Can the Taiwanese language survive?

[Taibei]

In the latest issue of Sino-Platonic Papers, Deborah Beaser examines the chances for the survival of Taiwanese (a.k.a. Hoklo, Minnan, Southern Min, etc.).

The introduction to her paper is a good summary of the whole work:

In this paper I will discuss the history of the Taiwanese language on the island of Taiwan, and explore its potential to continue into the future. I predict that over the next 50 years Taiwanese, as a language, will become increasingly marginalized, and that the recent increase in desire to promote Taiwanese is purely the short-term reaction of the generation of Taiwanese who went through periods of linguistic and cultural suppression. This is not to say that I believe it will completely disappear. To the contrary, I believe the Taiwanese language will remain as part of a cultural legacy, but how large that legacy will be depends on whether or not today’s Taiwanese people are able to standardize a script and computer inputting system that will preserve it in a written form and open up its domain of usage.

Read the whole paper here: The Outlook for Taiwanese Language Preservation (432 KB PDF).

[Mark Yong]

Very interesting article!

I think this forms part of a bigger problem regarding the preservation of the 閩 Min dialects – in 台灣 Taiwan, 海南 Hainan, on the Mainland, and also in the South East Asian nations, where the majority of the migrants hailed from 福建 Fujian province.

Some questions that always creep into my mind is this:

1. Assuming that Mandarin had not been established as the standard in the early-1910’s, and the regional dialects had been allowed to carry on (in much the same way that Cantonese survives in Hong Kong today), how would a written standard for the Min dialects have evolved?

2. Would it have still been dependent on Literary Chinese as a vehicle for writing, or could a vernacular written standard have developed (here, I am referring exclusively to the use of 漢字 Hanzi, and not to Anglicised forms, e.g. 百話字 Peh Oe Ji) - given both the special complexity of the 閩 Min dialects having a large percentage of dual literary/colloquial pronunciation (文白讀) of words, and also the large number of words without 漢字 Hanzi to represent them?

3. Could, say, the 廈門 Amoy variant have eventually evolved to become the standard model for the 閩 Min dialects, in much the same way the Cantonese is seen today as the model for the 粵 Yue dialects?

[gamerfu]

I like Taiwanese a lot, but sadly after 40-50 years. Its true it will be a legacy. Hong Kong is changing after the rescent 1997 happenings.

Mandarin is becoming more pursasive with technology. This generation is the prefect timing to declare your national language. I believe the next 20 years will set the rest of the world for the next couple of centuries.

[wushijiao]

Good article. I suppose I had always assumed that younger generations were more pro-Taiwanese, and less sympathetic towards the Mainland. Therefore, I had assumed that Taiwanese would be more prevalent among younger generations.

The author holds that younger generations are more likely to use Mandarin in the public sphere, which makes sense. I wonder what the long run implications of that are.

I believe the next 20 years will set the rest of the world for the next couple of centuries.

I have that same feeling. In Shanghai it’s very common to see grandparents speaking to their toddler grandchildren in heavily accented Mandarin, and having the kids answer back in perfect Mandarin. Since the Mainland is in a state of massive internal population migration shifts, and since a de facto diglossia is in effect, in which the prestige language (Mandarin) corrodes the official and technical usage of dialects, it seems that Mandarin will triumph over dialects within the next generation or two. The interesting thing is, I always had thought that this trend was mainly due to the top-down dictates of the Party. After reading the article about Taiwan, I wonder to what degree is it just a natural phenomenon that would have happened without official policies dictating what language can be used in the media.

Could, say, the 廈門 Amoy variant have eventually evolved to become the standard model for the 閩 Min dialects, in much the same way the Cantonese is seen today as the model for the 粵 Yue dialects?

Good question. I’ve wondered the same. There used to be a poster on these forums named ala who was a big proponent of enhancing the status of Shanghaiese by 1) agreeing on a standardized spelling and 2) having Shanghai serve as the media base and standardization base to the variety of Wu dialects. (I hope I am paraphrasing that correctly). Those things haven’t happened, and neither has that happened for the Min dialects, as far as I know.

