Signs of Taiwanese Hoklo and Taiwanese Hakka languages dying

Language Taiwanese and Hakka Corner
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Hansioux,

I’m curious as to what kind of government programs and efforts were around in the late 90s and early 2000s that helped encourage the use of Holo in some popular music. And beyond that, I’d be interested in your thoughts as to why such programs ended, why Holo speakers didn’t fight against the ending, and why Holo usage didn’t increase outside of the pop music sphere (in movies or tv for example, or perhaps I’m wrong).

I also like The Chairman’s earlier albums as they seemed to have a more “rock” feel. I generally also feel that the lad 90s and early 2000s were the golden age of modern Taiwanese music in either Mandarin or Holo. Admittedly I haven’t kept up with many Fire Ex and many other bands so I’ll have to take opportunity to reacquaint myself. While I’m not a big fan of most of her Mando-dance music, I’ve always appreciated Jeannie Hsieh/謝金燕’s efforts to prodce Taiwanese pop ballads.

Regarding Wu Bai’s popularity in China, maybe it is just my impression but I always thought that he enjoyed good popularity there because of his non-pop/blue collar image?

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[quote=“Zhengzhou2010”]Hansioux,

I’m curious as to what kind of government programs and efforts were around in the late 90s and early 2000s that helped encourage the use of Holo in some popular music. And beyond that, I’d be interested in your thoughts as to why such programs ended, why Holo speakers didn’t fight against the ending, and why Holo usage didn’t increase outside of the pop music sphere (in movies or tv for example, or perhaps I’m wrong).[/quote]

In 2012, Ma government took away funding for the “Native Language Day” for Elementary School to High School. It was a program started back in 2006, aimed to promote the use of native languages and understanding of other’s native languages for kids. At the same time MOE also removed “Native Language Programs” from the inspection check list, meaning if a school uses time dedicated for native language classes as an extra math class, there is now no oversight stop them. The draft for National Language Development was blocked by KMT legislators, and the agency established to promote policies listed in the bill was demoted, which means they lack the funding to do anything.

Since 1997, I recall there was a reimbursement program for native language creations. A competition was there where the first few places would win grants to produce their own album. As for movies, there were similar programs, but the cost involved in making noteworthy movies is too high. Wei Te-sheng actually wanted to make Seediq Bale during that same time frame, but he simply couldn’t get all the funding. His subsequent movies followed in that trend, and he was only able to make them because of the unexpected success of Cape no. 7.

[quote=“Zhengzhou2010”]
Regarding Wu Bai’s popularity in China, maybe it is just my impression but I always thought that he enjoyed good popularity there because of his non-pop/blue collar image?[/quote]

that was before his 白鴿 album, I think both Wubai and A-mei suffered a popularity drop in China around the same time, due to some construing their music or performances as pro-DPP.

hi-on.org.tw/bulletins.jsp?b_ID=48229
Archived old news article

Although Wubai received awards and other things since 2008, his popularity was no where near what it was before.

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Thanks, Hansioux. I appreciate the insight. It would be nice to see Taiwanese thrive and I hope the Taiwanese people will make individual efforts to support all native languages, and hold the government accountable to provide support.

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As for the station names, I always thought it was funny how they added the English word “Station” despite (AFAIK) none of them having the Chinese word 站…

So you get something like “Dongmen, dongmoon, dongmun, Dongmen Station”. THANK YOU FOR THIS ENGLISH TRANSLATION!
Actually, I can only think of a handful of station names that are actually in English…

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It’s a Chinese (Chinglish?) tendency to be overly explicit. I have had to fight tooth and nail to keep people from writing things here like “Luzhu City, Taoyuan County;” they just don’t believe that it’s acceptable to write “Luzhu, Taoyuan” the way most other places in the world do. Another thing that drives me crazy is Taipei City Government. I have never in my life heard “Los Angeles City Government” or “Paris City Government.”

The question I always get is: “If you say ‘Taipei is building a new MRT,’ do people know it’s the city government?” Yes, I’m pretty sure your average retirement-age citizen doesn’t know much about subway engineering.

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[quote=“Hokwongwei”]Another thing that drives me crazy is Taipei City Government. I have never in my life heard “Los Angeles City Government” or “Paris City Government.”
[…]
The question I always get is: “If you say ‘Taipei is building a new MRT,’ do people know it’s the city government?” Yes, I’m pretty sure your average retirement-age citizen doesn’t know much about subway engineering.[/quote]
It’s about connotations and collocations: the dictionary may tell us that one term is this in another language, but it does not tell us about connotations and very little about collocations.

That’s the same reason why “hot dog” cannot be “湯的狗” nor “熱門的狗” nor “暑的狗” and so on… “熱狗” is OK, however. :sunglasses:

The bottom line: in Taiwan (like in Japan), most translators don’t really know one of the two languages they are working with. :smiley:

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It’s a Chinese (Chinglish?) tendency to be overly explicit. I have had to fight tooth and nail to keep people from writing things here like “Luzhu City, Taoyuan County;” they just don’t believe that it’s acceptable to write “Luzhu, Taoyuan” the way most other places in the world do. Another thing that drives me crazy is Taipei City Government. I have never in my life heard “Los Angeles City Government” or “Paris City Government.”

The question I always get is: “If you say ‘Taipei is building a new MRT,’ do people know it’s the city government?” Yes, I’m pretty sure your average retirement-age citizen doesn’t know much about subway engineering.[/quote]

These explicitly ranks are there so that the people are constantly reminded who’s superior and who’s inferior. Ranks are intentionally made obvious.

In Chinese religion world view everything is ranked. Things are organized in top-down relations, the top being superior and the bottom being inferior.

This way of organization is a lever way to mind-control the rest.

