Taiwanese 台灣話; Tâi-oân-oē
Spoken in:	Taiwan
Region:	The whole of Taiwan and overseas Taiwanese communities
Total speakers:	About 15 million in Taiwan; 49 million (Min Nan as a group)
Ranking:	21 (Min Nan as a group)
Language family:	}}}  Chinese   Min    Min Nan     Amoy      Taiwanese}}}
Writing system:	Latin (pe̍h-ōe-jī), Han
Official status
Official language of:	None (legislative bills have been proposed for it to be one of the national languages in the Republic of China); one of the statutory languages for public transport announcements in the ROC
Regulated by:	None (the National Languages Committee of the ROC Ministry of Education and some NGOs are influential)
Language codes
ISO 639-1:	zh
ISO 639-2:	chi (B)	zho (T)
ISO 639-3:	nan

Taiwanese (pe̍h-oē-jī: Tâi-oân-oē or Tâi-gí; Traditional Chinese: 台灣話, 台語; Pinyin: Táiwānhuà, Táiyǔ) is a variant of Amoy Min Nan Chinese spoken by about 70% of Taiwan's population. The sub-ethnic group in Taiwan for which Taiwanese is considered a native language is known as Hoklo or Holo. The correspondence between language and ethnicity is generally true though not absolute, as some Hoklo speak Taiwanese poorly while some non-Hoklo speak Taiwanese fluently. Pe̍h-oē-jī (POJ) is a popular orthography for this language, and Min Nan in general.

Classification

Taiwanese is a variant of Amoy Min Nan. It 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/dialect" distinctions, how one describes Taiwanese depends largely on one's political views (see Identification of the varieties of Chinese). In any case, the classification may be represented hierarchically as:

Sino-Tibetan ⊃ Chinese ⊃ Min ⊃ Min Nan ⊃ Amoy ≈ Taiwanese

As a branch of Min Nan, there is both a colloquial version and a literary version of Taiwanese. The literary version, which was originally developed in the 10th century in Fujian and based on Middle Chinese, was brought to Taiwan by the immigrants. Literary Taiwanese was used at one time for formal writing, but is now largely extinct. Taiwanese is almost identical to Xiamen speech, except for a few loanwords from Japanese. Regional variations within Taiwanese may be traced back to their corresponding counterparts in Southern Fujian (Quanzhou and Zhangzhou).

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 still controversial.

Phonology

Phonologically, Taiwanese is a tonal language with extensive tone sandhi rules. Syllables consist maximally of an initial consonant, a vowel, a final consonant, and a tone; any or all of the consonants or vowels may be nasal.

Consonants

		Bilabial	Coronal 1	Velar	Glottal
Nasal		m /m/	n /n/	ng /ŋ/
Plosive	voiced3	b /b/		g /g/
	plain	p /p/	t /t/	k /k/
	aspirated	ph /pʰ/	th /tʰ/	kh /kʰ/
Affricate	voiced		j /dz/2
	plain		ch /ts/
	aspirated		chh /tsʰ/
Fricative			s /s/		h4 /h/
Lateral			l /l/

Unlike many other varieties of Chinese such as Standard Mandarin or Standard Cantonese, there are no native labiodental phonemes.

1. Coronal affricates and fricatives become palatoalveolar, that is /dz/, /ts/, /tsʰ/, and /s/ become [dʑ], [tɕ], [tɕʰ], and [ɕ] respectively when occurring before /i/.
2. The consonant /dz/ may also be realized as a fricative; that is, [z] in most environments and [ʑ] when before /i/.
3. Voiced plosives (/b/ and /g/) are corresponding fricatives ([β] and [ɣ]) in some phonetic contexts.
4. H represents a glottal stop [ʔ] at the end of a syllable.

Vowels

Taiwanese has the following vowels:

IPA	a	e	i	o/ɤ	ɔ	u	m	?
Pe̍h-oē-jī	a	e	i	o	o͘	u	m	ng
PSDB	a	e	i	oi	o	u	m	ng ! ||a||e||i||o||oo||u||m||ng

The vowel o is akin to a schwa; in contrast, o͘ is more open. In addition, there are several diphthongs and triphthongs (for example, iau). The consonants m and ng can function as a syllabic nucleus and are therefore included here as vowels. The vowels may be either plain or nasal: a is non-nasal, and aⁿ is the same vowel with concurrent nasal articulation. This is similar to French, Portuguese, and many other languages.

There are two pronunciations of vowel o. It is [ɤ] in Southern Taiwan mainly such as Tainan and Kaohsiung, and [o] in Northern Taiwan such as Taipei. But because of people moving and the development of communication, these two pronunciations are common and acceptable in entire island.

