Best translation of 鄉土語言?

Any suggestions on the best translation of 鄉土語言?

I don’t like to use “dialects” for it, but how about “mother languages” or “native languages”? The problem is that those would apply equally to Mandarin, which is presumably not included among 鄉土語言. So what label could we use to encompass all of Taiwan’s local languages apart from Mandarin without belittling them?

I think 鄉土 is a little patronising - various writers on Taiwanese literature have defined the term as such.

If you’re trying to avoid this overtone, then “native languages” would seem the best bet - problem being as you say that despite Mandarin’s beginnings in Taiwan as an imposed foreign tongue, it is now a native language too.

I’m not sure there is a snappy way to say it in English. Writers on the topic seem to resort to the longhand method of “Hoklo*, Hakka and the Aboriginal languages” or sometimes (more dubiously) the “original languages” of Taiwan. In discussing the scant couple of hours a week of language education in said languages, it’s usually rendered in English as “mother tongue education”.

*or Taiwanese, or Southern Min, or whatever

[quote=“Omniloquacious”]Any suggestions on the best translation of 鄉土語言?

I don’t like to use “dialects” for it, but how about “mother languages” or “native languages”? The problem is that those would apply equally to Mandarin, which is presumably not included among 鄉土語言. So what label could we use to encompass all of Taiwan’s local languages apart from Mandarin without belittling them?[/quote]

i had the same problem in a MoE doc last week…i think i just went with local languages for lack of a better option…

[quote=“Omniloquacious”]Any suggestions on the best translation of 鄉土語言?

I don’t like to use “dialects” for it, but how about “mother languages” or “native languages”? The problem is that those would apply equally to Mandarin, which is presumably not included among 鄉土語言. So what label could we use to encompass all of Taiwan’s local languages apart from Mandarin without belittling them?[/quote]

Even more importantly, they increasingly apply to Vietnamese, Indonesian and Khmer with special relevance to the term ‘mother language’. The Wikipedia entry in First Language makes it clear that this is a problem not unique to Taiwan. I think here ‘Mother Tongue’ in the sense used in India or Singapore or J.R.R. Tolkein’s ‘Native Tongue’ both work well. I especially like the concept of ‘native tongue’ in Tolken’s sense because the true purpose of xiangtu education in Taiwan is to instill a strong emotional attachment to a language that many children do not and will not speak proficiently. Very few people in Taiwan, even mainlanders, have a strong emotional attachment to Mandarin, which is a koine language anyway.

‘Local languages’ is unacceptable because of the long history of the KMT’s efforts to suppress other Taiwanese languages as ‘dialects’ .

“Dialects” really grates on me, too. But back in November the MOE announced that the languages of Taiwan other than Mandarin are now to be known as bentu (běntǔ yǔyán / 本土語言) rather than xiantu (xiāngtǔ yǔyán / 鄉土語言). Of course, that doesn’t help the translation query much, other than to note that “xiāngtǔ yǔyán” is no longer supposed to be used.

Here’s a quick-and-sloppy Pinyin version of a newspaper article on this I saved. I was planning to write about it but never got around to that. Sorry, I don’t have original anymore; but it could probably be found through a search for the headline.

[quote]Xiāngtǔ yǔyán jiàocái zhèngmíng běntǔ

Jiàoyùbù xiūzhèng「guómín xiǎoxué jí guómín zhōngxué jiāo kē túshū shěndìng bànfǎ」,jiāng Mǐnnányǔ, Kèjiāyǔ jí yuánzhùmínyǔ yóu yuánxiān yǒu biǎnyì yìwèi de「xiāngtǔ yǔyán」,zhèngmíng wéi「běntǔ yǔyán」,qiě zuì kuài míngnián běntǔ yǔyán jiàocái jiù xū sòngshěn,yǐ gǎishàn guòqu jiàocái nándù tài gāo jíshí yǒu cuòwù děng wèntí,dàn yóuyú biāoyīn xìtǒng shàngwèi tǒngyī,kǒngpà běntǔ yǔyán jiàoxué háishi huì「yī guó duō zhì」.

Cǐwài,cóng Mínguó yībǎi nián qǐ,guó zhōngxiǎo jiàokēshū bùzài zhú cè sòngshěn,ér xū zhú xuénián sòngshěn,yě jiùshì shūshāng xū yīcì jiāng wánzhěng liǎng cè jiàokēshū sòngshěn,xuésheng bùbì zài dānxīn xià xuéqī yòu yùshàng huàn shū wèntí.

Jiàoyùbù guójiào sī kēzhǎng Wú lín huī zhǐchū,xīnbàn fǎ shíshī hòu,shūshāng xū jiāng yī xuénián liǎng cè jiàokēshū yīqǐ sòngshěn;tóngshí yě gǔlì guóxiǎo jiēduàn jiàokēshū fēnchéng xiǎo yī yǔ xiǎo’èr, xiǎo sān yǔ xiǎo sì, xiǎo wǔ yǔ xiǎo liù děng sān jiēduàn,cǎi fēn jiēduàn sòngshěn,fāngbiàn xuéxiào xuǎngòu jiàokēshū.

