[quote=“ac_dropout”]Over 90% of Minnan wisdom on Taiwan are terms based on farming. How many modern Taiwanese are working in husbandry?
Maybe their view of the world was lost due to something else beside linguistic extinction? Perhaps modernization…[/quote]
How many words in Mandarin are borrowed from English? Almost all the words having to do with modern technology are translations from European languages. Dianhua “electric talk” didn’t exist in Mandarin until they invented the telephone. You could say that over 90% of Mandarin wisdom were terms based on farming, until the 20th century. Besides, stuff like “fire chariot”, the literal Mandarin term for “train”, doesn’t exactly sound modern. If you’re going to complain about Minnan sound archaic, don’t be throwing stones from the glass house of Mandarin.
Thanks Quentin for the info on Hebrew. Ac- please check your PM and get crackin’ Taiwan folk wisdom conveyed by Taiwan Hua must touch on other areas outside of farming! What about human relationships? I think I will start a new thread so that native speakers of Taiwan Hua can post some folk wisdom here. If you’re not a native speaker, ask someone you know. Maybe something like ----is like a -----. A lot of folk wisdom takes the form of simile/metaphor I believe. Here’s an example from the US, which I don’t follow: “spare the rod, spoil the child”. Also, for people who have been to Mainland Chinese, generally speaking do the people born and raised on Taiwan have a unique, identifiable worldview? I’ve heard some say something about an ‘island mentality’, but I’m not to sure what they meant.
I think that is just one of the attractions. It is also closely associated with Taiwanese identity and being a ‘real’ Taiwanese man. Hang out at a pool hall or any other place working class people hang out. Even in Taipei, you won’t hear much Mandarin in these situations. Taiwanese is alive and well. Hakka and the aboriginal languages, as AC points out, are in real trouble.
[quote=“sjcma”]I just finished scanning the paper. I personally don’t find it to be that well written. The paper’s last sentence states: Taiwanese has already started its decline towards inevitable extinction, and unless the young generations are given the means to make Taiwanese a nationally functional language, the outlook for Taiwanese is very poor.
If the decline is “inevitable”, as the author writes, then there is nothing anyone can do (even the younger generation) to reverse this decline. Thus, the outlook being “very poor” is self evident. If something can be done to reverse the trend, then its decline towards extinction is obviously not inevitable. The usage of “extinction” is also a hyperbole.[/quote]
I disagree. I don’t believe it will fadeout in 50 years as the original article suggests, but over time . . .
[quote]At this point in human history, most human languages are spoken by exceedingly few people. And that majority, the majority of languages, is about to vanish.
The most authoritative source on the languages of the world (Ethnologue, Grimes 1996) lists just over 6,500 living languages. Population figures are available for just over 6,000 of them (or 92%). Of these 6,000, it may be noted that:
52% are spoken by fewer than 10,000 people;
28% by fewer than 1,000; and
83% are restricted to single countries, and so are particularly exposed to the policies of a single government.
At the other end of the scale, 10 major languages, each spoken by over 109 million people, are the mother tongues of almost half (49%) of the world’s population.
More important than this snapshot of proportions and populations is the outlook for survival of the languages we have. Hard comparable data here are scarce or absent, often because of the sheer variety of the human condition: a small community, isolated or bilingual, may continue for centuries to speak a unique language, while in another place a populous language may for social or political reasons die out in little more than a generation. Another reason is that the period in which records have been kept is too short to document a trend: e.g. the Ethnologue has been issued only since 1951. However, it is difficult to imagine many communities sustaining serious daily use of a language for even a generation with fewer than 100 speakers: yet at least 10% of the world’s living languages are now in this position.
Some of the forces which make for language loss are clear: the impacts of urbanization, Westernization and global communications grow daily, all serving to diminish the self-sufficiency and self-confidence of small and traditional communities. Discriminatory policies, and population movments also take their toll of languages. . .[/quote] ogmios.org/manifesto.htm
[quote]If I were a sharp-suited, cocksure ambassador representing that public relations company known as the Welsh Language Board, I would regale you today with a fictional account of the miraculous survival of the Welsh language, its current well-being, and its glowing future prospects. . . But I’m a pessimistic realist. . .
My gloominess is largely based on three things. In his book The Language Instinct, Steven Pinker tells us that of the 6,000 languages in the world, 90 per cent will have perished by the end of the twenty-first century. Secondly, one of your favorite gurus, the political scientist Francis Fukuyama informs us that the twentieth century has turned us all into “historical pessimists.” And thirdly, the cold facts in this lecture will point to language death. In short, Welsh is in the process of irretrievable decline. . .[/quote] spruce.flint.umich.edu/~ellisjs/ … line%20%22
I’m with Mother Theresa on this. I have the gloomy future vision that before this century is out we’ll be down to a hundred or so languages that have any form of vibrancy or sustained community. Already we’ve seen the big languages - English, Mandarin, Spanish, Arabic, French, Russian etc mop many of the little ones. The inevitable outcome of growing internationalisation is the decline of minority languages, including Taiwanese. AC’s point about the mainland is not altogether valid because Minnan will decline there too - in fact, PRC policy is to promote the spread of Mandarin as the language of government and education.