Tones

There are 7 tones. In the traditional analysis, the tones are numbered from 1 to 8; in Taiwanese, tones 2 and 6 are the same. For example, the syllable a in each of the 7 distinct tones are

1. a; high level
2. á; falling
3. à; low level
4. ah; low stopped
5. â; rising
6. tone number 2 is repeated; there is no tone number 6 per se
7. ā; middle level
8. a̍h; high stopped

Conventional linguistic analysis describes the tones on a five-point scale, with 1 being the lowest pitch and 5 the highest. Here, the tones are shown following the traditional tone class categorization above, and are correlated with the tones of Middle Chinese (shown in Han characters, last column below):

1. 44; yin level (陰平)
2. 51; rising (上聲)
3. 31; yin departing (陰去)
4. 3; yin entering (陰入)
5. 24; yang level (陽平)
6. (tone 2 repeated)
7. 33; yang departing (陽去)
8. 5; yang entering (陽入)

But see (for one example) Wi-vun Taiffalo Chiung's modern phonological analysis in the [#References|References]], which challenges these notions.

For tones 4 and 8, a final consonant p, t, or k may appear. When this happens, it is impossible for the syllable to be nasal. Indeed, these are the counterpart to the nasal final consonants m, n, and ng, respectively, in other tones. However, it is possible to have a nasal 4th or 8th tone syllable such as siaⁿh, as long as there is no final consonant other than h.

A tone number 0, typically written with a double dash (--) before the syllable with this tone, is used to denote the extent of a verb action, the end of a noun phrase, etc.

In the dialect spoken near the northern coast of Taiwan, there is no distinction between tones number 8 and number 4 – both are pronounced as if they follow the tone sandhi rules of tone number 4.

Syllabic structure

A syllable requires a vowel (or diphthong or triphthong) to appear in the middle. All consonants can appear at the initial position. The consonants p, t, k; m, n, and ng (and some consider h) may appear at the end of a syllable. Therefore, it is possible to have syllables such as ngiau ("(to) itch") and thng ("soup"). Incidentally, both of these example syllables are nasal: the first has a nasal initial consonant; the second a nasal vowel. Compare with Hangul.

Tone sandhi

Taiwanese has extremely extensive tone sandhi (tone-changing) rules: in an utterance, only the last syllable pronounced is not affected by the rules. What an 'utterance' is, in the context of this language, is an ongoing topic for linguistic research. For the purpose of this article, an utterance may be considered a word, a phrase, or a short sentence. The following rules, listed in the traditional pedagogical mnemonic order, govern the pronunciation of tone on each of the syllables affected (that is, all but the last in an utterance):

• If the original tone number is 5, pronounce it as tone number 3 (Quanzhou speech) or 7 (Zhangzhou speech).
• If the original tone number is 7, pronounce it as tone number 3.
• If the original tone number is 3, pronounce it as tone number 2.
• If the original tone number is 2, pronounce it as tone number 1.
• If the original tone number is 1, pronounce it as tone number 7.
• If the original tone number is 8 and the final consonant is not h (that is, it is p, t, or k), pronounce it as tone number 4.
• If the original tone number is 4 and the final consonant is not h (that is, it is p, t, or k), pronounce it as tone number 8.
• If the original tone number is 8 and the final consonant is h, pronounce it as tone number 3.
• If the original tone number is 4 and the final consonant is h, pronounce it as tone number 2.

See the work by Tiuⁿ Jū-hông and Wi-vun Taiffalo Chiung in the References, and the work by Robert L. Cheng (Tēⁿ Liông-úi) of the University of Hawaii, for modern linguistic approaches to tones and tone sandhi in Taiwanese.

Lexicon

Modern linguistic studies (by Robert L. Cheng and Chin-An Li, for example) estimate that most (75 % to 90 %) Taiwanese words have cognates in other Chinese languages. False friends do exist; for example, cháu means "to run" in Taiwanese, whereas the Mandarin cognate, zǒu, means "to walk". Moreover, cognates may have different lexical categories; for example, the morpheme phīⁿ means not only "nose" (a noun, as in Mandarin bí) but also "to smell" (a verb, unlike Mandarin).

Among the apparently cognate-less words are many basic words with properties that contrast with similar-meaning words of pan-Chinese derivation. Often the former group lacks a standard Han character, and the words are variously considered colloquial, intimate, vulgar, uncultured, or more concrete in meaning than the pan-Chinese synonym. Some examples: lâng (person, concrete) vs. jîn (人, person, abstract); cha-bó͘ (woman) vs. lú-jîn (女人, woman, literary). Unlike the English Germanic/Latin contrast, however, the two groups of Taiwanese words cannot be as strongly attributed to the influences of two disparate linguistic sources.

