Recently, the Ministry of Education announced that it would adopt the term “Taiwan Taiwanese” (台灣台語), to replace the term “Minnanese” (閩南語, “Southern Min”), as a unifying name for the language spoken in Taiwan.
I discussed this issue with some friends.
“I went to Xiamen in China in 1990 and chatted with a local. I said that his Taiwanese sounded similar to mine. He told me he speaks the Xiamen dialect of Minnanese, not Taiwanese. Taiwanese is a term only people in Taiwan use to refer to the form of Minnanese they speak, but the original term is Minnanese,” one friend said.
“As I recall, the term ‘Taiwanese’ was first coined by Japanese officials during the Japanese colonial era. At that time, prospective educators from Japan studying at Taiwan Provincial Normal Institute [now National Taiwan Normal University] were required to take Taiwanese language classes, as they were to teach Taiwanese students. Japanese police officers were also required to learn the local language so they could communicate with Taiwanese under their jurisdiction. There are several Taiwanese dictionaries that retired Japanese police have compiled,” another replied.
However, semantically, Taiwanese refers to the language of Taiwan, but Taiwan has many languages.
“The early Austronesians in Taiwan spoke 10 to 20 distinct languages. Later, immigrants from Zhangzhou and Quanzhou in China’s Fujian Province brought Minnanese of various dialects to Taiwan. The Hakka were the next ethnic group to travel in large numbers to Taiwan, bringing their own Hakka language, of which the Hailu, Sixian, Raoping, Dabu and Zhao’an are dialects. These are all languages of Taiwan, so why is only Minnanese considered Taiwanese?” one of the friends asked.
“It is because descendants of Fujian immigrants make up the majority of Taiwan’s population today,” a friend answered.
“Then why is it not called ‘Taiwanese Minnanese?’” another person asked.
“Minnanese is a discriminatory term. The Chinese character for Min (閩) contains the character for insect (chong, 虫). It was a name the early Central Plains people in China used for surrounding ethnic groups. We should not use it,” a friend answered.
“True, but this term has already become commonplace. It is fine to just keep the original meaning in mind. More than 1,100 years ago, during the Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms period, one of the kingdoms was called Min. Are you saying they called themselves insects?” a friend asked.
“Taiwanese and Minnanese are different languages from different language families. They contain many different terms and pronunciations,” a friend answered.
“The Zhangzhou and Quanzhou dialects have pronunciation differences. Are they also of different language families? The Hailu and Sixian dialects of Hakka also have their differences. Are they not from the same family as well?” another person asked.
“I remember when the Chinese writer Lin Yutang (林語堂) moved to Taiwan in 1965. He said hearing locals speak Minnanese in Taipei made him feel at home. Born in Fujian, his mother tongue was Minnanese and he could understand what Taiwanese were saying. Are these from different language families?” a friend asked.
“Exactly. If I can effectively converse with someone from Xiamen, why are our languages considered different language families?” one asked.
“American English, Australian English and British English all have different accents. Even their word choices sometimes differ, such as ‘football’ and ‘soccer,’ but they are all known as being part of the English language,” a friend said.
“The language Americans speak could be called ‘Americanese,’” another said.
“Sure, but they probably would not call it ‘American Americanese.’ Using ‘Taiwanese’ is one thing, but why call it ‘Taiwan Taiwanese?’ Minnanese as spoken in Singapore is called Hokkien, the word derived from the Hokkien pronunciation of the Sinitic characters for ‘Fujian.’ Why do they hot call it ‘Singapore Singaporeanese?’” the person asked.
“I also think the inclusion of ‘Taiwan’ is illogical. Should we also start saying ‘Singaporean Taiwanese,’ ‘Xiamen Taiwanese,’ or ‘Quanzhou Taiwanese?’” another asked.
“It is to distinguish Taiwan Taiwanese from ‘Taiwanese Hakka,” another said.
“Then we can say ‘Taiwanese Hakka’ and ‘Taiwanese Minnanese,’” a friend said.
“However, ‘Minnanese’ is still a discriminatory term,” another said.
“Perhaps we can use the term ‘Hokkien’ or ‘Hoklo,’” the friend replied.
The discussion went round and round with everyone having their own opinions on what to call the language spoken in Taiwan. We did not come to a conclusion.
Lee Hsiao-feng is an honorary professor at the National Taipei University of Education.
Translated by Nicole Wong
As the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) and its People’s Liberation Army (PLA) reach the point of confidence that they can start and win a war to destroy the democratic culture on Taiwan, any future decision to do so may likely be directly affected by the CCP’s ability to promote wars on the Korean Peninsula, in Europe, or, as most recently, on the Indian subcontinent. It stands to reason that the Trump Administration’s success early on May 10 to convince India and Pakistan to deescalate their four-day conventional military conflict, assessed to be close to a nuclear weapons exchange, also served to
The recent aerial clash between Pakistan and India offers a glimpse of how China is narrowing the gap in military airpower with the US. It is a warning not just for Washington, but for Taipei, too. Claims from both sides remain contested, but a broader picture is emerging among experts who track China’s air force and fighter jet development: Beijing’s defense systems are growing increasingly credible. Pakistan said its deployment of Chinese-manufactured J-10C fighters downed multiple Indian aircraft, although New Delhi denies this. There are caveats: Even if Islamabad’s claims are accurate, Beijing’s equipment does not offer a direct comparison
After India’s punitive precision strikes targeting what New Delhi called nine terrorist sites inside Pakistan, reactions poured in from governments around the world. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MOFA) issued a statement on May 10, opposing terrorism and expressing concern about the growing tensions between India and Pakistan. The statement noticeably expressed support for the Indian government’s right to maintain its national security and act against terrorists. The ministry said that it “works closely with democratic partners worldwide in staunch opposition to international terrorism” and expressed “firm support for all legitimate and necessary actions taken by the government of India
Taiwan aims to elevate its strategic position in supply chains by becoming an artificial intelligence (AI) hub for Nvidia Corp, providing everything from advanced chips and components to servers, in an attempt to edge out its closest rival in the region, South Korea. Taiwan’s importance in the AI ecosystem was clearly reflected in three major announcements Nvidia made during this year’s Computex trade show in Taipei. First, the US company’s number of partners in Taiwan would surge to 122 this year, from 34 last year, according to a slide shown during CEO Jensen Huang’s (黃仁勳) keynote speech on Monday last week.
RSS