Accent differences among Taiwanese dialects are relatively small but still exist. The standard accent — Thong-hêng accent (通行腔) is sampled from Kaohsiung city, [23] while other accents fall into a spectrum between

Much of Taiwanese Hokkien is mutually intelligible with other dialects of Hokkien as spoken in China and South-east Asia (such as Singaporean Hokkien), but also to a degree with the Teochew variant of Southern Min spoken in Eastern Guangdong, China. It is, however, mutually unintelligible with Mandarin and other Chinese languages.

Taiwanese Hakka

Townships/cities and districts in Taiwan where Hakka is a statutory regional language according to the Hakka Basic Act Hakka regions in Taiwan.svg
Townships/cities and districts in Taiwan where Hakka is a statutory regional language according to the Hakka Basic Act

Hakka (客家語; Hak-kâ-ngî) is mainly spoken in Taiwan by people who have Hakka ancestry. These people are concentrated in several places throughout Taiwan. The majority of Hakka Taiwanese reside in Taoyuan, Hsinchu and Miaoli. Varieties of Taiwanese Hakka were officially recognized as national languages. [3] Currently the Hakka language in Taiwan is maintained by the Hakka Affairs Council. This governmental agency also runs Hakka TV and Hakka Radio stations. The government currently recognizes and maintains five Hakka dialects (six, if Sixian and South Sixian are counted independently) in Taiwan. [24]

Usage of Subdialects of Taiwanese Hakka [25]
Subdialect (in Hakka) Si-yen Hói-liu̍k South Si-yenThai-pû Ngiàu-Phìn Cheu-ôn
Subdialect (in Chinese)四縣腔
Sixian		海陸腔
Hailu		南四縣腔
South Sixian		大埔腔
Dabu		饒平腔
Raoping		詔安腔
Zhao'an
Percentage (as of 2013)56.1%41.5%4.8%4.2%1.6%1.3%
Percentage (as of 2016)58.4%44.8%7.3%4.1%2.6%1.7%

Matsu dialect

Matsu dialect (馬祖話, Mā-cū-ngṳ̄) is the language spoken in Matsu islands. It is a dialect of Fuzhounese of the Eastern Min branch.

Wuqiu dialect

Wuqiu dialect (烏坵話, Ou-chhiu-uā) is the language spoken in Wuchiu islands. It is a dialect of Hinghwa of the Pu-Xian Min branch. Currently Taiwanese government does not label the language as part of national language probably due to low population of native speaker.

Cantonese

Cantonese is one of the Chinese languages in Taiwan. Cantonese is spread by Waishengren who have backgrounds in Guangdong, Guangxi, Hong Kong and Macau.

Cantonese is mainly spoken by immigrants from Guangdong, Guangxi, Hong Kong, and Macau. Various Cantonese-speaking communities exist throughout Taiwan, and the use of the language in Taiwan continues to increase. Many Malaysian Chinese are also able to speak Cantonese as well.

Cantonese is the biggest Sinitic language which Taiwan does not recognize as a national language.

There are a reported 87,719 Hongkongers residing in Taiwan as of the early 2010s; [26] however, it is likely that this number has increased following emigration following political tension from the Hong Kong national security law in 2020. [27]

Written and sign languages

Chinese characters

Traditional Chinese characters are widely used in Taiwan to write Sinitic languages including Mandarin, Taiwanese Hokkien, Hakka and Cantonese. The Ministry of Education maintains standards of writing for these languages, publications including the Standard Form of National Characters and the recommended characters for Taiwanese Hokkien and Hakka.