Extensive contact with the Japanese language has left a legacy of Japanese loanwords. Although a very small percentage of the vocabulary, their usage tends to be high-frequency because of their relevance to modern society and popular culture. Examples are: o͘-tó͘-bái (from オートバイ ootobai "autobike", an "Engrish" word) and pháng (from パン pan "bread," which is itself a loanword from Portuguese). Grammatical particles borrowed from Japanese, notably te̍k (from teki 的) and ka (from か), show up in the Taiwanese of older speakers.

Whereas Mandarin attaches a syllabic suffix to the singular pronoun to make a collective form, Taiwanese pronouns are collectivized through nasalization. For example, i (he/she/it) and goá (I) become in (they) and goán (we), respectively. The -n thus represents a subsyllabic morpheme. Like all other Chinese languages, Taiwanese does not have true plurals.

Unlike English, Taiwanese has two first-person plural pronouns. This distinction is called inclusive, which includes the addressee, and exclusive, which excludes the addressee. For example, goán means we excluding you, while lán means we including you (that is, pluralis auctoris). The inclusive lán may be used to express politeness or solidarity, as in the example of a speaker asking a stranger "where do we live?", meaning "where do you live?". This distinction is a relatively common feature of Sino-Tibetan languages, the canonical example from Mandarin being 我們 (wǒmen, exclusive) versus 咱們 (zánmen, inclusive).

Grammar

The grammar of Taiwanese is similar to southern Chinese languages such as Hakka and Cantonese. The sequence 'subject verb object' is typical as in, for example, Mandarin, but 'subject object verb' or the passive voice (with the sequence 'object subject verb') is possible with particles. Take a simple sentence for example: "I hold you." The words involved are: goá ("I" or "me"), phō ("to hold"), lí ("you").

• Subject verb object (typical sequence): The sentence in the typical sequence would be: Goá phō lí. ("I hold you.")
• Subject kā object verb: Another sentence of roughly equivalent meaning is Goá kā lí phō, with the slight connotation of "I take you and hold" or "I get to you and hold."
• Object hō͘ subject verb (the passive voice): Then, Lí hō͘ goá phō means the same thing but in the passive voice, with the connotation of "You allow yourself to be held by me" or "You make yourself available for my holding."

With this, more complicated sentences can be constructed: Goá kā chúi hō͘ lí lim ("I give water for you to drink": chúi means "water"; lim is "to drink").

This article can only give a few very simple examples on grammar, for flavour. Linguistic work on the syntax of Taiwanese is still a (quite nascent) scholarly topic being explored.

Listen to an for the sentence: "Kin-á-jit hit-ê cha-bó͘ gín-á lâi góan tau khòaⁿ góa." (Today that girl came to my house to see me.)

Scripts and orthographies

Taiwanese does not have a strong written tradition. Until the late 19th century, Taiwanese speakers wrote solely in literary Chinese. A system of writing Taiwanese using Latin characters called pe̍h-oē-jī (POJ) was developed in the 19th century. Today, Taiwanese speakers most commonly write in vernacular Chinese, which uses the vocabulary and grammar of Mandarin, though Chinese characters are also used to represent spoken Taiwanese in writing.

Han characters

In most cases, Taiwanese speakers write using the script called Han characters as in Mandarin, although there are a number of special characters which are unique to Taiwanese and which are sometimes used in informal writing. Where Han characters are used, they are not always etymological or genetic; the borrowing of similar-sounding or similar-meaning characters is a common practice. Mandarin-Taiwanese bilingual speakers sometimes attempt to represent the sounds by adopting similar-sounding Mandarin Han characters. For example, the Han characters of the vulgar slang 'khoàⁿ sáⁿ siâu' (看三小, a misuse of 看啥痟, meaning "What are you looking at?") has very little meaning in Mandarin and may not be readily understood by a Taiwanese monolingual, as knowledge of Mandarin character readings is required to fully decipher it. (However, this slang is regarded as rude: many parents and teachers forbid children from saying it.)

Orthography in Latin characters

Main article: pe̍h-oē-jī

In some situations, Taiwanese is written with the Latin alphabet using an orthography called pe̍h-oē-jī (POJ), meaning "vernacular writing". POJ was developed first by Presbyterian missionaries and later by the indigenous Presbyterian Church in Taiwan; they have been active in promoting the language since the late 19th century. Recently there has been an increase in texts using a mixed orthography of Han characters and romanization, although these texts remain uncommon. Other Latin-based orthographies exist, the most significant being Taiwanese Language Phonetic Alphabet (TLPA), Modern Taiwanese Language (MTL), Phofsit Daibuun (PSDB) and Tongyong Pinyin.

