Sure, but the meaning of 官話 is clear in both “Chinas” - “language of the government” or something.
Really there’s no good name for Mandarin.
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Because it is really new and artificial to a certain extent.
Found a lecture on Tsuân-tsiu language (泉州話) on a government website about lâm-kuán music (南管).
https://taiwanopera.moc.gov.tw/index/zh-tw/video/7850
Part 1
https://taiwanopera.moc.gov.tw/index/zh-tw/video/7851
Part 2
Full on Tsuân-tsiu tones sounds a bit different from your typical Taigi. Full on Ē-mn̂g (Amoy) language sounds even more different from the typical Taigi.
For a nice relatively neutral term, I prefer 中文.
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Tone table from the second lecture.
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I don’t know, I don’t like using 中文 in any Chinese language. It’s the same as saying ‘Chinese’ in English, to me - while everyone will understand what you mean, it’s not the most precise.
I’m linking this other topic since these threads seem very similar. Maybe we could combine them?
Final note, the TLI has Taiwanese classes and you can do it via skype.
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“Everyone will understand what you mean” seems precise enough to me. I think it’s much better than politicized terms like 國語 and 普通話.
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Yeah, not trying to tell you how to speak or anything, just sharing my thoughts. Most important is definitely both sides understanding what’s being said. To me, personally, saying ‘Chinese’ or ‘中文’ is not fully unpoliticized, as it implies to some extent that other languages are ‘lesser’ and languages like Hokkien or Cantonese are ‘dialects’ instead of full-fledged languages.
Feel free to argue with me on this, I know I have some hot takes (though I’m not sure if we should gum up this thread). Dialect vs. language vs. accent is a very blurred line, with lots of politics, culture, and identity wrapped up in the discussion. (“A language is just a dialect with a flag and a border.”)
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Just out of curiosity, what is your preferred term (in Chinese)?
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Ah, you caught me 
My habit is to say 國語 when talking about spoken Mandarin (I occasionally use 普通話 as well), I say 中文語言 to refer to ‘Chinese languages’, I use 中文 to refer to written Chinese.
To be honest I’m not sure there’s a term that would really satisfy me, like you said there are politics around 國語 and 普通話. Linguistic hierarchy/differentiating between dialects, languages, etc. is much more important to me than most; I use 國語/普通話 because in my mind ‘national/common language’ doesn’t imply anything about the linguistic differentiation and (to me) is relatively neutral.
I wish there were something better, like 北方話 or something. I used to say 漢語 but it also feels weird to bring Han into it, 華語 doesn’t feel right to me, either. Maybe we can bring back 官話?
I think about this too much…
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But in common usage, 中文 refers to the spoken language as well. You don’t find “National Language” too politicized? And using 普通話 in Taiwan would get you some serious side-stares…
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I use 中文 to refer to any written Chinese, not just Mandarin. To that effect, there is no one pronunciation of a character; 中 has a different spoken form depending on which language you’re speaking.
No, I don’t find ‘national language’ to be too politicized, it is the language spoken nationally in schools, governments, etc. I suppose part of it is that it’s a (slightly) more specific, different term than 中文, not that I necessarily love using 國語. I only use 普通話 if I’m speaking Cantonese or talking with Chinese coworkers, but if it weren’t for the association with China I would use that term since ‘common language’ is a more neutral term IMO.
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You do realize that in Taiwan, 中文 is used to refer to spoken and written Mandarin though, right?
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Yes, of course. Again, not trying to tell anyone how to speak here, just sharing my thoughts. I know I’m an odd one.
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Cool…just making sure.
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Found a youtube channel teaching Math in Taigi
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NTU’s online Taigi lectures
NCKU’s Taiwan culture lectures in Taigi
NCKU’s breadth knowledge class in Taigi
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outstanding
It’s interesting they call it “Southern Hokkien” lol. Seems like overthinking it a bit
They are publishing a Taigi translation of the Little Prince, with an audio book as well.
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What’s “Putonghua”?
I gather that’s ‘Mandarin’ in Mandarin, anglicised? How would you write that in traditional?
I gather that Mandarin, Cantonese and all that are spoken languages yet there’s simplified and traditional writing and they don’t change typically based on the way it’s spoken (ignoring regional writing differences which may be independent) in the same way that you can read chinese but not speak it?
Too complicated to answer? Just write ‘Yes’ and I’ll move on with my life. I tried googling but it got hit with a load of linguistic terms and now my face hurts