So, from the point of view of long run survivability due to standardization and media power/ proliferation, only Cantonese and Mandarin will survive the next century. I bet the 21st century will treat Chinese dialects like the 19th century treated the Irish and Welsh languages in Britain.

[Mugi]

The interesting thing is, I always had thought that this trend was mainly due to the top-down dictates of the Party. After reading the article about Taiwan, I wonder to what degree is it just a natural phenomenon that would have happened without official policies dictating what language can be used in the media.

Don't forget that the Taiwan situation isn't that different from the mainland in terms of language suppression. Min, Hakka and the aboriginal languages took their first hit during the Japanese occupation - all languages other than Japanese were eventually forbidden to be taught and usage in all other situations was heavily restricted. Things only got worse once the Nationalists arrived. Taiwanese in their 30s and older were banned from speaking anything but Mandarin when they were at school, even during recess. Most of my Taiwanese friends have had the experience of having had to wear signs around their necks stating that they must never speak anything but 國語 at school, after one of their classmates reported them for having spoken Hakka or Hoklo!

Could, say, the 廈門 Amoy variant have eventually evolved to become the standard model for the 閩 Min dialects, in much the same way the Cantonese is seen today as the model for the 粵 Yue dialects?

I actually don't see much of a difference between the Cantonese and Hokkien situations as they stand, except that HK/GZ Cantonese enjoys a significant pop culture. I don't think you can say that HK/GZ Cantonese acts as a "model" for the Yue dialects in general. Take Seiyip for example: It is mutually unintelligible with HK/GZ Cantonese - the latter may influence the former, particularly in terms of vocab, and to a much lesser degree grammar and lesser still pronunciation, but HK/GZ Cantonese also influences non-Cantonese languages (e.g. Hakka and Teochew) to a similar degree. When it comes to Cantonese dialects that belong to the 廣府片，then I think you can say that both HK and GZ Cantonese act as models/standards. But Hokkien is in practically the same situation - the Amoy and Taiwan dialects already act as pseudo standards for speakers of other dialects in the 泉漳片. Other 閩南 dialects (like Teochew 潮州 and Hainan 海南) are too far removed (linguistically) for there to be much influence.

I suspect Mark was really wondering whether the Amoy/Taiwan dialect could have ever developed a pop culture comparable to Hong Kong. I think it's still possible, if unlikely. If a standard orthography can be decided upon, then that would be a good start.

2. Would it have still been dependent on Literary Chinese as a vehicle for writing, or could a vernacular written standard have developed (here, I am referring exclusively to the use of 漢字 Hanzi, and not to Anglicised forms, e.g. 百[白]話字 Peh Oe Ji) - given both the special complexity of the 閩 Min dialects having a large percentage of dual literary/colloquial pronunciation (文白讀) of words, and also the large number of words without 漢字 Hanzi to represent them?

There are sporadic examples of Hokkien written in close to the vernacular - I think the most commonly cited examples are 歌仔冊, but I think the odd 布袋戲 script, short story and biblical story also exist. I think a vernacular written standard would have been and still is possible using only Chinese characters. The complexities of Southern Min dialects don't pose as many difficulties for writing as people might think.

There used to be a poster on these forums named ala

I wonder what happened to ala - his? posts were always very thorough and informative.

[gato]

In Shanghai it’s very common to see grandparents speaking to their toddler grandchildren in heavily accented Mandarin, and having the kids answer back in perfect Mandarin.

I hear a lot of Shanghainese, particularly young people, mixing Mandarin words with Shanghainese in conversation. It seems that people don't know how to say a lot of the more sophisticated words in Shanghainese because they only learned the Mandarin version in school and they don't use those words when speaking Shanghainese at home with grandma. Other dialects must face a similar situation. There's almost no effort to develop and standardize new vocabulary in non-Mandarin dialects. As a result, people have to resort to Mandarin more and more.

