Japanese uses Chinese characters but they are doing their best to get rid of them for a reason. Same as the Koreans. Agreed that it’s just warmed-up hieroglyphics .
Please just make a young newbie happy and save me from my ignorance, or put me out my misery, either one
Is the following correct or no? This is just from what I gather on the somewhat-confusing wiki articles and my personal experience
People in Taipei mostly use Mandarin as their day-to-day language
The “Taiwanese” language you refer to is Hokkien.
Kaohsiung is more Hokkien than Mandarin.
Hakka is the Fujianese language.
Cantonese is not widely used in Taiwan
I spoke to a local bloke about this when I was in Taipei and he said they speak “Traditional Chinese” and not Mandarin, which made no sense to me as traditional is a writing type, and everyone spoke Mandarin to me, in Taipei at least. Kaohsiung they all spoke English.
Definitely -on. Ken, usually 賢 or 健 is kian in Middle Chinese. 賢 is supposed to be pronounced the same way as 堅, which is still pronounced kian in Taigi.
Ichi is just 一, which is pronounced as it in Taigi. Modern Japanese don’t like their t, and they changed all of them to the /ts/ or /tɕ/ sound, they also added a extra syllable to all Middle Chinese checked tones. That’s why we get Ichi.
People under 50 and in formal settings, like talking to strangers, would use Mandarin as the default language.
Not exactly. If you are referring to Hokkien as a language family, then yes. If you are saying it’s exactly the same language, then no.
I would say for people under 50 and in a formal setting, the usage of Mandarin is the same as Taipei. It’s just that once they’ve decided they could speak Taigi with you, there is a slightly higher chance that they can speak it almost fluently in Kaohsiung.
Hakka isn’t a place. Hakka means guests, and it was used to describe the diaspora communities that escaped from Northern China and settled in Southern China over close to a thousand years. They don’t all speak the same language, and they don’t live in one place. Most Hakka people from Taiwan are from Fujian and Chaozhou in Guangdong, which is right next to Fujian.
Traditionally, Qing and Japanese officials would often refer to Hakkas as Yue (粵), a shorthand for Guangdong, but that doesn’t exactly reflect the truth.
Unless you are at a KTV, where everyone feels obligated to sing at least one Cantonese song.
I was thinking it was probably -on. But his reply was, “I don’t know. I think -kun.”
You ask the average Joe, “Is this word Latin- or Germanic-based?” They’ll look at you like you’re nuts.
Korean’s Sinoxenic words line up almost perfectly with Daigi. Japanese’s, some Daigi, some Cantonese or Hakka, because some of them come from different periods. I assume some with Shanghai too, because they have “Go-on,” but I know next to nothing about the Wu languages.