Advantage of Chinese over Japanese 日本語に対する中国語の利点 中文優於日文的優勢

An advantage of Chinese over Japanese: The meanings of the scientific names of dinosaurs are apparent, even without knowledge of Latin and Greek. For example Brachiosaurus is 腕龍, which literally means "arm dragon." 

An advantage of Japanese over Chinese: Despite meaning of katakana being obscure, Japanese users have easy access to western literature on dinosaurs because the names sound substantially the same. 

日本語に対する中国語の利点: ラテン語やギリシャ語の知識がなくても、恐竜の学名の意味は明らかです。たとえば、ブラキオサウルスは腕龍で、文字通り「腕の龍」を意味します。

中国語に対する日本語の利点: カタカナの意味が不明であるにもかかわらず、日本人ユーザーは名前が実質的に同じように聞こえるため、恐竜に関する西洋の文献に簡単にアクセスできます.

中文優於日文的優勢：即使不懂拉丁語和希臘語，恐龍學名的含義也很明顯。例如腕龍就是腕龍，字面意思是“臂龍”。

日語優於中文的優勢：儘管片假名的含義晦澀難懂，但日本用戶可以輕鬆參考西方有關恐龍的文獻，因為名稱聽起來基本相同。

中文最大的好處是簡潔

中文最大的好處是簡潔。日翻中，長度變三分之一。以前寫漢字費時，現在打字沒差。讀得快，想得快。我在日本工作，行程表都用中文寫，工作變得有效率。Try saying this in Japanese.

Mainland Chinese fonts

Very mainland-China looking fonts. Signs produced in China are seen not only in Chinese restaurants in rural Japan, even here in Taiwan. I'm very sensitive to fonts. Even though they are not in simplified characters, I can tell they were designed in China. I mean, look at the shape. And look at the 物!

I've been obsessed with written scripts since young. My parents and those who know my childhood told me I was always fond of reading what was written on T-shirts, and stuff. As a child, I got mesmerized by Korean and Thai writings on banknotes. And I was very disappointed to find out after visiting a Chinese language school in Takadanobaba that they taught simplified characters.  I wanted to learn proper Chinese like the ones written on user's manuals of watches my grandmother's company was importing from Hong Kong and Taiwan!

台湾語の死と台湾華語による台湾アイデンティティの継続

 あと25年ほどで、台湾語は死ぬと思う、日常的コミュニケーション言語としては。主な理由は、家庭で親が子供に北京語で喋っているからである。今、9割以上の台湾の家庭で北京語が話されており、台湾語が話せる子供は、7％強ぐらいだと言われている。台湾語が不自由に話せるのは、ほとんど中高年以上の世代である。彼らも25年後には引退する。

「国民党のせいだ」という人が多いが、台湾語が学校の科目になり、政府が台湾語保護のために大量の税金をつぎ込むようになってから30年経っている。台湾語話者自身が、劣勢を挽回するチャンスをのがしたことに他ならない。

イデオロギーにかられて台湾語保護を叫ぶ活動家たちは親を責めるが、子供の将来の為を思う親心を責めてはいけない。その活動家自身も、意外と家では自分の子供と北京語で話しているかもしれない。

ただ、仮に家庭で子供と台湾語を話していれば、北京語＝Hコード・台湾語＝Lコードというダイグロシアが成立していたはずである。しかし、学校で他の子供に遅れをとってはいけない、という親心で、台湾の親たちは誰にも強制されることなく、子供と北京語で話すという選択をしたのである。

もっとも、宗教行事や一部の業界など、特殊な分野では生存するだろう。今日、台湾語ミサに参加したが、多くの人は実は北京語ミサのほうが慣れている。聖職者は北京語で考えた説教の原稿をその場で台湾語に訳しながら発言しているし、信者さんたちはミサは台湾語でがんばって参加して、終わったあとは北京語でおしゃべりしている。（南部のある教会でミサに参加した時は、ミサ自体は北京語で、説教の一部だけを北京語が不自由な年配者たちのために台湾語で行う、という方式だったが、そういう年配者がいなくなれば全北京語になることが予想される。）伝統的な市場では、売り手と客が市場のリンガ・フランカである台湾語でやり取りをしているが、横にいる自分の家族とは北京語で話している。アイルランドでのアイルランド語のように、学校で習うけど普段は使わない、アイデンティティの象徴になるだろう。

また、海外在住者の間では、台湾在住時は主に北京語を使っていたにもかかわらず、海外では中国大陸出身者と混同されるのを避けるため、わざわざ台湾語を使用する事象も見受けられる。マレーシア広東語区域以外出身にも関わらず、台湾留学中はわざわざ広東語を使うマレーシア人と似ている。