In POJ, the traditional list of letters is

a b ch chh e g h i j k kh l m n ng o o͘ p ph s t th (ts) u

Twenty-four in all, including the obsolete ts, which was used to represent the modern ch at some places. The additional necessities are the nasal symbol ⁿ (superscript n; the capital form is seldom used), and the tonal diacritics.

In 2006, a scheme called "Tâi-ôan Lô-má-jī" (literally, "romanized orthography for Taiwanese") was proposed to reconcile the two of the more senior orthographies, TLPA and POJ.^[1] The changes for the consonants involved using "ts" for POJ's "ch" (reverting to the orthography in the 19th century), and "tsh" for "chh". For the vowels, "o͘" could optionally represented as "oo". The nasal mark "ⁿ" could also be represented optionally as "nn". The rest of the scheme, most notably the use of diacritics to mark the tones, appeared to keep to the POJ tradition. One of the aims of this compromise was to curb any increase of "market share" for Tongyong Pinyin. It has been unclear whether the community will adopt this new agreement.

Orthographies in kana and in bopomofo

Main article: Taiwanese kana

There was an orthography of Taiwanese based on the Japanese kana during Japanese rule. The Kuomintang government also tried to introduce an orthography in bopomofo.

Comparison of orthographies

Here the different orthographies are compared:

Vowels

IPA

a

ap

at

ak

aʔ

ɔ

ɔk

ɔ̃

ə

o

e

ẽ

i

ɪɛn

iŋ

Pe̍h-ōe-jī

a

ap

at

ak

ah

aⁿ

o

ok

oⁿ

o

o

e

eⁿ

i

ian

eng

Revised

a

ap

at

ak

ah

aN

oo

ok

ooN

o

o

e

eN

i

ian

ing

a

ap

at

ak

ah

ann

oo

ok

oonn

o

o

e

enn

i

ian

ing

Pumindian (普闽典)

a

ap

at

ak

ah

na

oo

ok

noo

o

o

e

ne

i

ien

ing

PSDB ()

a

ab/ap

ad/at

ag/ak

aq/ah

va

o

og/ok

vo

oi

oi

e

ve

i

ien

eng

DT ()

a

ap

at

ak

ah

ann/aⁿ

or

ok

onn/oⁿ

o

o

e

enn/eⁿ

i

ian/en

ing

zhuyin

ㄚ

ㄚㆴ

ㄚㆵ

ㄚㆶ

ㄚㆷ

ㆩ

ㆦ

ㆦㆶ

ㆧ

ㄜ

ㄛ

ㆤ

ㆥ

ㄧ

ㄧㄢ

ㄧㄥ

example (traditional Chinese)

亞 ?

壓 ?

警 察

沃 ?

牛 肉

三 ?

烏 ?

中 國

澳 ?

澳 ?

下 ?

醫 ?

鉛 ?

英 ?

example (simplified Chinese)

亚 ?

压 ?

警 察

沃 ?

牛 肉

三 ?

烏 ?

中 国

澳 ?

澳 ?

下 ?

医 ?

铅 ?

英 ?

Vowels

IPA

ɪk

ĩ

ai

aĩ

au

am

ɔm

ṃ

ɔŋ

ŋ̩

u

ua

ue

uai

uan

ɨ

u

Pe̍h-ōe-jī

ek

iⁿ

ai

aiⁿ

au

am

om

m

ong

ng

u

oa

oe

oai

oan

i

un

Revised

ik

iN

ai

aiN

au

am

om

m

ong

ng

u

ua

ue

uai

uan

ir

uN

ik

inn

ai

ainn

au

am

om

m

ong

ng

u

ua

ue

uai

uan

ir

unn

Pumindian (普闽典)

ik

ni

ai

nai

au

am

om

m

ong

ggn

u

ua

ue

uai

uan

i

nu

PSDB ()

eg/ek

vi

ai

vai

au

am

om

m

ong

ng

u

ua

ue

uai

uan

i

nu

DT ()

ik

inn/iⁿ

ai

ainn/aiⁿ

au

am

om

m

ong

ng

u

ua

ue

uai

uan

i

unn/un

zhuyin

ㄧㆶ

ㆪ

ㄞ

ㆮ

ㆯ

ㆰ

ㆱ

ㆬ

ㆲ

ㆭ

ㄨ

ㄨㄚ

ㄨㆤ

ㄨㄞ

ㄨㄢ

ㆨ

ㆫ

example (traditional Chinese)

翻 譯

病 院

愛 ?

