# China 中國 or Mainland 大陸 **URL:** \ **Category:** Learning Chinese\ **Created:** [September 14, 2025, 4:55am UTC](https://tw.forumosa.com/t/china-or-mainland/253500 "2025-09-14T04:55:02Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 1\ **Showing post:** 17
**Author:** ![hansioux](https://forumosa-12829.kxcdn.com/user_avatar/tw.forumosa.com/hansioux/32/253648_2.png) [@hansioux](https://tw.forumosa.com/u/hansioux)\ **Post date:** [September 16, 2025, 5:54am UTC](https://tw.forumosa.com/t/china-or-mainland/253500/17 "2025-09-16T05:54:40Z")
> [@tigerninjaman](#): > > During the Japanese or Qing eras, would Holo residents of Taiwan have called their spoken language (Taiwanese Hokkien) 臺語 or 臺灣話 Sort of addressed this back in a couple of threads. During the Japanese era, Tâi-uân-uē 台灣話 was used exclusively. The exonym was already in use in late Qing-governed period by Manchu officials referring to the language Tsiang-Tsuan language mixture. For speaker of Tsiang-Tsuan languages in Southern Fujian, Taiwan, the Philippines, and SEA, there wasn’t a name to refer to the language family collectively. Hoklo/Holo was also only a derogatory exonym used by the Hakka. Speakers just referred to their own language by the place of origin, like Tsuân-tsiu-uē, Tsiang-tsiu-uē, Amoy, Teochew, Lán-lâng-uē (Filipino), and so on. You can see this in the names of Taigi dictionaries throughout history: > [@POLL: Do you like Taiwanese food? Please vote!](https://tw.forumosa.com/t/poll-do-you-like-taiwanese-food-please-vote/229207/203): > > Chinese–English Dictionary of the Vernacular or Spoken Language of Amoy, with the Principal Variations of the Chang-chew and Chin-chew Dialects (1873) – Carstairs Douglas and Thomas Barclay > > Taiwanese Language Phrase Book (臺灣語集) (1895) - Matano Yasukazu > > Taiwanese Phrase Book (臺灣言語集) (1895) - Iwanaga Rokuichi > > A Collection of Taiwanese Phrases (臺灣會話編) (1895) - Sakai Hachigorō > > Introduction to the Taiwanese Language from the New Territory of the Great Japanese Empire (大日本新領地臺灣語學案內) (1895) - Kato Yutaro > > Taiwanese Language (臺灣語) (1895) - Tanaka > > Complete Japanese-Taiwanese Phrase Book (日臺會話大全) (1896) - Mizukami Umehiko > > Comprehensive Taiwanese–Japanese Dictionary (1931) – Naoyoshi Ogawa Since the Japanese period, Taigi and Taiuanue were continued to be use officially, as many early dictionaries published during early KMT-occupation still referred to the language as Tâi-uân-uē 台灣話 or Tâi-gí 台語. > [@Taiwan’s Identity: Time to Drop Mandarin?](https://tw.forumosa.com/t/taiwan-s-identity-time-to-drop-mandarin/246936/137): > > Taigi speakers didn’t choose to name their language Taigi. It’s yet another exonym that dates back at least 200 years. Taigi aka Taiuanue has been called that by officials since the Qing dynasty. It was called that by the Japanese. It was called that by the KMT. CKS even sponsored a dictionary using Zhuyin to spell out Taigi, titled “Zhuyin for Taigi Phrases”. > > ![image](https://forumosauploads-12829.kxcdn.com/original/3X/6/2/62363a84cef0630a79ea7d95e989b02ce4406b7b.jpeg) Really, really, early on, like back in the 16th century, the Spanish wrote dictionaries such as the 1593 _Doctrina Christiana en letra y lengua china_, the 1604 _Dictionarium Sino Hispanicum_, and the 1626 _Vocabulario de la Lengua Chio Chiu_, referring to the version of Tsiang-tsuan language mixture in Taiwan and Manila as just Chinese. > [@Are there any young Taiwanese that prefer to use only Hokkien instead of Mandarin?](https://tw.forumosa.com/t/are-there-any-young-taiwanese-that-prefer-to-use-only-hokkien-instead-of-mandarin/239853/66): > > As you can see, the earliest European dictionary on the Chinese language is the 1593 Spanish Doctrina Christiana en letra y lengua china (1593), and the Dictionarium Sino Hispanicum (1604), which was [discovered back in 2017](https://tw.forumosa.com/t/17th-century-holo-dictionary-discovered-at-the-philippines-university-of-santo-tomas/159496). Mandarin Chinese as we know won’t come into existence until the late 1800s, and the original Mandarin (based on the Wu languages) was first recorded by Jesuits such as Matteo Ricci in the Portuguese-Chinese dictionary (1588). So the first documentation of Holo la… --- _[View the full topic](https://tw.forumosa.com/t/china-or-mainland/253500)._