北京語ベースで、挨拶や一部の語彙など台湾語を交えるコードミキシングは続くだろう。生活用語としての台湾語が死んでも、台湾化した北京語（台湾華語）を通して、台湾アイデンティティは存続するだろう。新潟の都市部で新潟弁は凋落したが、新潟風の共通語が話されているのと似ている。

植民地時代の日本語を除けば、全台湾サイズのリンガ・フランカが出現したのは、経緯はともあれ北京語が初めてである。台湾大のナショナリズムが出現すれば、その媒介言語は北京語となることが自然である。現にそうなっている。

旧ソ連や東欧では、東側ブロック崩壊後、ロシア語はリンガ・フランカとしての価値は無視されて凋落したが、台湾では客家や原住民からの異議があるので、台湾語が北京語と取って代わることはないだろう。

目下の「バイリンガル政策」による英語の普及が台湾語のさらなる凋落をもたらすという意見をよく聞くが、学齢児の間では、台湾語がそもそも生活言語として機能していないので、影響はないだろう。

Connecting with the past in written language

I’ve been wondering why Taiwanese people seem so oblivious about their mother tongues dying out, and I realize that they still retain their connection to the ancient past through the written language, even though spoken languages have changed countless times already.

 

Kanji lover's paradise

 

Super old artefacts from almost a millenia before Christ bear inscriptions which are related to the current kanjis still in use by all the people here in Taiwan. Amazing!

What LPP can teach us about BN30

I recently attended a conference here in Taipei where many discussions were over the Bilingual Nation 2030 (BN30) policy of Taiwan. Prior to attending the conference, I happened to have re-read books about Language Policy and Planning (LPP). This was helpful for coming up with some personal observations about the policy. Here are the three takeaways from the conference, informed by findings in LPP studies.  

Number one: Two languages can never coexist stably in the same domain in the same society. Therefore, trying to teach content knowledge in two languages at the same time may end up to be a futile effort unless done very skillfully. The only way for multiple languages to coexist in one society is for those languages to be used in different domains. Within the context of elementary and secondary education in Taiwan, it seems that the main vehicle for conveying content knowledge will be Mandarin; while English will be used for classroom interactions. 

Number two: It is very difficult to make people change their linguistic behavior, unless using very coercive means. Actually, Taiwan already is a very rare example of success. Under the high-handed one-party rule by the KMT, Mandarin successfully supplanted Hokkien (a.k.a Taiwanese), Japanese, and other indigenous languages in Taiwan because there was a large-scale stigmatization campaign of the latter by the government. As the democratization advanced, millions of dollars and massive effort went into revitalizing Hokkien, Hakka and aboriginal languages, but the attrition of those languages has been unstoppable. On the other hand, people tend to voluntarily shift towards the language with higher prestige that promises economic gain and ability to communicate with the larger society. This is why many Hakkas abandoned their language in favor of Hokkien, and later, Mandarin. What the KMT government succeeded in doing was artificially creating a situation where Mandarin became the prestige language. So, if English proves to be a language with real prestige and utility, people will jump at it without any coercion. (This may especially be the case, after hearing in the conference of a finding that very small percentage of Taiwanese people were worried that adopting English would threaten their cultural identity.)

Number three: Immersion approach may work best in changing the linguistic behavior of the next generation. In direct contradiction to the mainstream voice in the profession which claims using the learner's L1 to scaffold their L2 learning is the most efficient method, L2-only immersion programs are known to produce good results, where children acquired high proficiency in L2 while maintaining L1. However, it must be noted that many of these immersion success stories originate from locations where children get a lot of exposure to both languages outside classroom. It also presupposes that there is a sufficient number of teachers highly proficient in L2. 

Based on the above points, here are some observations about the prospects of BN30. If the goal of the policy is to shift the medium of instruction (MoI) from Mandarin to English, the chance of success does not seem very high under the current approach. (Indeed, the policy statement of the Taiwanese government states that one of the main goals of the policy is to increase the number of students who are capable to attending English as a medium of instruction (EMI) courses in universities.) It  may succeed, though, in replacing Mandarin with English as the language of classroom interaction between teachers and students, while the medium for imparting content knowledge remains Mandarin. This will create a situation hitherto non-existent in Taiwan, namely, English being used as a language for domestic communication, albeit in limited domains. It may have an indirect effect of creating a generation more predisposed to learning English further, so as to enter EMI programs in higher education. In any case, it is essential for the government to clarify the goals of BN30 in more concrete terms, and adopt measures that are more finely tuned to accomplish them. 

臺灣意識愈強，閩南語愈弱？

愈是在臺灣意識高漲、政府開始注入大筆預算推動本土語言後長大的人，愈不願意跟自己的小孩說閩南語。也難怪，就算臺灣意識繼續普及下去，約25年後閩南語在臺灣會絕響。https://www.tsatw.org.tw/up_photo/moon-system/images/20190710112043_4392.pdf?fbclid=IwAR0nkRPGxtky8SNxifm3RFl7hlDU_FWBRmaKJByGyM8Kbq53Oi1vO5k4uYg

Imminent death of Taiwanese Hokkien?