Quánguó jiàoshī huì lǐshìzhǎng Wú zhōng tài zé rènwéi,xiūgǎi guīdìng ràng shūshāng jiào yǒutánxìng,dàn tā yě zhìyí,běi běi jī zhèngzài tuīdòng yī gāng yī běn, gòng xuǎn guózhōng jiàokēshū,kěnéng yǐnqǐ qítā xiàn-shì gēnjìn,jiāng dǎozhì gè kē jiàokēshū sì, wǔ niánnèi huì biànchéng zhǐ shèng yījiā lǒngduàn qíngkuàng,jièshí kǒngpà xiū shénme jiàokēshū shěndìng bànfǎ yìyì dōu bùdà le.

Tóngyī jiàocái xū tǒngyī biāoyīn

duìyú běntǔ yǔyán biāoyīn xìtǒng wèntí,Wú lín huī biǎoshì,yóuyú Mǐnnányǔ jiàokēshū jiàocái nèiróng jiào fēnzá,nányǐ dìngdìng tǒngyī shěndìng biāozhǔn,yīncǐ mùqián zhǐyǒu běntǔ yǔyán jiàocái bùyòng sòngshěn. Mǐnnányǔ jiàocái yīnwèi yǒuxiē shǐyòng gǔwén,dǎozhì dì-yī xiàn de Mǐnnányǔ lǎoshī jiàoxué shàng yǒu kùnnan;qícì shì biāoyīn xìtǒng bù yīzhì,Mǐnnányǔ yǒu Tái-luō (Táiwān Mǐnnányǔ Luómǎzì pīnyīn fāng’àn), Jiāo-luō (jiàohuì luómǎzì), Tōngyòng Pīnyīn yǐ shì děng.

Wèicǐ,Guóyǔhuì biān zhì le「Mǐnnányǔ chángyòngzì tuījiàn bǎnběn」,tígōng chūbǎnshè zuòwéi biānshū shǐyòng,bìmiǎn jiàokēshū yǒu jiānsè nándǒng de gǔwén chūxiàn;ér zhǐyào tóngyī běn jiàokēshū shǐyòng tóngyī zhǒng biāoyīn xìtǒng,bùtóng jiàokēshū kě shǐyòng bùtóng biāoyīn xìtǒng,jiù kě jiějué sòngshěn biāozhǔn de wèntí.

Xīnfǎ lìng guīdìng,sòngshěn shūjú bù déyǐ wèijīng shěndìng de shūgǎo,tígōng xuéxiào zuòwéi xuǎnyòng jiāo kē túshū zhīyòng,yǐmiǎn jiàoshī píngxuǎn de jiàokēshū nèiróng yǔ shěndìng túshū bùtóng,yǐngxiǎng jiàokēshū xuǎnyòng zhìxù. Hànlín chūbǎn zhíxíngzhǎng yú lín biǎoshì,cǐjǔ yǒuzhù yú cùshǐ wèilái「yàngshū jiùshì chéngshū」,bìmiǎn yǒu wùdǎo, qīpiàn zhī xián.

Shūshāng pàn pīnyīn zhèngcè gèng míngquè

zhìyú běntǔ yǔyán jiàokēshū nàrù shěndìng fànwéi,yú lín qiángdiào,jiàokēshū shāng yǒu nénglì guīhuà xiāngguān jiàocái,dàn guójiā de pīnyīn zhèngcè, yǔyán zhèngcè fēi shūshāng suǒnéng zhǎngwò,xīwàng zhèngfǔ nénggòu gèngjiā míngquè.[/quote]

Thanks for all the input.

It’s a real headscratcher, but I guess I’ll just have to go with “native languages.”

“Mother tongues” is unacceptable because Mandarin is the mother tongue of many here, and “local languages” would seemingly also include Mandarin, since it is one of the languages spoken locally. “Native” comes closer, since it carries more of an ‘original’ feeling, despite the fact that many now ‘native’ to Taiwan grew up with it as a mother tongue. How about “native languages” or “native languages other than Mandarin”? :laughing:

DB, did you see this interesting discussion of ‘Mother Tongue’ in the Wikipedia entry?

[quote]The term “mother tongue” should not be interpreted to mean that it is the language of one’s mother. In some paternal societies, the wife moves in with the husband and thus may have a different first language, or dialect, than the local language of the husband. Yet their children usually only speak their local language. Only a few will learn to speak their mothers’ languages like natives. Mother in this context probably originated from the definition of mother as source, or origin; as in mother-country or -land.[citation needed]

In some countries such as Kenya and India, “mother tongue” is used to indicate the language of one’s ethnic group (ethnic tongue), in both common and journalistic parlance (e.g. ‘I have no apologies for not learning my mother tongue’, rather than one’s first language. A similar usage of the term was employed in Ireland in the early-to-mid twentieth century, with Irish being referred to as the “mother tongue” of all Irish people, even of those whose first language was English. Also in Singapore, “mother tongue” refers to the language of one’s ethnic group regardless of actual proficiency, while the “first language” refers to the English language, which is the lingua franca for most post-independence Singaporeans due to its use as the language of instruction in government schools and as a working language despite it not being a native tongue for most Singaporeans. [/quote]

In Taiwan’s context, I’m uncomfortable with this because of the problems with deciding ethnicity arbitrarily and also because of the fact that so many migrant mothers of Taiwanese are apparently not even allowed to speak their own langauges to their children.