By the way, I notice that there are a couple of local TV stations in Shanghai that have regular shows, including sitcoms, in Shanghainese. I had thought that this was forbidden. I wonder how much of viewership they have. The quality is not great, but probably comparable to other mainland TV shows.

[Ian_Lee]

I don't buy the theme of this paper that unless there is a standardized written orthography, Taiwanese language will be in demise.

There has never been a standardized written orthography for Cantonese in Hong Kong, but the language has been thriving and is still dominant for decades.

Actually the author should give the Taiwanese kids in school a break. They already need to learn Mandarin + English + all other subjects + Hakka or aboriginal language + .......

Do they still have time to learn a new form of inventive and immature written script?

[Ian_Lee]

Actually KMT has let Taiwanese language flourish in the entertainment industry.

In the '50s and '60s, hundreds of opera-movies based on Taiwanese language called 歌仔戲 were churned out in Taiwan every year. The problem is that these movies were always poorly made and gradually substituted by Mandarin products.

[wix]

I don't buy the theme of this paper that unless there is a standardized written orthography' date=' Taiwanese language will be in demise.

There has never been a standardized written orthography for Cantonese in Hong Kong, but the language has been thriving and is still dominant for decades.[/quote']

A standardised orthography may not be essential. What is important is that you have a system that is widely used and understood. In Taiwan few people can read and write Taiwanese and there are no mainstream media published in the language. The situation in Hong Kong is different with daily newspapers published in Cantonese.

Actually the author should give the Taiwanese kids in school a break. They already need to learn Mandarin + English + all other subjects + Hakka or aboriginal language + .......

Do they still have time to learn a new form of inventive and immature written script?

Pe̍h-oē-jī has been in use for more than a century. It is hardly immature. Any consistent, well designed system of romanisation should be easy to teach elementary school students.

[Ian_Lee]

Wix:

The wikipedia webpage that you refer to is about the romanization of the Taiwanese language. Even though such script has been there for a while, it has never been put into wide practice. And hardly any mass volume of literature has been printed in such script.

So is such script workable? As I wrote, the kids in Taiwan have already too much subjects to work on. I don't think they deserve to be genuine pigs.

And every major media in Hong Kong is printing in standardized Chinese under Mandarin format which is readable and understandable by most people in Mainland and Taiwan.

Even some tabloids use the Cantonese language, they are still using the Chinese characters.

[Long Zhiren]

I was under the impression that Taiwan-hua was simply Fukien-hua.

If that is the case, it'll survive just fine...on the mainland.

[Mark Yong]

The interesting thing is, I always had thought that this trend was mainly due to the top-down dictates of the Party. After reading the article about Taiwan, I wonder to what degree is it just a natural phenomenon that would have happened without official policies dictating what language can be used in the media.

In my opinion, yes and no. The current regression of the dialects is a natural phenomenon, but it was the 1917 Council determining Mandarin as the standard that started it all, coupled with the government's follow-up by suppressing the dialects in order to promote Mandarin. I believe that if the same suppression of Taiwanese during the 1950's-80's had not happened, Taiwanese could have developed a pop culture comparable to Cantonese in Hong Kong.

I think a vernacular written standard would have been and still is possible using only Chinese characters. The complexities of Southern Min dialects don't pose as many difficulties for writing as people might think.

As a fervent advocate of assigning **correct** 本字 for Chinese dialects, I would really hope that a vernacular written standard for the dialects is possible. The problem is, the promotion of Mandarin as the written standard resulted in the obsolesence of many otherwise-orthodox Chinese characters that were not part of the Mandarin vocabulary, and the character simplification process resulting in the merging of otherwise-different characters further accentuated the loss.

