Although the terms “language” and “dialect” refer to different things, in real life the boundary between the two is not always clear-cut, and their linguistic definitions are often influenced by politics for better or worse. From a purely linguistic perspective, “dialects” are different but mutually intelligible forms of language. Some simple examples include the “southern” varieties of British English as contrasted with the “northern” ones as spoken in Manchester, Sheffield and further north. Standard British English and General American English are strictly speaking “dialects of English.” This clearly demonstrates why the locally popular term mei-yu (美語) is a misnomer, because the language it refers to is “English,” not “American.”
In some cases, what should be called “dialects” from a linguistic perspective are called “languages” because of political considerations: Swedish, Norwegian and Danish are considered different “languages” because they are used in different political entities, respectively Sweden, Norway and Denmark. However, these languages have high mutual intelligibility, which makes them “dialects” from a linguistic perspective.
The opposite situation developed in China, where the term “dialect” is commonly applied to what linguistically are separate languages. The status of the various languages of China might appear rather confusing, but, it is important to understand it correctly because the blurring between the terms “dialect” and “language” has often been employed in China for political propaganda.
In China, a large number of languages are spoken. Genetically, these languages belong to several different language families, but the most common ones, Guan (官), Min (閩), Yue (粵), sometimes loosely called “Cantonese”), Hakka and a few others, belong to the Sino-Tibetan language family. Although these languages derive from a single ancestor, commonly called “Old Chinese,” over the course of time they lost all mutual intelligibility with each other, becoming de facto “individual languages.” Each of these languages contain its own dialects; therefore, Mandarin Chinese might be said to have special Beijing, Shandong, Hebei and other “dialects,” which exhibit different degrees of mutual intelligibility.
Modern Taiwanese Mandarin is historically based on the Beijing dialect, but it has been influenced to some extent by other Chinese languages spoken in Taiwan. Speakers of different Sino-Tibetan languages began settling in Taiwan only around the 17th century, slowly displacing the indigenous Austronesian tribes. Many of these immigrants were speakers of Min and Hakka, and as their numbers kept increasing, these two languages became widely spoken in Taiwan. Mandarin Chinese, one of the official languages of the Qing government, was also used. However, it was not until the arrival of the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) government that this language was imposed upon all the inhabitants of Taiwan as part of the systematic “Mandarinization” of the population.
The artificial reinterpretation of Min and Hakka as “nonstandard varieties of Chinese,” as opposed to Mandarin as “standard Chinese,” became a convenient tool in this process. This politicized but linguistically entirely incorrect understanding of language relationships is still very common in Taiwan. The nation’s Transitional Justice Board should eradicate this obsolete interpretation and educate the population about the true linguistic history of Taiwan.
Aurelijus Vijunas is professor of historical linguistics at National Kaohsiung Normal University.
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