歐 ?

暗 ?

阿 姆

王 ?

黃 ?

有 ?

歌 ?

講 話

奇 怪

人 員

example (simplified Chinese)

翻 译

病 院

爱 ?

欧 ?

暗 ?

阿 姆

王 ?

黄 ?

有 ?

歌 ?

讲 话

奇 怪

人 员

Consonants

IPA

p

b

pʰ

m

t

tʰ

n

nŋ

l

k

g

kʰ

h

tɕi

ʑi

tɕʰi

ɕi

ts

ʣ

tsʰ

s

Pe̍h-ōe-jī

p

b

ph

m

t

th

n

nng

l

k

g

kh

h

chi

ji

chhi

si

ch

j

chh

s

Revised

p

b

ph

m

t

th

n

nng

l

k

g

kh

h

zi

ji

ci

si

z

j

c

s

p

b

ph

m

t

th

n

nng

l

k

g

kh

h

zi

ji

ci

si

z

j

c

s

Pumindian (普闽典)

b

bb

p

m

d

t

n

l

g

gg

k

h

zi

li

ci

si

z

l

c

s

PSDB ()

p

b

ph

m

d

t

n

nng

l

k

g

q

h

ci

ji

chi

si

z

j

zh

s

DT ()

b

bh

p

m

d

t

n

ng

l

g

gh

k

h

zi

r

ci

si

z

r

c

s

zhuyin

ㄅ

ㆠ

ㄆ

ㄇ

ㄉ

ㄊ

ㄋ

ㄋㆭ

ㄌ

ㄍ

ㆣ

ㄎ

ㄏ

ㄐ

ㆢ

ㄑ

ㄒ

ㄗ

ㆡ

ㄘ

?

example (traditional Chinese)

報 ?

閩 ?

普 ?

請 問

豬 ?

普 通

過 年

雞 卵

樂 ?

價 ?

牛 ?

客 ?

煩 ?

支 ?

漢 字

支 持

是 ?

報 紙

熱 ?

參 ?

司 ?

example (simplified Chinese)

报 ?

闽 ?

普 ?

请 问

猪 ?

普 通

过 年

鸡 卵

乐 ?

价 ?

牛 ?

客 ?

烦 ?

支 ?

汉 字

支 持

是 ?

报 纸

热 ?

参 ?

司 ?

Tones

IPA	a˥˥	a˥˧	a˨˩	ap˩˩ at˩˩ ak˩˩ aʔ˩˩	a˧˥	a˥˧	a˧˧	ap˥˥ at˥˥ ak˥˥ aʔ˥˥
Pe̍h-ōe-jī	a			ap at ak ah			ā	a̍p a̍t a̍k a̍h
Revised	a1	a2	a3	ap4 at4 ak4 ah4	a5	a2 (6=2)	a7	ap8 at8 ak8 ah8
Pumindian (普闽典)	ā	ă		āp āt āk āh		ă		p t k h
PSDB ()	af	ar	ax	ab ad ag aq	aa	aar	a	ap at ak ah
DT ()	a			āp āt āk āh	ă		ā	ap at ak ah
zhuyin	ㄚ	ㄚˋ	ㄚᒻ	ㄚㆴ ㄚㆵ ㄚㆶ ㄚㆷ	ㄚˊ	ㄚˋ	ㄚ⊦	ㄚㆴ̇ ㄚㆵ̇ ㄚㆶ̇ ㄚㆷ̇
example (traditional Chinese)	公司	報紙	興趣	血壓 警察 中國 牛肉	人員		草地	配合 法律 文學 歇熱
example (simplified Chinese)	公司	报纸	兴趣	血压 警察 中国 牛肉	人员		草地	配合 法律 文学 歇热

• Note: The bopomofo extended characters in the zhuyin row require a UTF-8 font capable of displaying Unicode values 31A0–31B7 (ex. Code2000 true type font).

Computing

Many keyboard layouts and input methods for entering either Latin or Han characters in Taiwanese are available. Some of them are free-of-charge, some commercial.

The language Min-nan is registered per RFC 3066 as zh-min-nan [2]. Taiwanese can be represented as zh-min-nan-TW.

When writing Taiwanese in Han characters, some writers create 'new' characters when they consider it is impossible to use directly or borrow existing ones; this corresponds to similar practices in character usage in Cantonese, Vietnamese chữ nôm, Korean hanja and Japanese kanji. These are usually not encoded in Unicode (or the corresponding ISO/IEC 10646: Universal Character Set), thus creating problems in computer processing.