I disagree with MT about one thing - Welsh. The example of Welsh shows how a committed effort to save a language can pay off if the majority of the community is behind it. In practice what is being promoted is diglossia as most Welsh speakers are bilingual (with English being the other language). I went to a college with a large intake of Welsh students and many of them had received their education exclusively in Welsh. In fact I had a couple of friends who, when using English for their studies, occasionally had to consult Welsh/English dictionaries to find the appropriate term. The Welsh students often used Welsh to converse around the campus and there was a very active Welsh Language Society.
This may not happen in Taiwan because of the political hurdles to promoting Taiwanese at the expense of Hakka and the aboriginal languages, plus the suspicion of moves that promote anything to do with the Hoklo community. Languages can disappear very quickly - even though Japanese was an ‘imposed’ language in Taiwan, it was still spoken by many and now you’d be hard pressed to find one Taiwanese in a hundred who can speak it fluently. Taiwanese could easily go from 15 million speakers to 200,000 in 50 years.
I hope all the languages of Taiwan endure, I really do. I would love to see a vibrant Thao-speaking community living alongside Yian-dialect Taiwanese speakers when I’m old and grey. I just can’t honestly believe that this will be the case. Taiwanese will hold on longest of the non-Mandarin languages, but the long-term future does not look good.
[quote=“Taffy”] Languages can disappear very quickly - even though Japanese was an ‘imposed’ language in Taiwan, it was still spoken by many and now you’d be hard pressed to find one Taiwanese in a hundred who can speak it fluently. Taiwanese could easily go from 15 million speakers to 200,000 in 50 years.
[/quote]
I’m not sure that we can compare the decline of Japanese to the decline of Minnanhua. Although Minnanhua was frowned upon by the KMT government, I’m sure that tolerance for it was greater than that for Japanese. I also doubt that Japanese was actually spoken well by very many Taiwanese. I imagine that it would have been a bit like HK: a group of local elites who spoke the colonial master’s language at near native level, then a minority of folks who could use it well enough to interact with the colonials when necessary, and then a majority who knew little or none of the language.
[quote=“Jive Turkey”][quote=“Taffy”] Languages can disappear very quickly - even though Japanese was an ‘imposed’ language in Taiwan, it was still spoken by many and now you’d be hard pressed to find one Taiwanese in a hundred who can speak it fluently. Taiwanese could easily go from 15 million speakers to 200,000 in 50 years.
[/quote]
I’m not sure that we can compare the decline of Japanese to the decline of Minnanhua. Although Minnanhua was frowned upon by the KMT government, I’m sure that tolerance for it was greater than that for Japanese. I also doubt that Japanese was actually spoken well by very many Taiwanese. I imagine that it would have been a bit like HK: a group of local elites who spoke the colonial master’s language at near native level, then a minority of folks who could use it well enough to interact with the colonials when necessary, and then a majority who knew little or none of the language.[/quote]
Yeah, there isn’t a direct parallel, but still - Japanese was the language of education - more widely spoken than I think you allow. My point was not that the decline of Taiwanese will mirror the decline of Japanese, but rather that languages can and do disappear very quickly. Perhaps a better example would be Indonesia, where there are millions of dialect speakers who have not passed their own native speech on to their children due to the standardisation of Bahasa Indonesia after independence. In fifty years a language can go from having millions of speakers to extinction if the political, economic and social conditions are right. I think the decline of Taiwanese will take longer, but it could happen a lot sooner than people think.
Excellent post, Taffy. I would just quibble with the statement above. I’d think the HK dialect of Cantonese stands a better chance of fighting off inevitable extinction than Taiwanese, since Cantonese is far more institutionalized than Taiwanese, and probably will be for the foreseeable future.
Excellent post, Taffy. I would just quibble with the statement above. I’d think the HK dialect of Cantonese stands a better chance of fighting off inevitable extinction than Taiwanese, since Cantonese is far more institutionalized than Taiwanese, and probably will be for the foreseeable future.[/quote]
Oops, sorry, forgot to make clear I was talking about Taiwan. In terms of sinitic languages anywhere, I agree with you 100%. Cantonese seems to me to be the only Chinese language (other than Mandarin of course) with a really stable footing.
Excellent post, Taffy. I would just quibble with the statement above. I’d think the HK dialect of Cantonese stands a better chance of fighting off inevitable extinction than Taiwanese, since Cantonese is far more institutionalized than Taiwanese, and probably will be for the foreseeable future.[/quote]
I think Taffy meant “non-Mandarin languages” spoken in Taiwan.