Only 7.4% of kids in Taiwan speak Taiwanese. This is the generation that grew up decades after the government started spending a lot of money to promote non-Mandarin languages, including for Taiwanese as a subject in elementary education. Why does Taiwanese keep receding while Taiwan identity continues to spread? Why are parents with strong Taiwan identity choosing to raise their kids in the language of Beijing? There has to be a better explanation than that the KMT’s language policy, which ended ages ago, was extremely successful. #imminentdeathoftaiwanesehttps://www.thenewslens.com/article/157030

Re editorial of Taipei Times: Language is not just a tool

My comment after reading the Taipei Times editorial on a legislator who insisted on speaking Hokkien:

While it's true that language is not just a tool but a marker of identity, it remains to be seen if pragmatic Taiwanese people will accept the inconvenience of having to communicate among themselves through interpreters, while already having a lingua franca they all understand. Just as Hokkien became the language of Taiwanese identity by replacing numerous other languages both Sinitic and Austronesian, Mandarin does have a chance to become a language of Taiwanese identity once day. Or perhaps it already has.

https://www.taipeitimes.com/News/editorials/archives/2021/10/06/2003765596

Mandarin now endonormative in Taiwan

Standard Mandarin used to be exonormative in Taiwan, but the norm giver later moved to the island, and then lost the mainland. Today, unless you are opposed to it for ideological reasons, Taiwan Mandarin is entirely endonormative in Taiwan, and has even become the "language of the heart" especially for the younger generation both domestically and among the diaspora.

EU型と米国型の対立！？多様性 vs. 民主！？

EU型と米国型の対立！？多様性 vs. 民主！？今回の基進の陳議員と邱国防大臣の衝突は、簡単に言うと、以下の2つの立場の摩擦ではないか。台湾の人々がどっちの道を選ぶのか、注目していきたいです：

多様性を守る為の新しい言語法は台湾土着言語はすべて国語と規定している；それに基づき、国政の場で母語（台湾語）で大臣に質問し、母語で回答を聞きたい。

vs.

民主が成立するためには、人々と政府の間で共通の言語があることが前提である；通訳などのコストや効率を考えると、私もあなたも共通の言語（北京語）ができるのだから、それを使うべきだ。

台湾語と福建語

東南アジアの人が「福建語」と呼んでいるのは、福建省南部の泉州地区と漳州地区の言葉がいろいろに混ざったものです。フィリピンは泉州寄りで、ペナンは漳州寄りです。

 

福建省南部の港町アモイはイギリスの拠点だったので、周辺から人がたくさん集まって、この二つの地域の言葉が（割と泉州寄りに）混ざりました。キリスト教の宣教師は聖書をこのアモイ語に訳したり、辞書を作ったりしたので、ある程度標準化しました。福建省の中では少数派の言語なのに、Hokkienといえばこの言語を指すようになったのは、イギリス人のおかげです。

 

台湾北部の台北盆地やシンガポールは、アモイと泉漳両語の混ざり方が似ていた（どちらかというと泉州寄り）上に、イギリスの宣教師が訳した聖書も入ったので、アモイ語とほとんど同じ言葉をしゃべるようになりました。日本人は台湾を領有したときに台北を拠点にしたので、台湾語の辞書や教科書はこのアモイ語そっくりな台北の言葉になりました。今でも日本で売っている台湾語の教科書は、ほとんど台北よりの単語や発音です。

 

台湾では、地域によって、泉州寄りの言葉を喋っているところ（主に西部の海沿い）と漳州寄りのところ（西部内陸部と宜蘭）があります。南部の台南や高雄は、この台湾中の言葉が、割と漳州寄りに混ざって、新しい台湾語が発展しました。これが台湾の教科書やマスコミで使われている台湾語で、民主化時代以降、兵役や政治運動を通して男性を中心に広がりました。

 

東南アジアと台湾の福建語の違いは、もともと福建になかった西洋的や近代的なものや概念を、何語から借りたかです。マレーシア・シンガポールではマレー語と英語から、インドネシアではオランダ語から、フィリピンではスペイン語から、台湾では日本語から借りました。例えば、スーツのことをフィリピンでは「アメリカーノ」というのに、台湾では「セビロ」と言います。ただし戦後は北京語教育が普及したので、北京語を福建語読みした「セーツォン」もよく使われます。

 

香港やマカオには、インドネシアから移って来た華人がいっぱいいて、年配の世代は今でも福建語を使っています（子供たちには北京語で話しますが、結局彼らは広東語のモノリンガルに育ちます）。

 