All Latin characters required by pe̍h-oē-jī can be represented using Unicode (or the corresponding ISO/IEC 10646: Universal character set), using precomposed or combining (diacritics) characters. Prior to June 2004, the vowel akin to but more open than o, written with a dot above right, was not encoded. The usual workaround was to use the (stand-alone; spacing) character middle dot (U+00B7, ·) or less commonly the combining character dot above (U+0307). As these are far from ideal, since 1997 proposals have been submitted to the ISO/IEC working group in charge of ISO/IEC 10646 – namely, ISO/IEC JTC1/SC2/WG2 – to encode a new combining character dot above right. This is now officially assigned to U+0358 (see documents N1593, N2507, N2628, N2699, and N2713). Font support has followed: for example, in Charis SIL.

Sociolinguistics

Regional variations

Within the wider Min-nan (Hō-ló-oē) speaking community in Southeast Asia, Ē-mn̂g (Amoy or Xiamen) is historically the variant of prestige (close to a 'standard language'), with other major variants from Choâⁿ-chiu (Chinchew or Quanzhou in Fujian), Chiang-chiu (Changchew or Zhangzhou in Fujian), and Tiô-chiu (Teochew or Chaozhou in Guangdong).

In Taiwan, however, the Tâi-lâm (Tainan, southern Taiwan) speech is the variant of prestige, and the other major variants are the northern speech, the central speech (near Taichung and the port town of Lo̍k-káng in Changhua County), and the northern (northeastern) coastal speech (dominant in Gî-lân). The distinguishing feature of the coastal speech is the use of the vowel 'uiⁿ' in place of 'ng'. The northern speech is distinguished by the absence of the 8th tone, and some vowel exchanges (for example, 'i' and 'u', 'e' and 'oe'). The central speech has an additional vowel between 'i' and 'u', which may be represented as 'ö'.

Fluency

Most people in Taiwan can speak both Mandarin Chinese and Taiwanese although the degree of fluency varies widely. There are however significant numbers of people in Taiwan (roughly 20 to 30 percent of the population of Taiwan), mainly but not exclusively Hakka and Mainlanders, who cannot speak Taiwanese at all, as well as large numbers of people (roughly 10 to 20 percent of the population), mainly people born before the 1950s, who cannot speak Mandarin at all. Urban, working-class Hakkas as well as younger, southern-Taiwan Mainlanders tend to have better, even native-like fluency. Approximately half of the Hakka in Taiwan do speak Taiwanese. There are many families of mixed Hakka, Hoklo, and Aboriginal bloodlines. There is, however, a large percentage of people in Taiwan, regardless of their background, whose ability to understand Taiwanese is greater than their ability to speak it.

Which variant is used depends strongly on the context, and in general people will use Mandarin in more formal situations and Taiwanese in more informal situations. Taiwanese tends to get used more in rural areas, while Mandarin is used more in urban settings. Older people tend to use Taiwanese, while younger people tend to use Mandarin. In the broadcast media, soap opera/dramas and variety shows tend to use Taiwanese, while game shows and documentaries tend to use Mandarin. Political news is broadcasted in both Taiwanese and Mandarin.

Special literary and art forms

Chhit-jī-á (literally, "that which has seven syllables") is a poetic meter where each verse has 7 syllables.

There is a special form of musical/dramatic performance koa-á-hì: the Taiwanese opera; the subject matter is usually a historical event. A similar form of puppetry, pò͘-tē-hì ("Taiwanese puppetry"), is also unique and has been elaborated in the past two decades into impressive televised spectacles.

See Taiwanese cuisine for names of several local dishes.

Conceptualization and history

In the first decades of the 18th century, the language difference between the Chinese Qing imperial bureaucrats and the commoners was recorded by the first Imperial High Commissioner to Taiwan (1722), Huáng Shújǐng, a Beijinger sent by the Kangxi Emperor, during whose reign Taiwan was annexed in 1684:

In this place, the language is as birdcall – totally unintelligible! For example: for the surname Liú, they say "Lâu"; for Chén, "Tân"; Zhuāng, "Chng"; and Zhāng is "Tiuⁿ". My deputy's surname Wú becomes "Ngô͘". My surname Huáng does not even have a proper vowel: it is "N̂g" here! It is difficult to make sense of this. (郡中鴃舌鳥語全不可曉如劉呼澇陳呼澹莊呼曾張呼丟余與吳待御兩姓吳呼作襖黃則無音厄影切更為難省)

– Records from the mission to Taiwan and its Strait, Volume II: On the area around Fort Provintia, Tainan (臺海使槎錄 卷二 赤嵌筆談)

This set the tone for the uneasy relationship between this language community and the colonial establishments in the next few centuries.