The fact that Mandarin in the first and primary language of many people in Taiwan would not prevent mother tongue from being used for the other groups since speakers of Mandarin are not an ethnicity in Taiwan. Waishengren are an artificial ethnicity at best, and do not see themselves as being an ethnicity in much the same way that American of Anglo-American descent do not see themselves as a ethnicity.

No, I hadn’t, thanks!

I never assumed that it meant the language of one’s mother; I’ve always used it to mean one’s first language. “What’s your mother tongue” to me means “what’s your first language”.

Interesting. That doesn’t jive with the usage I grew up with, but then neither does the British use of ‘fag’ and ‘boot’.

Interesting, but this is in conflict with my usage of the word. Furthermore, as you note, there are " problems with deciding ethnicity arbitrarily". It seems to me, then, that ‘first language’ and ‘language of one’s ethnic group (if identifiable)’ would be universally clearer terms. In that vein, the original term under discussion could be rendered “language, other than Mandarin, of one’s ethnic group, if any”. Delightfully succinct. :stuck_out_tongue:

It’s not the way I understand the word ‘mother tongue’ either. But it’s interesting to see it used this way in practice in two profoundly multilingual and multicultural societies.

I still like ‘native tongue’ in Tolkein’s sense of a language that one chooses to identify with emotionally. Although of course language programs like the one in question here pervert that choice by trying to force or guide it at best.

It also occurs to me that perhaps ‘bilingual’ education’ as practiced in the US a few decades ago would be apt. In Anglo California where I grew up this meant that the white kids learned how to count in Spanish, sing a few songs, and knocked around a few pinatas. That’s about what xiangtu education amounts to in Taiwan.

“languages other than Mandarin spoken in Taiwan”

“Hoklo, Hakka and Austronesian languages”

Sorry, neither of these are very concise.

My first thought would be “local languages”, as opposed to Mandarin, which would be the “national language”.

But that would be incorrect because 國語 has been pluralized to mean the National Languages. All of the Taiwanese languages including Hakka, Taiwanese Hoklo, Mandarin and the aboriginal languages. Besides, Hakka and Hoklo are are world languages with numbers of speakes that rival say German or Italian.

Since when? That’s absurd.

For several years now. For example, the English name of the 教育部國語推行委員會 is now the National Languages Committee. Mandarin is now huayu not guoyu etc.

Why is it absurd? Many countries honor the languages spoken by their citizens as national languages. Canada has 2, India 22. China has a number of official languages.

there is no correct answer to this question…the use of the word 鄉土 (xiangtu) is patronizing and as pointed out inconsistent with the global status of the Hokkien and Hakka languages…but a translation should reflect the source text so it should be equally patronizing…its pointless arguing a foreigner’s PC point of view unless the client has given you carte blanche to rewrite the source and eliminate the ethno-centric (i.e. han-centric) influences…

Let me guess: after the DPP came to power.

It’s absurd because for decades officially, and overwhelmingly in general parlance to this day, “guoyu” has referred to Mandarin only, and suddenly changing the definition only causes confusion and complicates issues.

Then the government could select a different term to mean “official language”, instead of redefining a long-accepted term. I’m all in favor of recognizing multiple official languages.

Well, it’s a nice inclusive gesture, but just because some irrelevant government committee somewhere (probably DPP) decrees that a common term such as 國語 guo2yu3 is to now mean something other than the widely understood definition does not make it so. “國語” still means Mandarin to the vast majority of people if I’m not mistaken.

On the other hand, Dragonbabe chides me every time I call Mandarin 國語, since she feels that that perpetuates the old imposition by a repressive foreign regime of an imported language as an unwelcome national standard. She feels that, properly, 國語 should refer to the actual mother tongue of the majority of this island. (Her point is not really that I should use guo2yu3 when referring to Taiwanese, but rather that I should not call Mandarin guoyu3.) I can certainly understand where she’s coming from, but again, the value of words is that they communicate widely understood, shared meaning, so until the populace at large reinterprets the term, it de facto means Mandarin, for widespread communicative purposes.

I agree with you about the de facto use and that we should not just artificially impose new meanings and words on people. But in practice, the term huayu is now widely used to be mean Mandarin in Taiwan in place of Guoyu.

Consider the case of the term shandiren. When I first came to Taiwan, aborigines were universally referred to as shandiren. That usage persists ins ome quarters but has been largely replaced by yuanzhumin.

Far better than hoan-a lang, in any case!