I think Taiwanese should be kept. Many old folks are not that fluent in Mandarin, and they usually refer to places in Taiwanese on their daily speech. I know my grandparents and their friends all do that. They take MRT by themselves from time to time.
Hakka should be eliminated though, and replace it with Japanese.
Then why not also include Amis and Atayal? Their exclusion disrespects their heritage![/quote]
They haven’t kicked up a big fuss over it, as the others have.
[quote=“Gain”]I think Taiwanese should be kept. Many old folks are not that fluent in Mandarin, and they usually refer to places in Taiwanese on their daily speech. I know my grandparents and their friends all do that. They take MRT by themselves from time to time.
Hakka should be eliminated though, and replace it with Japanese.[/quote]
No, Hakka people are an Importanr culture in Taiwan.
I never said they weren’t.
It doesn’t require having Hakka announcements in the MRT to recognize the importance of Hakka culture.
I’m against its inclusion for practical reasons. Four languages is simply too many for MRT announcements.
If they keeping including languages, there will be not enough time for all the announcements between two stations…
[quote=“Chris”]It doesn’t require having Hakka announcements in the MRT to recognize the importance of Hakka culture.
I’m against its inclusion for practical reasons. Four languages is simply too many for MRT announcements.[/quote]
Mandarin Chinese: for obvious reason
English mandatory for internationalization and convenience of us foreigners and tourists
Taiwanese/Hokkian due to majority (70% of current population) are Minnan people coming from Fujian province (also Guangdong and Hainan).
Hakka: a significant minority (15% of population) are Hakka people from eastern Guangdong province. Many young people still communicate using Hakka language with their family.
Reducing Hakka would make havoc among 15% of the population.
From around 625000 foreigners here, 217000 are Indonesians, about half of the total numbers of combined Taiwanese aborigines.
I don’t think the MRT/whoever in charge would never planned to make Indonesian as one of the language of the announcement.
Japanese, while quite important historically, most of the speaker would be in late 80’s by now.
Adding one of Aborigine languages would means MOST OTHER/ALL the aborigine languages would need to be added as well (not a good idea).
What percentage of Hakka speaking people do not speak Mandarin?
For the sake of tourists, I’d keep hakka for its similarity to Cantonese, if we were getting the numbers of tourists from Hong Kong as before. Same with Japanese. But as things go now, we’d have to add Korean… with barely a minute between stations, no time for all that! Plus, seriously, unnecessary. One thing I missed in japan was the clearer and bigger overall station LED prompters. We are really spoiled in this regard, and to be honest, if one misses one’s stop it is because one’s head in in the screen. The phone screen.
[quote=“sewersquid”][quote=“Chris”]It doesn’t require having Hakka announcements in the MRT to recognize the importance of Hakka culture.
I’m against its inclusion for practical reasons. Four languages is simply too many for MRT announcements.[/quote]
Mandarin Chinese: for obvious reason
English mandatory for internationalization and convenience of us foreigners and tourists
Taiwanese/Hokkian due to majority (70% of current population) are Minnan people coming from Fujian province (also Guangdong and Hainan).
Hakka: a significant minority (15% of population) are Hakka people from eastern Guangdong province. Many young people still communicate using Hakka language with their family.
Reducing Hakka would make havoc among 15% of the population.
[/quote]
First, the Hakka make up 5% of Taiwan’s population, and most are concentrated in Miaoli, Hsinchu and Pingtung Counties. And all but the very oldest speak Mandarin or Taiwanese fluently.
But even if this were not the case, how would removing Hakka from MRT announcements endanger their language?
For practical purposes, regarding MRT announcements, three languages works; four is just too many.
It’s pretty obvious that Hakka is there for political reasons, not practical ones. It’s a way of saying, “We recognize your presence here in Taiwan–even if you understand two or three of the other languages being announced!”
It’s interesting that only the languages of invader settler peoples (from China, and in the case of English, elsewhere) are recognized in this way–forget about Austronesian languages. Here the operation of power is clear, even as the MRT system makes token efforts to seem inclusive.
Guy
[quote=“afterspivak”]It’s pretty obvious that Hakka is there for political reasons, not practical ones. It’s a way of saying, “We recognize your presence here in Taiwan–even if you understand two or three of the other languages being announced!”
It’s interesting that only the languages of invader settler peoples (from China, and in the case of English, elsewhere) are recognized in this way–forget about Austronesian languages. Here the operation of power is clear, even as the MRT system makes token efforts to seem inclusive.
Guy[/quote]
I don’t care about the Hakka people, for most part they bore me. But to be fair, there are close to 5 million of them in Taiwan. There are about 530,000 indigenous people and they have many different languages. The biggest tribe is the Amis with 200,000, but how many of them live in Taipei? They do announce station names in Amis language on the railway line through the East Rift Valley, so they are kind of recognized this way in the area where they live. Now how many Hakka live in Taipei? No idea, but probably a lot, especially in Xinzhuang. I think size matters, and while the Hakka announcements have political reasons, lot of old Hakka folk will find them rather useful.
Perhaps some of you weren’t around at the time, or don’t remember. Taiwanese got included due to a big stink made about it not being included on the part of Taiwanese activist groups (rightfully so, IMO). Hakka got included due to a big stink made by the Hakka community along the lines of (paraphrasing), “If you are going to add Taiwanese you have to add Hakka, too.” Those languages were included in order to placate the respective communities. Neither of these are going to be dropped due to the big stink it would arouse on the part of the respective communities, were it to be attempted. Live with it. Personally, I don’t see what the big deal is – if you don’t like it, just tune it out.
Just take it at an opportunity to have your destination repeated to you 3 times… before you miss it…
Four, including English!
Guy
And yes, the TRA Rift Valley announcements are in Amis. Thanks Hannes for the reminder!
Guy
The main spoken languages in Taipei and the only two “national languages” that can be heard pretty much everywhere in the island are Mandarin and Taiwanese. The MRT announcements should just be in Mandarin, Taiwanese, and English.
Hakka and Aboriginal languages should be promoted where they are spoken. It’s weird that the Taipei MRT has announcements in Hakka, but public transport announcements in places like Miaoli where Hakka is still widely used as an everyday language are often only in Mandarin.
The Miaoli government probably ran out of money after blowing their budget on big ticket spectacles or on police to harass protesters.
Guy
[quote=“afterspivak”]It’s pretty obvious that Hakka is there for political reasons, not practical ones. It’s a way of saying, “We recognize your presence here in Taiwan–even if you understand two or three of the other languages being announced!”
It’s interesting that only the languages of invader settler peoples (from China, and in the case of English, elsewhere) are recognized in this way–forget about Austronesian languages. Here the operation of power is clear, even as the MRT system makes token efforts to seem inclusive.
Guy[/quote]
Yep, i agree. People should know that it was active discrimination against Hakka and Taiwanese that has been reducing their usage, the MRT announcements are at least a statement that we respect your languages and culture. I know it’s not practical and annoying to have all these languages.
^If they really respect the culture, they would make these languages official.
Having Hakka on MRT is just pointless.