Written vernacular Chinese is the standard of written Chinese used in official documents, general literature and most aspects of everyday life, and has grammar based on Modern Standard Mandarin. Vernacular Chinese is the modern written variant of Chinese that supplanted the use of classical Chinese in literature following the New Culture Movement of the early 20th Century, which is based on the grammar of Old Chinese spoken in ancient times. Although written vernacular Chinese had replaced Classical Chinese and emerged as the mainstream written Chinese in the Republic of China since the May Fourth Movement, Classical Chinese continued to be widely used in the Government of the Republic of China. Most government documents in the Republic of China were written in Classical Chinese until reforms in the 1970s, in a reform movement spearheaded by President Yen Chia-kan to shift the written style to a more combined vernacular Chinese and Classical Chinese style (文白合一行文）. [28] [29] After January 1, 2005, the Executive Yuan also changed the long-standing official document writing habit from vertical writing style to horizontal writing style.

Today, pure Classical Chinese is occasionally used in formal or ceremonial occasions and religious or cultural rites in Taiwan. The National Anthem of the Republic of China (中華民國國歌), for example, is in Classical Chinese. Taoist texts are still preserved in Classical Chinese from the time they were composed. Buddhist texts, or sutras, are still preserved in Classical Chinese from the time they were composed or translated from Sanskrit sources. In practice, there is a socially accepted continuum between vernacular Chinese and Classical Chinese. Most official government documents, legal, courts rulings and judiciary documents used a combined vernacular Chinese and Classical Chinese style (文白合一行文）. [30] For example, most official notices and formal letters are written with a number of stock Classical Chinese expressions (e.g. salutation, closing). Personal letters, on the other hand, are mostly written in the vernacular, but with some Classical phrases, depending on the subject matter, the writer's level of education, etc.

In recent times, following the Taiwan localization movement and an increasing presence of Taiwanese literature, written Hokkien based on the vocabulary and grammar of Taiwanese Hokkien is occasionally used in literature and informal communications.

Traditional Chinese characters are also used in Hong Kong and Macau. A small number of characters are written differently in Taiwan; the Standard Form of National Characters is the orthography standard used in Taiwan and administered by the Ministry of Education, and has minor variations compared with the standardized character forms used in Hong Kong and Macau. Such differences relate to orthodox and vulgar variants of Chinese characters.

Latin alphabet and romanization

Latin alphabet is native to Formosan languages and partially native to Taiwanese Hokkien and Hakka. With the early influences of European missionaries, writing systems such as Sinckan Manuscripts, Pe̍h-ōe-jī, and Pha̍k-fa-sṳ were based on in Latin alphabet. Currently, the official writing systems of Formosan languages are solely based on Latin and maintained by the Council of Indigenous Peoples. The Ministry of Education also maintains Latin-based systems Taiwanese Romanization System for Taiwanese Hokkien, and Taiwanese Hakka Romanization System for Hakka. The textbooks of Taiwanese Hokkien and Hakka are written in a mixed script of traditional Chinese characters and the Latin alphabet.

Chinese language romanization in Taiwan tends to be highly inconsistent. Taiwan still uses the Zhuyin system and does not commonly use the Latin alphabet as the language phonetic symbols. Traditionally Wade–Giles is used. 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 would be the only system of romanization of Standard Mandarin in Taiwan as of January 2009.

Phonetic symbols

Zhuyin and Hanzi location.svg

Zhuyin Fuhao, often abbreviated as Zhuyin, or known as Bopomofo after its first four letters, is the phonetic system of Taiwan for teaching the pronunciation of Chinese characters, especially in Mandarin. Mandarin uses 37 symbols to represent its sounds: 21 consonants and 16 rimes. Taiwanese Hokkien uses 45 symbols to represent its sounds: 21 consonants and 24 rimes. There is also a system created for Hakka language.

These phonetic symbols sometimes appear as ruby characters printed next to the Chinese characters in young children's books, and in editions of classical texts (which frequently use characters that appear at very low-frequency rates in newspapers and other such daily fares). 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 a computer. In more recent years, with the advent of smartphones, it has become increasingly common to see Zhuyin used in written slang terms instead of typing full characters – for example ㄅㄅ replacing 拜拜 (bye bye). It is also used to give phrases a different tone, like using ㄘ for 吃 (to eat) to indicate a childlike tone in the writing.