違いはあるけれども、私はマレーシアやフィリピンに行って台湾語を喋って、ほとんど不自由なく通じました。実際、北京語以外の中国語が禁止されているシンガポールでも、台湾のテレビドラマの録画が、年配の世代を中心に人気がありました。

 

台湾人の中には、「台湾語」というからには台湾でしか通じないのか、と思っている人もいるかもしれません。香港や東南アジアに買い物に行ったとき、普段台湾で子供や外国人に聞かれたくないひそひそ話をするときに台湾語を使う癖がついつい出て、台湾語を喋ってしまうと、何を喋っているのかバレてしまう可能性があるので気をつけて。

 

余談ですが、今、日本に住んでいる福建省出身の人の多くは、福州の近くの福清の出身だそうです。そっちの方（福建省の北東部）は、アモイ語とは似ても似つかない言語を喋っています。福建省の言葉なのだから、彼らは自分たちが喋っているのを福建語というかもしれませんが、東南アジアでいう福建語や台湾語とは全然違う言葉で、全く通じないのであしからず。マレーシアのサラワクや、インドネシアの一部で話しているやつと近くて、Hokchiu とかHokchiaとか呼んでいます。台湾が有効支配している馬祖諸島でもこれに近いものを話しています。厳密には、福清語と福州語は違うが、福清人は多くが両方のバイリンガルだとも聞きます。福建省ではこの言語を話す人のほうがアモイ語を話す人より多いそうですが、東南アジアではマイナーな言語で、一部の群居地を除いては、周辺でメジャーな言葉に吸収されているようです。

 

私は福建語の未来に悲観的です。台湾を含め華人社会全体で北京語教育や現地語教育・英語教育が普及して、福建語はお祭りの儀式や教育を受けていないお年寄りとの言葉になっています。マレーシアなどでは若者が復興運動をやっていますが、影響力が今ひとつです。福建では強制的な北京語普及が行われていて、アモイの子供は半数以上福建語を話せないそうです。

 

こうなると、福建語存続のカギは台湾です。台湾では民主化以来、マスコミでも多く使われ、小学校の科目にもなっています。ですからほとんどの人が多少できますが、ほぼ台湾全土で、台湾語だけを日常的に使っている人たちは、やはり田舎のお年寄りなどが多い印象です。台湾語の牙城台南市での調査でも、小学生はほとんど家庭で北京語と英語しか使っておらず、台湾語を使うのは学校の台湾語の授業のときだけでした。最近、台湾政府が打ち出した「バイリンガル国家2030」という政策では、バイリンガルが指すのは北京語と英語のことです。このまま行くと、アイルランドのアイルランド語のように、象徴的な存在になってしまうでしょう。例えば、中国と対抗する意識を強調したい政治家が、普段の私生活は北京語と英語で行っているのに、演説のときだけわざと台湾語を使う、といった具合です。

 

台湾で、もともとは上から押し付けられた外来言語だった北京語ですが、台湾人に半世紀使用されて台湾のことを表現できるように台湾化して、学校や役所で使う「頭の言語」だけではなく、「心の言語」にもなっています。

 

最近、日本ではこの北京語を指して台湾華語という言い方も出てきましたが、私や私の家族は、詳細をいちいち説明するのは面倒くさいので、周りの日本人たちに対しては、この台湾化した北京語のことを敢えて「台湾語」と呼ぶときもあります。福建系の台湾人だけではなく、一部のお年寄りを除いたほぼ全員の台湾人に通じるのだから、福建語よりも、もっと「台湾語」と呼ばれる資格があるような気もしないではありません。

The Hokkien Blog: Ho ti lai-soaN (The tiger is deep in the mountains)

This post is a translation from my previous post in Japanese.

I sometimes converse with my wife in Hokkien in order to expose our kids to Taiwanese Hokkien. (They only speak Japanese, Mandarin and English, in this order of fluency.)

She asked me to bring something over in Hokkien, so I answered: "Ho."

To this, she responded: "Ho ti lai-soaN lah!"

It took me a while to figure out she was saying: "The tiger is deep in the mountains".

What the heck could this mean?

In no time, I figured out what this word play meant.

Let me explain.

As you may know, Taiwanese Hokkien is a mixture of the Quanzhou and Zhangzhou accents. In Taipei City, the traditional accent is closer to the Amoy accent, which belongs to the Quanzhou side.

In this accent, the pronunciation of "ho (good)" is rounded, as in "hoh".

However, the mainstream accent in Taiwanese media today is closer to the Kaohsiung accent (more toward the Zhangzhou side). In this accent, "ho" is centered, as if to say "her" non-rhotically.

So this word play is used by speakers of the latter accent to ridicule the former's pronunciation of "ho". (FYI, my wife is a speaker of the former. She probably heard someone say this to her parents, who have an even stronger Tong'an accent.)

