Taiwan abandons official language

[Jive_Turkey]

I think you’re posting up tidbits of science that are not relevant to the situation we’re talking about in Taiwan, and that you yourself don’t fully understand the science you are linking to.

[quote=“twocs”]

Additionally, brain research has shown that someone who studies in Mandarin but learned something else as their first language processes each differently. Those children who grew up speaking something else are important, too, and we can offer them education that allows them to fully use their brain (Broca’s area). It may or may not require a bit more money, but there are advantages: children in minority groups get teachers who speak the same language as their parents, who respect their first language, and as a result children can learn more and become more productive in their lives.[/quote]
Show me the psycholing research that specifically investigates Taiwanese kids from a dialect background studying in Mandarin and that supports the view that kids in today’s linguistic environment would be better off in a system that uses Southern Min as the medium of education and then switches late to Mandarin.

[quote=“twocs”]Scientists have determined that there is a neurological difference between native and second languages:

@"UN Publication: [url=http://www.un.org/Pubs/chronicle/2002/issue4/0402p46.html

Ensuring Children Complete Primary Schooling: Protecting the World’s Languages[/url]"]Native and second languages are spatially separated in Broca’s area (see image below), which is a region in the frontal lobe of the brain that is responsible for the motor parts of language movement of the mouth, tongue and palate. In contrast, the two languages show very little separation in the activation of Wernicke’s area-an area of the brain in the posterior part of the temporal lobe-which is responsible for comprehension of language.[/quote]

I don’t know why you’re posting this little factoid as it is irrelevant to early bilinguals. It is late bilinguals’ whose fMRIs show clear spatial seperation in the Broca’s area. It’s been a while since I’ve sat in a psycholing seminar, but this is textbook level stuff. Early bilinguals show a high degree of overlap in the Broca’s area. It’s practically impossible to have full overlap since nobody is going to use their languages in completely the same domains.

[quote=“twocs”]

[quote=“UN Publication: Language in education: a factor in poverty among indigenous peoples”]Educating minority, indigenous or tribal children exclusively
in the language of the dominant culture rather than
in their mother tongue actually perpetuates poverty.[/quote]

I feel that this is a political issue because some people would rather listen to their gut feelings than to the scientists. The media in Taiwan is split between Taiwanese and Mandarin: preferring to watch Taiwanese programs demonstrates that many in Taiwan use Taiwanese as their native language. It’s not the same neurologically to study in your first language or in another language. Let’s give everyone the chance to study in their first language.[/quote]
I feel that you’re trying to impose random bits of western thinking on bilingualism and bilingual education onto a culture where it doesn’t quite fit. I also think you’re trying to use bits of science to establish authority on the subject when the science you cite is not relevant to the debate.

What is a Southern Min primary education supposed to include? There is virtually no canon of written Southern Min. When the UN brochure you link to acknowledges that “mother tongue” education is expensive, it sounds to me like they’re working on the premise that there is already a body of written language out there to work with and that the main task is to just write localized materials for, say, teaching Spanish in a US context. I don’t disagree with that. It’s a completely different kettle of fish when no education materials or any critical mass of written materials of any sort exist in the mother tongue in question.

I don’t oppose dialect writing. I have no beef with anybody who prefers to use dialect in any situation in which they feel comfortable using it, so long as they are sensitive to the fact that not all can use that dialect. I don’t have a problem with Canto or Southern Min speakers who would like to develop these dialects into languages that could one day be used in a wide range of domains, including education. However, I take issue with those who would like to spend government revenue to promote some dialects over others, even when there is little or nothing to work with in existing language and when a large portion, if not the majority of the population now learn and use Mandarin as their strongest language from their first words. That, to me, is politicizing this just to make a point to a bunch of 49ers who are either long since dead or out of power.

[Mick]

@TaipeiDawg

[quote=“Mick”]The reason we are not seeing spectacular things is because of the KMT majority in the LY and they block everything. However, it might be worth reflecting on why the DPP do not have a majority. Which in my opinion is because they have not earned the trust of the people. In short, no one to blame but themselves.[/quote] Well, with LY elections on the horizon feel free to enlighten us as to what the KMT has done to earn the trust of the people and why they should be re-elected. With a legislative majority for such a long time they should have been able to accomplish some noteworthy things. I would conceivably vote KMT if they had a good track record and fielded a good candidate.

  I don't think the KMT have done much that can be admired either. But the trust issue was related to China and could the DPP be trusted not to create conflict.

[TaipeiDawg]

[quote=“Jive Turkey”]I don’t oppose dialect writing.[/quote] That’s nice of you.