Even with the existing pop culture of written Cantonese in Hong Kong, many of the words used are not really correct. Take, for instance, 'bei' (give). It is written as 啤, but the actual character should be 畀 (康熙字典 Kangxi Dictionary defines it is 賜也). This situation is a little more severe for Taiwanese, where there is a larger stock of words no longer used in Mandarin.

There is another problem. Unlike the Yue 粵 dialects where the grammar approximates closely to Mandarin, the Min 閩 dialects are grammatically very different from Mandarin. In a separate thread, I postulated that the only likely candidate suitable for writing all the dialects was still 文言文.

Having said that, the Hong Kong educational model has proven that it is possible to read a Mandarin-grammar text using Cantonese pronunciation completely, without recourse to Mandarin pronunciation. I believe that if Taiwan really wanted to adopt that model for 閩南話 (Minnan dialect), it would have worked. The same goes for the 吳 Wu dialects, particularly Shanghainese. One can only lament that it did not happen.

[skylee]

Take, for instance, 'bei' (give). It is written as 啤, but the actual character should be 畀 (康熙字典 Kangxi Dictioary defines it is 賜也).

Actually, people use 俾, not 啤 (which is used for beer / playing cards). Many people use 畀 too.

[Mark Yong]

A standardised orthography may not be essential. What is important is that you have a system that is widely used and understood. In Taiwan few people can read and write Taiwanese and there are no mainstream media published in the language. The situation in Hong Kong is different with daily newspapers published in Cantonese.

Strange, I always had the impression that newspapers in Hong Kong were written using standard Mandarin grammar, only that they were read out loud using Cantonese pronunciation, i.e. the text can be perfectly understood anywhere on the mainland. I am aware that many pop culture magazines and some selected newspapers (e.g. Apple Daily) are written using colloquial Cantonese grammar.

If I am wrong, then is there really a difference between standard written Mandarin grammar and standard written Cantonese grammar? What separates standard written Cantonese grammar (as used in formal or more serious texts), as compared to pop colloquial written Cantonese grammar?

I am not sure about the situation in Taiwan, but in Malaysia, the local Chinese radio station still has a news slot read in 福建話 (Fujian dialect). With the exception of some base functional and auxiliary words (which is inevitable in any dialect), virtually all the other terminologies used can be mapped to the exact characters in Standard Mandarin - a further assertion that the Hong Kong model can work for Taiwanese!

[Mark Yong]

I suspect Mark was really wondering whether the Amoy/Taiwan dialect could have ever developed a pop culture comparable to Hong Kong. I think it's still possible, if unlikely. If a standard orthography can be decided upon, then that would be a good start.

You are correct, that is part of my question.

But on a larger scale, I was also hypothesising that, given the large percentage of 華僑人 overseas Chinese migrants in South-East Asia hailing from 福建省 Fujian province, assuming the greater forces did not prevail, whether one variant of the 福建話 Fujian dialect would have dominated over the others and become a regional standard. The three largest groups are 廈門 Amoy, 漳州 Chiang Chew and 泉州 Chuan Chew, with (I believe) the 廈門 Amoy goup being the largest of the three.

[zixingche]

Quote:Having said that, the Hong Kong educational model has proven that it is possible to read a Mandarin-grammar text using Cantonese pronunciation completely, without recourse to Mandarin pronunciation. I believe that if Taiwan really wanted to adopt that model for 閩南話 (Minnan dialect), it would have worked. The same goes for the 吳 Wu dialects, particularly Shanghainese. One can only lament that it did not happen.

But the HK method of reading Mandarin-grammar text (standard written Chinese) using Cantonese pronunciation is effectively a distinct language that has to be formally learnt and is not a written form of Cantonese, also it (the method) would be unneccessary in putonghua speaking areas ie Taiwan. However there is a written form of Cantonese in HK, mainly used for informal purposes, and it is different from standard written Chinese.