There are some other jokes that utilize the differences in these two major accents in Taiwan, but some of them are quite vulgar, and not suitable for print.

台湾閩南語ブログ:ほーてらいそあN（虎は山奥に）

日本語と英語と北京語しか話せない子供達に台湾語を教えるために、時々わざと妻と台湾閩南語で会話することがある。

妻が私に何かをするように頼んだので、台湾語で「ほー」と答えたら、「ほーてらいそあNら！」という返事が帰ってきた。

どんな意味なのかと思ったら、「虎teh內山啦」（虎は山奥にいる）ということ。一体、何の話なのか？

ちょっと考えたら、この言葉遊びの意味が分かった。

台湾閩南語は中国福建省の泉州と漳州という二つの地域の言語が混ざったものであり、極大雑把に言って台北などの北部はどちらかというと前者に近く、南部と宜蘭は後者に近い。台北の混ざり方は福建省アモイ市のものに極めて類似していて、フィリピンやシンガポール・マレーシアなどの華人と問題なく意思疎通できる。戦後は台北市が台湾華語の中心地になったので、台湾のメディアで標準的なものとして扱われている台湾閩南語は、どちらかというと高雄・台南のものに近い。これは「台湾優勢腔」などと呼ばれている。

さて、この現在の台湾で主流派の台湾語では、「好」の発音がcenteringしていて、北京語読みの「赫」に近い。つまり、「はー」に近く聞こえる。

一方、台北で話される泉州寄りの発音では、lip roundingが入り、「ほー」と聞こえる。

日本に例えると、「箸」と言ったのが、他地方の人には「橋」と言っているように聞こえるのと似ているというわけだ。

それで、台北訛りで「いいです」と言ったのに、わざと「虎は山奥だ」と言ってからかう言葉遊びが成立するのである。

これに似た、泉州訛りと漳州訛りの違いを利用した冗談もいくつかあるが、ここでは書かないでおく。

Teochew people in Taiwan?

Teochew is not spoken, at least locally in Taiwan. Wikipedia says that Teochew people in Taiwan has been Hokkienized, and speak Hokkien. It also says that some of them speak Hakka.

I know for a fact that some Hokkien people claim that they trace their ancestry to Shantou-Chaozhou area. Take my mother-in-law for example. All her family members live in northern Taipei, and speak Hokkien with a marked Tong'an accent. Yet they claim that they are Teochew people. Or at least that's what their family tree chart "claims". In this post, I will talk about three kinds of people who are thought to be Teochew. And I will question if they can really be considered Teochew.

Teochew people are speakers of the language, whose center is Shantou-Chaozhou area. It is a branch of Southern Min family. Most Chinese people in Thailand and Cambodia are Teochew. Hong Kong also has lots of Teochew people, including Mr. Li Ka-Shing, the richest tycoon. They are quite powerful in Singapore and southern peninsular Malaysia as well.

Type A "Teochew" people in Taiwan are not really Teochew people at all. They are Pepo tribal people. Pepo tribes are Malayo-Polynesian people people who became Sinicized. They had to pretend to be Han-Chinese so they could own land. In order to prove that they were Han, they had to produce a family tree. But All their Hokkien neighbors knew that they are really different from them. They even spoke Hokkien with an accent. Therefore, they claimed in their family tree that their ancestors are Teochew. They thought the neighbors wouldn't know. But it's easy to tell they really have nothing to do with Teochews. Like my mother-in-law, they speak Hokkien with a Tong'an accent, which is Quanzhou-leaning. If they are really Teochew, they should sound more Zhangzhou.

Type B "Teochew" people maybe Hokkienized Hakka people that originated from western Zhangzhou areas in Fujian Province. There are many such people in Zhanghua and Yunlin Counties. The funny thing that most of those people don't recognize themselves as Hakka. They regard themselves as Zhangzhou Hokkiens. But Older generation people still remember some Hakka words. And some have admitted that they are Hakkas recently, and are engaged in reviving their Hakka culture.

Type C "Teochew" people are actually related to Chaozhou, but are not ethnically Teochew. They are mainstream Hakka people who migrated to Taiwan from Shantou-Chaozhou region. In this region of Guangdong, as in neighboring western Zhangzhou of Fujian, Hakkas and Southern Min people are coexisting alongside each other. Among the mainstream Hakka people who migrated to Taiwan en masse, some originated from this Teochew-speaking region. So their ancestry tree rightly indicate that their ancestral origin is Chaozhou. But that doesn't mean that they are ethnically Chaozhou.

By the way, in Tainan, there is a dish called Chaozhou noodles. I wrote a blog post about it in the past. I don't know if this delicacy is related to Type A or Type C psuedo-Teochews. Or maybe it's related to Chaozhou Township in Pindong.