The sole purpose of 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 were given in annotated form. Around grade four, the 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. Even among adults, it is almost universally used in Taiwan to explain the pronunciation of a certain character being referred to by others.

Sign language

Taiwan has a national sign language, the Taiwanese Sign Language (TSL), which was developed from Japanese Sign Language during Japanese colonial rule. TSL has some mutual intelligibility with Japanese Sign Language (JSL) and the Korean Sign Language as a result (KSL). TSL has about a 60% lexical similarity with JSL. [31]

Other languages

Japanese

The Japanese language was compulsorily taught while Taiwan was under Japanese rule (1895 to 1945). By 1943, over 80% of the Taiwanese population at the time were speakers of Japanese. Taiwanese Americans and others in the Taiwanese diaspora may have older relatives or grandparents who learned Japanese and also spoke it as the lingua franca during their youth. [32] Many famous Taiwanese figures, including former Taiwanese President, Lee Teng-hui, and the founder of Nissin and inventor of instant ramen, Momofuku Ando, were considered to be native Japanese speakers due to being born in Japanese Taiwan. Japanese is also one of the languages that is used in metro stations.

Korean

The Korean language, along with English and Japanese are the most popular foreign languages to learn in Taiwan. The reason of its popularity is due to Korean Wave. The Korean language is also one of the languages used in metro stations.

South-East Asian languages

Sign in Taichung in Chinese, English, Thai, Vietnamese and Indonesian. 2022 multilingual prohibition sign before the TRA Taichung Station.jpg
Sign in Taichung in Chinese, English, Thai, Vietnamese and Indonesian.

.

A significant number of immigrants and spouses in Taiwan are from South-East Asia.

European languages

See also

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Chinese language</span> National language of China

Chinese is a group of languages spoken natively by the ethnic Han Chinese majority and many minority ethnic groups in China, as well as by various communities of the Chinese diaspora. Approximately 1.35 billion people, or 17% of the global population, speak a variety of Chinese as their first language.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Standard Chinese</span> Standard form of Chinese and official language of China

Standard Chinese is a modern standard form of Mandarin Chinese that was first codified during the republican era (1912–1949). It is designated as the official language of mainland China and a major language in the United Nations, Singapore, and Taiwan. It is largely based on the Beijing dialect. Standard Chinese is a pluricentric language with local standards in mainland China, Taiwan and Singapore that mainly differ in their lexicon. Hong Kong written Chinese, used for formal written communication in Hong Kong and Macau, is a form of Standard Chinese that is read aloud with the Cantonese reading of characters.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Hakka Chinese</span> Sinitic language originating in southern China

Hakka forms a language group of varieties of Chinese, spoken natively by the Hakka people in parts of Southern China, Taiwan, some diaspora areas of Southeast Asia and in overseas Chinese communities around the world.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Taiwanese Hokkien</span> Variety of Hokkien spoken in Taiwan

Taiwanese Hokkien, or simply Taiwanese, also known as Taiuanoe, Taigi, Taigu, Taiwanese Minnan, Hoklo and Holo, is a variety of the Hokkien language spoken natively by more than 70 percent of the population of Taiwan. It is spoken by a significant portion of those Taiwanese people who are descended from Hoklo immigrants of southern Fujian. It is one of the national languages of Taiwan.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Min Chinese</span> Primary branch of Sinitic spoken in southern China and Taiwan

Min is a broad group of Sinitic languages with about 70 million native speakers. These languages are spoken in Fujian province as well as by the descendants of Min-speaking colonists on the Leizhou Peninsula and Hainan and by the assimilated natives of Chaoshan, parts of Zhongshan, three counties in southern Wenzhou, the Zhoushan archipelago, Taiwan and scattered in pockets or sporadically across Hong Kong, Macau, and several countries in Southeast Asia, particularly Singapore, Malaysia, the Philippines, Indonesia, Thailand, Myanmar, Cambodia, Vietnam, Brunei. The name is derived from the Min River in Fujian, which is also the abbreviated name of Fujian Province. Min varieties are not mutually intelligible with one another nor with any other variety of Chinese.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Varieties of Chinese</span> Family of local language varieties