[wix]

Why are people so obsessed with thinking a standard form of writing the language in Chinese characters is necessary to ensure its survival? Romanisation is so much more efficient. As I mentioned earlier the Church system has been in use for over a century.

Also using romanisation might give the language an advantage and encourage its use. i.e. people might prefer writing Taiwanese using romanisation rather than Mandarin using Chinese characters.

[Mark Yong]

But the HK method of reading Mandarin-grammar text (standard written Chinese) using Cantonese pronunciation is effectively a distinct language that has to be formally learnt and is not a written form of Cantonese, also it (the method) would be unneccessary in putonghua speaking areas ie Taiwan.

Correct. What I meant is that, assuming 普通話 Putonghua had not been promoted as the spoken standard in Taiwan (like the situation in Hong Kong), and 閩南話 Minnanhua had remained as the lingua franca, could there have been a similar setup, whereby Mandarin-grammar texts are read using 閩南話 Minnanhua pronunciation, the same way Cantonese pronunciation is used in Hong Kong?

My contention is that in Hong Kong, Cantonese has managed to survive and even flourish, partly because its grammar and vocabulary have been somewhat enriched by 普通話 Putonghua to some degree, especially due to the adoption of many contemporary and technical/commercial jargon.

[Mark Yong]

Why are people so obsessed with thinking a standard form of writing the language in Chinese characters is necessary to ensure its survival? Romanisation is so much more efficient. As I mentioned earlier the Church system has been in use for over a century.

If I may speak for the rest of the forum members who have contributed to this thread, I do not think any of us believe that the use of Chinese characters as a vehicle for 閩南話 Minnanhua is the only way to ensure its survival.

Like all the Chinese dialects, the disadvantage of an exclusive reliance on Romanisation lies in two factors: (1) the characters being monosyllabic (2) the large number of homonyms, i.e. several different words having the same pronunciation (異義同音). The problem is probably less severe for the Southern dialects (which have retained most of the tones, beginnings and endings from the 唐 Tang period or earlier), as compared to Mandarin.

Even in Korea today, despite the well-established used of Hangeul, many official documents still use 漢字 Hanja to resolve ambiguities caused by homonyms in the Korean language (inherited from words borrowed from the Chinese language).

The other reason, I suppose, is more a matter of identity and pride. 閩南話 Minnanhua has survived for centuries using 漢字 Chinese characters, before the introduction of 白話字 Peh-Oe-Ji by the Missionaries in the 18th century. Besides, by and large, the concept of 有字必有本 ("for every word, there should be a root character") applies for most of the words in any Chinese dialect.

[wushijiao]

I also cannot help but wonder: if a majority of people genuinely felt that their language wasn’t suitably written in characters, wouldn’t the popularization of a Romanization-like system become brutally obvious to most people? A case in point: Vietnam, Korea, and, to some degree Japan, all eventually developed other systems.

Of course, any language can be written in a Romanized alphabet of some form. But the fact that a majority of people in Taiwan haven’t seen an urgent need to separate themselves from the character system by popularizing an alphabet, that seems to hint at the fact that they do consider their language to be just a branch of Chinese, and not worth the effort to separate, protect, and individualize. Perhaps you can go a step further and say that they consider themselves to be Chinese, and therefore are fine with keeping a character based system. Whether that character system is based on their dialect or not may be irrelevant if you view yourself as a valued member of the Chinese civilization.

While writing this, I subconsciously have assumed that if Taiwanese people think that their language is a branch of Chinese, usage of Mandarin will increase, which will eventually help move most Taiwanese voters towards a reunification position. Conversely, if Taiwanese were to become popularized in the print media and other forms of media, that will bode well for the people who favor formal independence. But then again, who is to say if this assumption is correct? The English, French, German, Spanish speaking worlds are all multi-polar. Canada feels no need to “unify” with the US, even though the two countries are speak almost identically.

In other words, it would be interesting to know more about socio-political attitudes towards Taiwanese and Mandarin usage, especially among young people who can use both.