A final word of caution: Be careful when you discuss this topic with the people concerned themselves. As I said, they may well perceive themselves as otherwise. And we must respect that. They don't particularly like being told who they are by a foreigner. The same principle applies to talking to people who might have Pepo ancestry.

Taiwanese Hokkien is an appropriate term

I think Taiwanese Hokkien is an appropriate name for the language spoken as a heritage language by the majority of people in Taiwan.

It has been called many different names, including: Taiwanese, Southern Min, Hoklo, Holo, etc.

But I think Taiwanese Hokkien is the most appropriate one.

Hokkien is the term used by the British colonial authority in East and Southeast Asia to refer to the language of the vicinity of Quanzhou and Zhangzhou. The center of this area is Amoy. So the accent of Amoy has traditionally considered to be the standard. It is into Amoy accent that the Hokkien Bible has been translated. (This might change in the future, as Amoy has accepted huge migrant population and become largely a Mandarin speaking city.) Even though the accents of Quanzhou, Zhangzhou and Amoy are a quite different from each other, they are still mutually intelligible.

Southern Min is a broader term. Even Teochew (the language of Swatow or Shantou) and Hainanese are parts of Southern Min. They are mostly mutually unintelligible with the Quanzhou-Zhangzhou. (The Teochew of Malaysia and Singapore is a different story because it has been greatly influenced by Hokkien.) So it is inappropriate to call Hokkien Southern Min. Hokkien is just one part of the Southern Min group of languages that are mutually unintelligible. This was not a problem in Taiwan, though, because there were extremely few Teochew speakers in Taiwan.

Hoklo and Holo have been used often in Taiwan in recent years. These are traditional terms. But they were seldom used by the people who spoke it themselves until after the Taiwan independence ideology became widespread. Holo is the preferred term by people from such backgrounds, understandably because it contains no word that suggests it originated from mainland China. But the use of this term is not very widespread in Taiwan. The popular term, instead, is Taiwanese, to which I shall turn later.

Hoklo, although shares the same roots with Holo, is not preferred by people who ascribe to Taiwan independence. This is presumably because the "hok" refers to Fujian Province of China.

Also, it has been suggested that "lo" is a word which means a person or a man, which has a derogatory connotation. It has been known that both Hoklo and Holo are terms used by Hakka people in Zhangzhou and Chaozhou areas to refer to Hokkien-speaking people, likely with a derogatory connotation.

When I visited the Museum of History in Hong Kong, I learned that people there refer to Teochew people as "Fuklo". If this is true, it would be totally inappropriate to call Hokkien people in Taiwan as Hoklo or its variation Holo, since they are not ethnic Teochew.

This leaves the discussion to Taiwanese. This is a popular term in widespread use. But it seems odd to me to call a language by the name of the place where only a minority of its speakers reside. (Well, you may use English as a counterargument. Only a minority of all English speakers in the world live in England. But we still call it English. But the thing is: English did originate from there, while Hokkien did not originate from Taiwan.) Another reason why this might be an inappropriate term is that it disrespects other ethnic groups who consider themselves to be "native" to Taiwan. For example, a Hakka person or an aborigine might question why their languages are excluded from being called "Taiwanese".

Even though Taiwanese Hokkien is an appropriate term, it is not without its shortcomings. It seems to be less problematic in southern part of Taiwan, namely, Jiayi, Tainan, Kaohsiung, Pindong and Taidong. In these areas, the accent of Hokkien is quite unitary. And the extent to amd ways in which Zhangzhou and Quanzhou accents are merged are very uniquely Taiwanese.

However, it is more problematic for nothern accents. For example, the accent of downtown Taipei is closer to Amoy than anything else, that of Tamsui closer to Tong'an and anything else, and that of Muzha closer to Anxi than anything else, etc. Each retains its proximity to its place of origin in China.

This being said, both southern and northern accents have large borrowed lexis from Japanese. This is uniquely Taiwanese, stemming from its colonial experience. Therefore, even northern accents, which are more closely related to their ancestral accents in China than their southern counterparts, can still legitimately be called Taiwanese Hokkien.

Mandarin as a Taiwan Language (MTL)

Mandarin used to be considered an outsider language in Taiwan. It was forced down people's throat with a high-handed "anti-dialect" campaign. But now it's become a Taiwan's language. The Taiwanese have adopted and appropriated it. So it can now carry the weight of the Taiwan identity. It's become the Language of the Heart" for the Taiwanese. They can use it unapologetically to express their Taiwanese-ness.

In the past, people were forced to feel "less than" because of their strong Taiwan accent in their Mandarin. Now, it's become an identity marker. Politicians even use it to their advantage. Many Waishengrens sometimes put on a stronger Taiwan accent when they want to emphasize their fraternity.