There are hundreds of local Chinese language varieties forming a branch of the Sino-Tibetan language family, many of which are not mutually intelligible. Variation is particularly strong in the more mountainous southeast part of mainland China. The varieties are typically classified into several groups: Mandarin, Wu, Min, Xiang, Gan, Jin, Hakka and Yue, though some varieties remain unclassified. These groups are neither clades nor individual languages defined by mutual intelligibility, but reflect common phonological developments from Middle Chinese.

Cantonese is the traditional prestige variety of Yue Chinese, a Sinitic language belonging to the Sino-Tibetan language family. It originated in the city of Guangzhou and its surrounding Pearl River Delta.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Hoklo people</span> Han Chinese subgroup

The Hoklo people are a Han Chinese subgroup who speak Hokkien, a Southern Min language, or trace their ancestry to southeastern Fujian in China, and known by various related terms such as Banlam people, Minnan people, Fujianese people or more commonly in Southeast Asia as the Hokkien people. The Hokkien people are found in significant numbers in mainland China, Taiwan, Hong Kong, Macau, Singapore, Malaysia, Philippines, Indonesia, Brunei, Myanmar, and the United States. The Hokkien people have a distinct culture and architecture, including Hokkien shrines and temples with tilted sharp eaves, high and slanted top roofs, and finely detailed decorative inlays of wood and porcelain. The Hokkien language, which includes Taiwanese Hokkien, is the mainstream Southern Min, which is partially mutually intelligible to the Teochew language, Hainanese, Leizhou Min, and Haklau Min.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Languages of Hong Kong</span>

During the British colonial era, English was the sole official language until 1978. Today, the Basic Law of Hong Kong states that English and Chinese are the two official languages of Hong Kong. All roads and government signs are bilingual, and both languages are used in academia, business and the courts, as well as in most government materials today.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Taiwanese Mandarin</span> Forms of Mandarin Chinese spoken in Taiwan

Taiwanese Mandarin, frequently referred to as Guoyu or Huayu, is the variety of Mandarin Chinese spoken in Taiwan. A large majority of the Taiwanese population is fluent in Mandarin, though many also speak a variety of Min Chinese known as Taiwanese Hokkien, which has had a significant influence on the Mandarin spoken on the island.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Saisiyat language</span> Austronesian language spoken in Taiwan

Saisiyat is the language of the Saisiyat, a Taiwanese indigenous people. It is a Formosan language of the Austronesian family. It has approximately 4,750 speakers.

There are many romanization systems used in Taiwan. The first Chinese language romanization system in Taiwan, Pe̍h-ōe-jī, was developed for Taiwanese by Presbyterian missionaries and has been promoted by the indigenous Presbyterian Churches since the 19th century. Pe̍h-ōe-jī is also the first written system of Taiwanese Hokkien; a similar system for Hakka was also developed at that time. During the period of Japanese rule, the promotion of roman writing systems was suppressed under the Dōka and Kōminka policy. After World War II, Taiwan was handed over from Japan to the Republic of China in 1945. The romanization of Mandarin Chinese was also introduced to Taiwan as official or semi-official standard.

Singaporean Mandarin is a variety of Mandarin Chinese spoken natively in Singapore. Mandarin is one of the four official languages of Singapore along with English, Malay and Tamil.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Hokkien</span> Sinitic language spoken in East Asia

Hokkien is a variety of the Southern Min languages, native to and originating from the Minnan region, in the southeastern part of Fujian in southeastern mainland China. It is also referred to as Quanzhang, from the first characters of the urban centers of Quanzhou and Zhangzhou.