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The diaries of Tshuà Puê-hué (蔡培火), a famous Taiwanese rights advocate during the Japanese era.

facebook.com/ngtsinlam/phot … =3&theater

This passage describes Tshua visiting another equally famous Taiwanese right advocate Tsiúnn Uī-Suí (蔣渭水), whose head can be found on some 10 NTD coins, at his deathbed.

First sentence from August 5th, from the page on the right:

[quote]Cha-li̍t chiū tuì Tâi-lâm lâi chit Tâi-pak, sī in-uī chiap-tio̍ 蔣渭水君 phoà-pī˜-guî-tok ê siau-sit
昨日就對台南來即臺北，是因為接著蔣渭水君破病危篤兮消息。
I arrived from Tainan to Taipei yesterday because I received new of Mr. Tsiúnn Uī-Suí being in critical conditions.[/quote]

Tshua wrote in POJ. It used a tilde for /ɲ/, and written on the right side of the i with already had a macron diacritic. Also, the eighth tone is simply marked with a vertical diacritic without spelling out the final stop consonant.

Tailo form:
Tsa-li̍t tsiū tuì Tâi-lâm lâi tsit Tâi-pak, sī in-uī tsiap-tio̍ 蔣渭水君 phuà-pīnn-guî-tok ê siau-sit

I think very few people can speak Taigi as eloquently as that today, even fewer can put it down in writing. Although, Tshua spent the rest of the article criticizing Tsiúnn. Tshua was very religious and disapproved of Tsiúnn’s promiscuous behavior.

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Reminds me of when I was in Montreal.

Almost everyone speaks English. But when I was in the subway, the attendant started saying the station names, I got lost.

This also happens with words that are the same in French and English.

When I was at Walmart, this happened:

“I need your seenyachoor.”
“What? Oh, my signature.”

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Has Taiwan had a non-Hakka president?

Abian and Ma both have Hakka ancestry.

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The Changs weren’t I don’t think
Don’t know about lee

My Taiwanese is super bad now after 20 years in America

And decades before in Taiwan I had already switched largely to mandarin
And yet up to when I left TAS. I could not speak a sentence in mandarin

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Changs and anyone not democratically elected don’t count.

Lee is Hakka.

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Well If that is a yard stick the next person will be Hakka too?

How bout the current prez ? She Hakka ?

I’m partially Hakka maybe I can be prez of Taiwan ?

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Yes, Tsai is Hakka.

Are you a citizen? I have qiaoju status, so I’m not sure I’m eligible. Haven’t done military service.

That’s a thankless job, anyway. I want to be president of 棒協 and ITRI.

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I couldn’t be president of my own fan club much less prez of Taiwan

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Every decade, the population that can speak Holo declines by 10%.

image
image694×471 73.1 KB

The Y-axis marks decades in Minggou. From the top it’s those born in the 1930s, 40s, 50s, 60s, 70s, 80s, 90s, and the last blue bar represents those born in the 00s.

It does not however indicate the quality and fluency of the Taigi speaker. Most born in the 00s who claim they could speak Taigi probably speak worse Taigi then me, and my Taigi is already atrocious.

If this trend keeps up, Taigi would be wiped out by 2069.

Original data from Executive Yuan, I got it from this youtube video below:

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It’s a cryin shame when adults being able to speak Holo is a big deal.

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A-huâ-sai went on the PTS Taigi channel to share his experiences.

The interviewer asked him what would be a good way to revive all Taiwanese native languages.

A-huâ-sai came up with a great idea. Currently, if you are ethnically from a minority, like one of the Aboriginal tribes, you would get extra points added to your placement tests for high school and universities. It’s the Taiwanese version of the affirmative action.

In many cases this dis-proportionally benefited aboriginal students living in the city, often having at least one none aboriginal parent, and cannot actually speak their native language.

Instead of doing that, we should provide placement tests in all official native languages. Same tests, just in different languages. Those who elect to take the tests in a none Mandarin language gets the extra points. The less speaker a language has, the more extra points the student gets.

So you would get more extra points taking a test in Ita Thao than Hakka, and more extra points taking a test in Hakka than Taigi.

That way the system encourages students to learn any languages they want, regardless of their ethnicity.

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That’s a great idea, but it assumes you can come up with more or less ‘standardized’ written forms for those languages. I highly doubt 10 people, let alone 10 politicians, could agree on what should be standard written terms for much of the language. You’d also have to come up with terms for complex academic/school terms in each of the languages, and then assume that kids from those cultures would know those terms. What would happen if a kid was conversationally fluent in Ita Thao but couldn’t read it, or maybe misunderstood a question on the test?

I personally see the affirmative action as trying to correct for oppression and an uneven playing field, adding a test like this feels… weird, like in order to be considered aboriginal (in your application) you have to pass this test? If they want something on top of ancestry, checking something like cultural participation would be better IMO. However this might be getting too into the weeds of politics around affirmative action and away from the language aspect.

I do think it’s a good idea, but I’m imagining all the edge cases and logistical issues. My vote would instead be to make separate language competency tests for all minority languages in Taiwan and scoring high would give you extra points. You could include Filipino or Vietnamese (no lack of speakers in Taiwan), and keep the tests open to everyone - it’s important to have members of the culture speak the language, but you could also give outsiders an incentive to learn these languages which I’m sure would help their preservation (or at minimum help visibility of and respect for those cultures).

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You get more points added to your college entrance score if you can actually speak an Aboriginal language, as well as just being of Aboriginal descent.
When I used to teach, a lot of kids would raise their hand wnen I asked them if they spoke Taiwanese; they meant they could count to ten and say ‘pai hsieh’ and ‘dou hsiang’.

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