With respect to which of the non-Mandarin Chinese languages will last the longest as a vibrant language, I’ll have to agree that Cantonese stands the best chance. Cantonese is also the de-facto Chinese language in the western world having overtook Taishanhua in the 70’s. However, one can already see the rise in influence of Mandarin as more and more immigrants leave China for “greener pastures” (in their eyes, not always the case). Around Y2K, Mandarin played only a minor role in my town. All the Chinese restaurant and grocery stores spoke primarily Cantonese. Since then, due to the sheer number of high tech immigrants from China, it is now a near requirement for the staff at these establishments to be multilingual (Cantonese, Mandarin, English).
As well, store signs are now a mix of traditional and simplified characters. Like Chinglish, there are now examples of Candarin and Mantonese prominently displayed on these store signs.
Also, most of the best and most popular Chinese movies are from Hong Kong. I don’t know if there are any internationally popular movies where the dialogue is spoken in Taiwanese.
Most modern Chinese terms are borrowed from the Japanese, because they were the first to industrialized in Asia.
The question is how is Taiwanese suppose to survive if it doesn’t evolve and change with the times.
It would be like asking how do some of the most esoteric Idomatic Statements in Chinese survive if they are no longer relevant, or if there are more effective ways of expressing the idea. Most Idomatic Statements survive because they are required for testing to enter college. And some college are beginning to frown on this as well.
Minnan as it stands now is probably not going to go extinct, just like Hakka is not going extinct, since Red China has more than enough people actively using the dialect.
The island just needs one official dialect. Reminds me of the movie Hero where the first emperor goes “14 ways to write ‘sword’ and who knows how many more ways to pronouce it.”
I would be more concerned about when Taiwan should start introducing simplified character sets to the population to keep up with Red China for economic opportunites.
The kung fu action puppet show is not popular overseas?
I was sitting outside a cafe today having a sandwich and I noticed something strange. The Chinese people next to me were having a conversation and I could understand almost every word I overheard. This usually doesn’t happen in Tainan; on the whole, I can only understand snatches of what people around me are saying.
Then it hit me - the people next to me, they were speaking Mandarin! Not Taiwanese! Not Mandarin mixed with Taiwanese, but an entire conversation in pure Mandarin! I think they may have been visiting mainlanders, because I overheard one of them complaining about how badly Taiwanese speak Chinese.
[quote=“Quentin”]I was sitting outside a cafe today having a sandwich and I noticed something strange. The Chinese people next to me were having a conversation and I could understand almost every word I overheard. This usually doesn’t happen in Tainan; on the whole, I can only understand snatches of what people around me are saying.
Then it hit me - the people next to me, they were speaking Mandarin! Not Taiwanese! Not Mandarin mixed with Taiwanese, but an entire conversation in pure Mandarin! I think they may have been visiting mainlanders, because I overheard one of them complaining about how badly Taiwanese speak Chinese.[/quote]
[quote=“Quentin”]I think they may have been visiting mainlanders, because I overheard one of them complaining about how badly Taiwanese speak Chinese.[/quote]Which is funny when you consider that the only verb the bumpkins over there seem to know is “搞”.
OTOH they could just as easily have been from Taipei. I’ve heard a lot of that kind of arrogance up there.
[quote=“Quentin”] I think they may have been visiting mainlanders, because I overheard one of them complaining about how badly Taiwanese speak Chinese.[/quote] Everytime a Taiwanese speaks flawless Mandarin they assume he is a Chinese like them, they are shocked when they find out he or she is a Taiwanese. When someone speaks bad Mandarin they must be Taiwanese. However, I have heard bad Chinese with the strangest accents spoken by old Chinese men here in Taipei. Strange Mandarin accents from all over China. When you visit China it is the same thing. Not easy to understand everyone outside of Beijing and educated circles of big cities. Go to the countryside and they have their own dialects. Anyway, Taiwanese have only been speaking Mandarin for the past 50 years. To many it is still a foreign language.
I agree with this. It’s all about vocabulary and usage modalities. If the situations in which a language is used is beyond a certain threshold and it is the language of primary use, then it survives. If in actual communication, the alternatives work better, then the language will decline.
Taiwan folk wisdom conveyed by Taiwan Hua must touch on other areas outside of farming! What about human relationships? I think I will start a new thread so that native speakers of Taiwan Hua can post some folk wisdom here. If you’re not a native speaker, ask someone you know. Maybe something like ----is like a -----. A lot of folk wisdom takes the form of simile/metaphor I believe. Here’s an example from the US, which I don’t follow: “spare the rod, spoil the child”. Also, for people who have been to Mainland Chinese, generally speaking do the people born and raised on Taiwan have a unique, identifiable worldview? I’ve heard some say something about an ‘island mentality’, but I’m not to sure what they meant.