Benshengren are ethnic Hoklo or Hakka Taiwanese nationals who settled on the island prior to or during the Japanese colonization of Taiwan. Its usage is to differentiate the different culture, customs, and political sentiments within contemporary Taiwan between those who lived through World War II on the island and later migrants from Mainland China, who are known as waishengren. Hoklo and Hakka people who migrated to Taiwan after 1945, especially those who migrated with the retreat of the Nationalist-Led Chinese Government to Taiwan in 1949 are not included in this term.

Hokkien, a variety of Chinese that forms part of the Southern Min family and is spoken in Southeastern China, Taiwan and Southeast Asia, does not have a unitary standardized writing system, in comparison with the well-developed written forms of Cantonese and Standard Chinese (Mandarin). In Taiwan, a standard for Written Hokkien has been developed by the Ministry of Education including its Dictionary of Frequently-Used Taiwan Minnan, but there are a wide variety of different methods of writing in Vernacular Hokkien. Nevertheless, vernacular works written in Hokkien are still commonly seen in literature, film, performing arts and music.

The usage of Chinese by the Chinese diaspora and their descendants has been determined by a large number of factors, including their ancestry, their migrant ancestors' "regime of origin", assimilation through generational changes, and official policies of their country of residence. The general trend is that more established Chinese populations in the Western world and in many regions of Asia have Cantonese as either the dominant variety or as a common community vernacular, while Mandarin is much more prevalent among new arrivals, making it increasingly common in many Chinatowns, though still not dominant.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Protection of the varieties of Chinese</span> Language preservation efforts

Protection of the varieties of Chinese refers to efforts to protect the continued existence of the varieties of Chinese in mainland China and other Sinophone regions, amid pressure to abandon their use, usually in favor of Standard Chinese. The Ministry of Education of the People's Republic of China has proclaimed to be taking active measures to protect ten varieties of Chinese. However, a large majority of the citizens of China speak a dialect of Mandarin Chinese, a standardized form of which has been enforced and promoted by the government of China for the last sixty years. The Constitution of the People's Republic of China calls on the government to promote Standard Chinese as the common tongue of the nation, but this policy has caused conflict to a certain extent with plans to preserve local varieties of Chinese. Education and media programming in varieties of Chinese other than Mandarin have been discouraged by the governments of the People's Republic of China, Singapore, and Taiwan. Teaching the varieties of Chinese to non-native speakers is discouraged by the laws of the People's Republic of China in favor of Putonghua. The Guangdong National Language Regulations were passed by the Guangdong provincial government in 2012 to promote the use of Standard Chinese in broadcast and print media at the expense of the local standard Cantonese and other related dialects. It has been labelled "pro-Mandarin, anti-Yue" legislation.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Language policy in Taiwan during martial law</span>

During the martial law period in Taiwan, a Mandarin monolingual policy was implemented in Taiwan by the Kuomintang. The policy was formulated as a political goal to unite the island. However, the demotion of prior local languages into "dialects" across cultural and educational landscapes resulted in a pushback of the policy and eventually rescinded as Taiwan democratized.

References

  1. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 Not designated but meets legal definition, that is "本法所稱國家語言，指臺灣各固有族群使用之自然語言及臺灣手語。" [2] ("a natural language used by an original people group of Taiwan and the Taiwan Sign Language")