Well-educated urban Taiwanese think that their Mandarin is "biaozhun", just like newscasters. But that's being biaozhun in the Taiwansese standard. Mandarin speakers from outside of Taiwan recognize their so-called "biaozhun" speech as distinctly Taiwanese. Once I traveled to Japan with three of Taiwan's top news anchors. And we interviewed some scholars from mainland China. They all commented on the Taiwanese-ness of the news anchors' Mandarin. To Taiwanese ears, they just sound ""biaozhun", that's all. Taiwan Mandarin has become "transparent" to Taiwanese people. They don't notice anything special.

As you may well know, there are many "Taiwanisms" in Taiwan Mandarin. It's not my job to enumerate them here. But the Taiwanese speakers of Mandarin have invented enough new Mandarin words that can convey distinctly Taiwanese meaning. Just one example: Northern China Mandarin lacks words regarding rice. They don't eat it often. They prefer noodles. So the innovative Taiwanese borrowed words from Hokkien. So we say things like: "This mochi is very Q!"

I would go as far as to say that Mandarin is the new "Taiyu". Hokkien originated from Fujian Province in China. But nobody in Taiwan identify themselves with Fujian when they speak in it. The Taiwanese even call it "Taiyu". This is strange, come to think of it. There are more speakers of Hokkien outside of Taiwan, that is, in China and Southeast Asia, than there are in Taiwan. Yet, we still call it Taiyu. Maybe this is because the Taiwanese feel that they have already adopted and appropriated Hokkien enough to now call it a "local language".

Applying the same logic, why not call Mandarin "Taiwanese"? I know some foreigners who already do this.

Because of the historical accidents and  government educational policy, Hokkien has been in decline in Taiwan, other "dialects" even more so. But Mandarin has become the new Taiyu. This is a more powerful Taiyu, because it is shared by all who live in Taiwan. It is powerful also because it keeps creating new words and expressions to express Taiwanese minds and hearts.

Singapore influence? Fluent Mandarin speakers in southern peninsular Malaysia

The language life of young Chinese Malaysians in southern Malaysia has been influenced by the language policy of neighboring Singapore. This could be one of the examples of an interesting situation where the language policy of one country is affecting the populace in another.

Mandarin has different functions among Chinese-educated Malaysians in different parts of the country. I learned this from a conversation with one of my former students from Malaysia. I realized that I had been overgeneralizing. Here, I'm talking about those Chinese Malaysians who come from "Independent" Chinese Schools, in which that the sole medium of instruction is Mandarin. The situation in Malaysia is complex. So I'm excluding those who were educated in "National Form" Chinese schools, in which the medium of instruction is Malay or English at least for some subjects.

In southern peninsular Malaysia, namely Johor and Malacca, Mandarin has become the dominant language for almost all domains of life for younger people. This might be due to the influence of Singapore media, especially TV. Malacca is about the furthest point Singapore terrestrial TV signals can reach. In Singapore, the Chinese "dialects" are banned from public square since of the "Speak Mandarin Campaign". Therefore, all Singaporean Chinese TV programs are either produced in Mandarin or dubbed in it. In Singapore, as in Taiwan, Hong Kong films dubbed in Mandarin. (Which, I think, really sucks, in my opinion... It's quite daft to see "Fatt Gor" speaking in flunet Bejing-accent Mandarin!) Although Malaysian TV stations carry some programs in Cantonese, people in southern Malaysia generally prefer Singaporean TV stations. Because of this, students and graduates of independent Chinese schools in Johor are very fluent in Mandarin, and have an accent akin to standard Taiwanese Mandarin. If you walk into one of those schools now, you will hear students chit-chatting and gossiping in fluent Mandarin.

The situation is a little different in the rest of peninsular Malaysia. The Chinese communities in several important cities, such as Kuala Lumpur (KL) and Ipoh, are predominantly Cantonese-speaking. TV and radio stations are largely in KL, so this explains why Cantonese is so prevalent in Malaysia, even though Hokkien is the biggest Chinese ethnic group there. The Chinese-educated residents in those areas use Cantonese to converse with each other for daily purposes. Even though the medium of instruction is Mandarin, at least nominally, it is used only for formal situations, such as public ceremonies, speech contests, etc. Thus, people there feel more comfortable in Cantonese, while feeling insecure about their strongly-accented Mandarin. So Mandarin is restricted to formal domains. (By the way, I'm very interested in Cantonese being an identity marker for Chinese Malaysians residing in Taiwan. This is another story...)

The situation is similar in other cities in northern peninsular Malaysia, except that the dominant "dialect" may be Hokkien or Hakka. I once visited a city in the extreme north, where an Islamic political party has held power for a long time. I tried to socialize with students of a so-called Mandarin-medium school. Not only they spoke almost no Malay at all, they didn't even speak Mandarin well. So how do they communicate with each other? Hokkien, when at school or in town; and their own home "dialect", such as Cantonese or Teochew, when at home.