In the 18th and 19th centuries, civil unrest and armed conflicts were frequent in Taiwan. In addition to resistance against the government (both Chinese and Japanese), battles between ethnic groups were also significant: the belligerent usually grouped around the language they use. History recorded battles between the Hakka and the Taiwanese-language speakers; between these and the aborigines; and between those who spoke the Choâⁿ-chiu variant of what became the Taiwanese language and those who spoke the Chiang-chiu variant.

Later, in the 20th century, the conceptualization of Taiwanese is more controversial than most variations of Chinese because at one time it marked a clear division between the Mainlanders who arrived in 1949 and the pre-existing majority native Taiwanese. Although the political and linguistic divisions between the two groups have blurred considerably, the political issues surrounding Taiwanese have been more controversial and sensitive than for other variants of Chinese.

The history of Taiwanese and the interaction with Mandarin is complex and at times controversial. Even the name is somewhat controversial. Some dislike the name Taiwanese as they feel that it belittles other variants such as Mandarin, Hakka, and the aboriginal languages which are spoken on Taiwan. Others prefer the name Min-nan or Hokkien as this views Taiwanese as a variant of the speech which is spoken on Fujian province in Mainland China. Others dislike the name Min-nan and Hokkien for precisely the same reason. One can get into similar controversial debates as to whether Taiwanese is a language or a dialect.

Politics

Until the 1980s, the use of Taiwanese, along with all dialects other than Mandarin, was discouraged by the Kuomintang through measures such as banning its use in schools and limiting the amount of Taiwanese broadcast on electronic media. These measures were removed by the 1990s, and Taiwanese became an emblem of localization. Mandarin remains the predominant language of education, although there is a "mother tongue" language requirement in Taiwanese schools which can be satisfied with student's choice of mother-tongue: Taiwanese, Hakka, or aboriginal languages.

Although the use of Taiwanese over Mandarin was historically part of the Taiwan independence movement, the linkage between politics and language is not as strong as it once was. Fluency in Taiwanese has become a de facto requirement for political office in Taiwan for both independence and unificationist politicians. At the same time even some supporters of Taiwan independence have played down its connection with Taiwanese language in order to gain the support of the Mainlanders and Hakka.

James Soong restricted the use of Taiwanese and other local tongues in broadcasting while serving as Director of the Government Information Office earlier in his career, but later became one of the first Mainlander politicians to use Taiwanese in semi-formal occasions. Since then, politicians opposed to Taiwan independence have used it frequently in rallies even when they are not native speakers of the language and speak it badly. Conversely, politicians who have traditionally been identified with Taiwan independence have used Mandarin on formal occasions and semi-formal occasions such as press conferences. An example of the latter is President Chen Shui-bian who uses Mandarin in all official state speeches, but uses Taiwanese in political rallies and some informal state occasions such as New Year greetings, although in the latter case he never uses Taiwanese exclusively.

In the early 21st century, there are few differences in language usage between the anti-independence leaning Pan-Blue Coalition and the independence leaning Pan-Green Coalition. Both tend to use Taiwanese at political rallies and sometimes in informal interviews and both tend to use Mandarin at formal press conferences and official state functions. Both also tend to use more Mandarin in northern Taiwan and more Taiwanese in southern Taiwan. However at official party gatherings (as opposed to both Mandarin-leaning state functions and Taiwanese-leaning party rallies), the DPP tends to use Taiwanese while KMT and PFP tend to use Mandarin. The Taiwan Solidarity Union, which advocates a strong line on Taiwan independence, tends to use Taiwanese even in formal press conferences. In speaking, politicians will frequently code switch. In writing, almost everyone uses vernacular Mandarin which is farther from Taiwanese, and the use of semi-alphabetic writing or even colloquial Taiwanese characters is rare.

Despite these commonalities, there are still different attitudes toward the relationship between Taiwanese and Mandarin. In general, while supporters of Chinese reunification believe that all languages used on Taiwan should be respected, they tend to believe that Mandarin should have a preferred status as the common working language between different groups. Supporters of Taiwan independence tend to believe that either Taiwanese should be preferred or that no language should be preferred.

In 2002, the Taiwan Solidarity Union, a party with about 10 % of the Legislative Yuan seats at the time, suggested making Taiwanese a second official language. This proposal encountered strong opposition not only from Mainlander groups but also from Hakka and aboriginal groups who felt that it would slight their home languages, as well as others who objected to the proposal on logistical grounds and on the grounds that it would increase ethnic tensions. Because of these objections, support for this measure is lukewarm among moderate Taiwan independence supporters, and it appears very unlikely to pass.