Citations

  1. ↑ "Indigenous Languages Development Act" . Retrieved 22 May 2019– via law.moj.gov.tw.
  2. ↑ 國家語言發展法. law.moj.gov.tw (in Chinese). Retrieved 22 May 2019.
  3. 1 2 "Hakka Basic Act" . Retrieved 22 May 2019– via law.moj.gov.tw.
  4. ↑ "Taiwanese Talent Turns to Southeast Asia". Language Magazine. 2015-12-30. Archived from the original on 2016-02-01. Retrieved 2016-01-24.
  5. ↑ Jen, Victoria (2015-12-27). "Learning Vietnamese Gaining Popularity in Taiwan". Channel NewsAsia. Archived from the original on 2016-01-31. Retrieved 2016-01-24.
  6. ↑ Hubbs, Elizabeth (2013). "Taiwan Language-In-Education Policy: Social, Cultural and Practical Implications". Arizona Working Papers in SLA & Teaching. 20: 76–95.
  7. ↑ Xingzheng yuan zhuji zong chu (2012). "99 Nián rénkǒu jí zhùzhái pǔchá: Zǒng bàogào tǒngjì jiéguǒ tíyào fēnxī" 99 年人口及住宅普查：總報告統計結果提要分析 [2010 Population and Housing Census: Summary Analysis of the Statistical Results of the General Report](PDF) (in Chinese (Taiwan)).
  8. ↑ Blust, Robert (1999). "Subgrouping, Circularity and Extinction: Some Issues in Austronesian Comparative Linguistics". In Zeitoun, Elizabeth; Li, Jen-kuei (eds.). Selected Papers from the Eighth International Conference on Austronesian Linguistics. Taipei: Academia Sinica. ISBN   9789576716324.
  9. ↑ (Hqq. Hqq), hqq (2009-08-06). "Táiwān yuán zhùmín píng pǔ zúqún bǎinián fēnlèi shǐ xìliè dìtú" 臺灣原住民平埔族群百年分類史系列地圖 [A History of the Classification of Plains Taiwanese Tribes Over the Past Century]. 隨意窩 Xuite日誌 (in Chinese). Retrieved 2017-03-04.
  10. ↑ Council of Indigenous Peoples, Executive Yuan "Statistics of Indigenous Population in Taiwan and Fukien Areas" Archived 2006-08-30 at the Wayback Machine .
  11. ↑ Zeitoun, Elizabeth; Yu, Ching-hua (2005). "The Formosan Language Archive: Linguistic Analysis and Language Processing" (PDF). Computational Linguistics and Chinese Language Processing. 10 (2): 167–200. Archived from the original (PDF) on 2011-07-20. Retrieved 2006-09-04.
  12. ↑ Lee, Hui-chi (2004). "A Survey of Language Ability, Language Use and Language Attitudes of Young Aborigines in Taiwan". In Hoffmann, Charlotte; Ytsma, Jehannes (eds.). Trilingualism in Family, School, and Community. Clevedon, Buffalo: Multilingual Matters. pp. 101–117. doi:10.21832/9781853596940-006. ISBN   1-85359-693-0. Archived from the original on 2007-05-26.
  13. ↑ Huteson, Greg (2003). Sociolinguistic survey report for the Tona and Maga dialects of the Rukai Language (PDF) (Report). Dallas, TX: SIL International. SIL Electronic Survey Reports 2003-012.
  14. ↑ "President Lauds Efforts in Transitional Justice for Indigenous People". Focus Taiwan. CNA. 2017-07-19. Retrieved 19 July 2017.
  15. ↑ Zeldin, Wendy (2017-06-21). "Taiwan: New Indigenous Languages Act". Library of Congress . Retrieved December 5, 2018.
  16. ↑ Wilson, Aaron Wytze (2015-09-28). "Saving the Amis Language One Megabyte at a Time". Taipei Times . Retrieved 2018-12-05.
  17. ↑ Chang, Chiung-wen (2009–2010). ""Return to Innocence": In Search of Ethnic Identity in the Music of the Amis of Taiwan". College Music Symposium. 49–50: 327–332. JSTOR   41225259 . Retrieved December 5, 2018– via symposium.music.org.