Sorry for sidetracking, but this suddenly reminded me of another interesting episode (for me). In that city in northern peninsular Malaysia, Chinese people watched Thai TV all the time. I asked them why. They said Thai pop music sounded better than Malaysian, especially Malay music, and that Thai TV programs were more entertainment-oriented than Muslim Malaysia. But do they understand the Thai language? Nope. I found out the answer when I visited the Thai side of the boarder. Thai people there spoke Hokkien! This was because there are many Malaysian Chinese tourists who visit there from Penang, a Hokkien-speaking city! This is another example of the language situation of one country influencing another, by the way.

Mandarin, not Hokkien: The first vehicle of pan-Taiwan identity

Mandarin has, for the first time, united various ethnic groups in Taiwan and strengthened Taiwan identity. Ironically, this is precisely what the government’s promotion of the language  was meant to prevent.

A parallel situation can be found in Burma, where Burmese became the language that united various anti-government forces even though it was the language that the Burmese authority was promoting in order to assert its Burmese identity and to marginalize other ethnic groups. (Kirkpatrick, 2010)

Until the end of the Qing dynasty rule, various ethnic groups of Taiwan did not have any common language, although Hokkien functioned as a Lingua Franca in a limited sense. When members of different ethnic groups had to contact with each other, they used Hokkien, as it was the language of the predominant ethnic group. Many people, perhaps most people, did not need to come in contact with other ethnic groups, so they were monolingual in whatever their ethnic language was. As for smaller communities of Hakka or Austronesian people surrounded by the sea of Hokkiens, they quickly assimilated and became Hokkien-speaking. So much so that many descendants of such people, both Hakka and Pepo-aboroginal, now consider themselves as ethnic Hokkien. The reverse almost never occurred. I mean, for example, few Hokkien people living among Hakkas assimilated to Hakka culturally and linguistically.

Under the Japanese rule, the colonial authority progressively promoted the use of Japanese, first as a medium of instruction (MoI), and then even as a home language. Consequently, Japanese became the island-wide lingua franca, especially among the well-educated and elites. As the contacts among the common mass increased, Hokkien also increased its importance as the lingua franca. Needless to say, Mandarin had not yet been promoted during this period, so only some sojourners originating from northern China and very few others knew the language.

So this was the situation the KMT government found itself in, when it took over the island in 1945 and then moved the provisional capital of the nation to Taipei in 1949. It faced resistance from Japanese/Hokkien-speaking local elites, so it was important for them to spread the use of Mandarin as soon as possible. The rest is the story you are all familiar with: The high-handed measures to promote Mandarin and eradicate “dialects” with such potential penalties as “dog-tags” and fines.

Hokkien remained the language of anti-KMT resistance and pro-Taiwan-independence nationalism until the end of 80's or probably even early 90's. When I first arrived in Taiwan in the early 90's, things were pretty straightforward: Hokkien-speaking taxi driver was pro-DPP betal nut chewer; and Mandarin-speaking professor in a suit and tie was a Waishengren and therefore pro-KMT/NP/PFP. It was also extremely common to spot older people anywhere in town who spoke better Japanese than me!

But things have changed a bit since then. Twenty years on, the chairperson of the DPP is a Hakka woman who doesn’t even speak Hokkien fluently. The younger generation has an ever stronger Taiwan identity and anti-Chinese sentiments, while at the same time being largely monolingual in Mandarin. (Even their parents probably only have limited proficiency in Hokkien.) It is no longer possible to distinguish a Waishengren from Benshengren solely from the way they speak Mandarin, unlike when I first came to Taiwan two decades ago. Indeed, some even don’t know which ethnic group they belong to themselves, other than the nationalistic sentiment that they are Taiwanese. (Matsuo, 2006) Mandarin has become the language of the heart as well as the mind of the Taiwanese people.

Ironically, Mandarin has become the language that united the various ethnic groups of Taiwan and thus a vehicle of ever-growing Taiwan identity.

I just read in a Kirkpatrick’s book that this is actually nothing uncommon. In Burma as in many countries, ethnic minorities have found solidarity and united force against the chauvinistic authority in the language of the authority itself. Come to think of it, would the anti-Spanish independence movement in the Philippines have been possible, without its leaders from different regions being able to communicate with other in Spanish? Perhaps the same applies to many, many post-colonial societies. And in the countries that have already become monolingualized, it is commonsense that the rulers and the opposition debate with each other in the same national language, which is the only choice for most people in that country.

Kirkpatrick, A. (2010). English as a lingua franca in ASEAN: A multilingual model. Hong Kong: Hong Kong University Press.

Matsuo, S. (2006). 台湾における言語意識と言語選択の実態. Taipei: 群學.