In 2003, there was a controversy when parts of the civil service examination for judges were written in characters used only in Taiwanese. After strong objections, these questions were not used in scoring. As with the official-language controversy, objections to the use of Taiwanese came not only from Mainlander groups, but also Hakka and aborigines.

See also

References

Books and other material

(As English language material on Taiwanese learning is limited, Japanese and German books are also listed here.)

• Bodman, Nicholas C.: Spoken Taiwanese with Cassette(s), 1980/2001, ISBN 0-87950-461-7 or ISBN 0-87950-460-9 or ISBN 0-87950-462-5
• Campbell, William: Ē-mn̂g-im Sin Jī-tián (Dictionary of the Amoy Vernacular). Tainan, Taiwan: Tâi-oân Kàu-hoē Kong-pò-siā (Taiwan Church Press, Presbyterian Church in Taiwan). 1993–06 (First published 1913–07).
• Iâu Chèng-to: Cheng-soán Pe̍h-oē-jī (Concise Colloquial Writing). Tainan, Taiwan: Jîn-kong (an imprint of the Presbyterian Church in Taiwan). 1992.
• Tân, K. T: A Chinese-English Dictionary: Taiwan Dialect. Taipei: Southern Materials Center. 1978.
• Klöter, Henning. Written Taiwanese. Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz, 2005. ISBN 3-447-05093-4, 78,00 € [D]
• Maryknoll Language Service Center: English-Amoy Dictionary. Taichung, Taiwan: Maryknoll Fathers. 1979.
• Tiuⁿ Jū-hông: Principles of Pe̍h-oē-jī or the Taiwanese Orthography: an introduction to its sound-symbol correspondences and related issues. Taipei: Crane Publishing, 2001. ISBN 957-2053-07-8
• Wi-vun Taiffalo Chiung: Tone Change in Taiwanese: Age and Geographic Factors.
• 樋口 靖: 台湾語会話, 2000, ISBN 4-497-20004-3 (Good and yet concise introduction to the Taiwanese language in Japanese; CD: ISBN 4-497-20006-X)
• 趙 怡華: はじめての台湾, 2003, ISBN 4-7569-0665-6 (In Japanese: Introduction to Taiwanese and Chinese)
• Katharina Sommer, Xie Shu-Kai: Taiwanisch Wort für Wort, 2004, ISBN 3-89416-348-8 (Taiwanese for travellers, in German. CD: ISBN 3-8317-6094-2)
• Taiwanese learning resources (a good bibliography in English) (Google cache as a web page)

External links

• Taiwanese Minnan Hua (Nursery rhymes and songs in Han characters and romanization w/ recordings in MP3)
• Hoklo.orgexplores the Austro-Tai roots of Taiwanese.
• Learn Taiwanese by James Campbell. The orthography used appears to be slightly modified pe̍h-oē-jī.
• Ethnologue Report For Chinese Min-Nan (15th edition); Ethnologue Report For Chinese Min-Nan (14th edition). This report uses a classification which considers Taiwanese a dialect of Min-Nan, which is classified as a separate language from Mandarin. This view of Taiwanese is controversial for the political reasons mentioned above.
• Lomaji.com. Resources for Taiwanese language(s).
• Babuza Chu. Medical knowledge published in Taiwanese by Babuza.
• Open Directory (dmoz): World: Taiwanese
• Travlang (language resources for travellers): Hō-ló-oē
• TLH: an organization promoting pe̍h-oē-jī and other Latinized (romanized) orthographies for languages in Taiwan
• Daiwanway: Tutorial, dictionary, and stories in Taiwanese. Uses a unique romanization system, different from Pe̍h-oē-jī. Includes sound files.
• Taiwanese language culture promotion
• How to Forget Your Mother Tongue and Remember Your National Language, by Victor H. Mair.
• Taiwanese-Mandarin on-line dictionary
• Taiwanese-Hakka-Mandarin on-line

edit Chinese: Spoken varieties
Generally accepted first-level categories:	Mandarin | Wu | Cantonese | Min | Hakka | Xiang | Gan |
Often accepted first-level categories:	Jin | Hui | Ping
Unclassified:	Danzhouhua | Shaozhou Tuhua
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Comprehensive list of Chinese dialects
Historical phonology:	Old Chinese | Middle Chinese | Proto-Min | Proto-Mandarin | Haner
Chinese: Written varieties
Official written varieties:	Classical Chinese | Vernacular Chinese
Other varieties:	Written Vernacular Cantonese