  18. ↑ Liao, Silvie (2008). "A Perceptual Dialect Study of Taiwan Mandarin: Language Attitudes in the Era of Political Battle". In Chan, Marjorie K. M.; Kang, Hana (eds.). Proceedings of the 20th North American Conference on Chinese Linguistics (NACCL-20) (PDF). Vol. 1. Columbus, Ohio: The Ohio State University. p. 393. ISBN   9780982471500. Archived from the original (PDF) on 2013-12-24.
  19. ↑ Executive Yuan, R.O.C. (Taiwan) (2012). "Chapter 2: People and Language". The Republic of China Yearbook 2012. Government Information Office. p. 24. ISBN   9789860345902. Archived from the original on 2013-10-14. Retrieved 2013-12-18.
  20. ↑ Noble (2005), p. 16.
  21. ↑ Cheng, Robert L. (1994). "Chapter 13: Language Unification in Taiwan: Present and Future". In Rubinstein, Murray (ed.). The Other Taiwan: 1945 to the Present. M.E. Sharpe. p. 362. ISBN   9781563241932.
  22. ↑ Klöter, Henning (2004). "Language Policy in the KMT and DPP Eras". China Perspectives. 56 (6). doi: 10.4000/chinaperspectives.442 .
  23. ↑ "Biānjí fánlì" 編輯凡例. Táiwān mǐnnán yǔ chángyòng cí cídiǎn臺灣閩南語常用詞辭典 (in Chinese (Taiwan)). Retrieved 2018-12-22.
  24. ↑ Government Information Office (2010). "Chapter 2: People and Language" (PDF). The Republic of China Yearbook 2010. 中華民國政府出版品. p. 42. ISBN   9789860252781. Archived from the original (PDF) on 2011-08-05.
  25. ↑ Kejia weiyuanhui 客家委員會 (2017). "105 Niándù quánguó kèjiā rénkǒu jì yǔyán jīchǔ zīliào tiáo chá yánjiū" 105年度全國客家人口暨語言基礎資料調查研究 [2016 Survey and Research on National Hakka Population and Basic Language Data] (in Chinese).
  26. ↑ "100 Nián 12 yuè" 100年12月 [December 2011]. Nèizhèng bù rù chūguó jí yímín shǔ (in Chinese). 2012-01-20. Archived from the original on 7 March 2014. Retrieved 2010-07-12.
  27. ↑ "Hong Kong: Beijing Dismantles a Free Society". Human Rights Watch. Retrieved 11 October 2021.
  28. ↑ Tsao, Feng-fu (2000). "The Language Planning Situation in Taiwan". In Baldauf, Richard B.; Kaplan, Robert B. (eds.). Language Planning in Nepal, Taiwan, and Sweden. Vol. 115. Multilingual Matters. pp. 60–106. ISBN   978-1-85359-483-0. pages 75–76.
  29. ↑ Cheong, Ching (2001). Will Taiwan Break Away: The Rise of Taiwanese Nationalism. World Scientific. p. 187. ISBN   978-981-02-4486-6.
  30. ↑ "法律統一用語表-常見公文用語說明" (PDF) (in Chinese). Archived from the original (PDF) on 2 June 2021. Retrieved 2 June 2021.
  31. ↑ Fischer, Susan; Gong, Qunhu (2010). "Variation in East Asian Sign Language Structures". In Brentari, Diane (ed.). Sign Languages. Cambridge University Press. p. 501. ISBN   978-1-139-48739-9.
  32. ↑ Cheng, Catherine. "A Taiwanese Engagement Ceremony and Other Japanese Customs". HIST1120: AT CHINA'S EDGES. Retrieved 11 October 2021.
  33. ↑ Yeh, Yu-ching; Ho, Hsiang-ju; Chen, Ming-chung (2015). "Learning Vietnamese as a Heritage Language in Taiwan". Journal of Multilingual and Multicultural Development. 36 (3): 255–265. doi:10.1080/01434632.2014.912284. S2CID   143320658.
  34. ↑ "傳承母語文化 馬來語在台發展之路". 世新大學小世界. 21 November 2022.
  35. ↑ Everington, Keoni (2020-06-23). "Taiwan to launch '2030 Bilingual Country Project'". Taiwan News.

Sources

Further reading

This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.