[quote=“Jive Turkey”]However, I take issue with those who would like to spend government revenue to promote some dialects over others, even when there is little or nothing to work with in existing language and when a large portion, if not the majority of the population now learn and use Mandarin as their strongest language from their first words. [/quote]Are you assuming that Taiwanese would be promoted disproportionately over the other dialects and therefore no dialects are worth investing in? What are you basing that comment on? Anyway, the entire educational cirriculum here is in Mandarin already - how would the existence of dialects as supplemental education options ruin the educational system? I have an older Taiwanese friend in Taipei (a Lien Chan fan and DPP hater for your reference) whose kids grew up in Central America and were educated at the American school. When they came back to Taiwan for university their Mandarin, English, and Spanish were flawless but their Taiwanese was terrible and their father complained to me about it constantly. I believe that there are a large number of people who would be thrilled to see their children have the option to attend Taiwanese or Hakka class at school and would think it was a very good use of tax dollars.
Also, I can’t agree with your assessment that a verbal or non-written language offers “little or nothing to work with”. Are you saying that a language must have a body of literature to go with it to make it credible? The guys at work are always trying to teach me proverbs and sayings in Taiwanese and even Hakka that apparently don’t have Mandarin equivalents. If you can’t speak Taiwanese or Hakka at all I don’t think you are in a position to judge the content of the languages as they each contain rich amounts of history and culture that are worth preserving.

[TaipeiDawg]

[quote=“Mick”]But the trust issue was related to China and could the DPP be trusted not to create conflict.[/quote] So, how do you not create conflict with China unless you agree that Taiwan is a part of China? Or pretend that the status-quo under the premise of One China will buy enough time for future generations to straighten things out. Frank Zappa once said of the stagnation of the classical music world, "You’re all standing in shit up to your chins looking at each other saying, “Don’t make a wave!!” - and that sounds pretty much like Taiwan’s situation. That’s one bit of flawed ‘logic’ that I’ve never been able to buy into - that the DPP are the troublemakers who purposely provoke China and the KMT are the only ones with the wisdom to save Taiwan.

[ac_dropout]

@TaipeiDawg

Yes, the KMT has a history of authoritarianism and brutality. They’ve targeted people much more so than languages. No arguments here.

The KMT doesn’t have a monopoly on killing and oppression on Taiwan. To try to imply that is also somewhat skewd.

@TaipeiDawg

Historically there is no written standard. That doesn’t mean that there can’t be.

If you’re going to spend time and energy on this project, which takes away resources from other worthy projects on Taiwan, while other developed nations are rushing to learning Mandarin and simplified Chinese. Taiwan is going to create a whole new standard of written Chinese for Minnan…and maybe Hakka and aboriginal languages too…mind you not as an acedemic endeavor but as a political one…:loco:

…don’t go blaming others for speculating why Taiwan is going to end up as another backwatered island in the Pacific, if that is the case.

The written language that goes along with Mandarin is not the most accessible in the world,

Maybe not to you. But there a whole bunch of people “pretending” to speak and write in Mandarin.
Gawd knows I have fun on their forums as well.

Had Taiwanese not been stifled by the KMT for so long there’s no reason to think a writing system couldn’t have developed

Uhm, yeah those Japanese liberators had the development of Taiwanese as the #1 thing on their to-do-list.
And prior to that those highly educated intellectuals that moonlighted as pirates on Taiwan were about to introduce Minnan as the Guan Yu to the Ming Dynasty.

Not to be overly sarcastic but the Taiwanese have been on Taiwan for 400 years and they saw no interest in pursuing a written language outside of the Guan yu.

actually they do exist but I don’t know for how long. Maybe with some government funding they will finally standardize one.

No more than 20 years depending on which system you are referring to. It’s a very esoteric field in linguistic at NTU. Highly politicized. Totally useless in its present form. They’ll need more than funding. They need a revolution.

As for the street signs, I don’t think they’ll be in Taiwanese any time soon. The KMT had decades to get the romanized Mandarin right and they’re still all screwed up.

Damn those PRC pingying facist. The KMT was not interested in educating the west in Chinese, that’s why ROC has the zhuyingfuhao system.

[Jive_Turkey]

[quote=“TaipeiDawg”][quote=“Jive Turkey”]I don’t oppose dialect writing.[/quote] That’s nice of you.

@Jive Turkey

However, I take issue with those who would like to spend government revenue to promote some dialects over others, even when there is little or nothing to work with in existing language and when a large portion, if not the majority of the population now learn and use Mandarin as their strongest language from their first words. [/quote]Are you assuming that Taiwanese would be promoted disproportionately over the other dialects and therefore no dialects are worth investing in?

You nailed it on the head. In case you haven’t noticed, Taiwan is still governed under the constitution and government of the the Republic of China. Although the “native Taiwanese” speakers, who Joesax has already pointed out can’t really be bothered with speaking “Taiwanese” with their children, are in the majority and the Hakka are another significant minority who long ago started to neglect their dialect, there are plenty of people who speak other dialects. Do you propose that the government invest in mother tongue education programs for all Cantonese, Anhuihua, Hunanhua, Sichuanhua, Minbeihua, or whatever other dialect speakers happen to be around? That seems to be the logical end to what you are advocating.

What are you basing that comment on?

The fact that only Southern Min, Hakka and aboriginal languages have been named in the government’s policy.

Anyway, the entire educational cirriculum here is in Mandarin already - how would the existence of dialects as supplemental education options ruin the educational system?

It wouldn’t. If the government only does what it has said it has planned, I would bet my bottom dollar that 1.) it will have little or no effect on how much or in what situations people use Taiwanese; 2.) it will pose no danger to Mandarin’s status; and 3.) it will be a complete waste of money.

I have an older Taiwanese friend in Taipei (a Lien Chan fan and DPP hater for your reference) whose kids grew up in Central America and were educated at the American school. When they came back to Taiwan for university their Mandarin, English, and Spanish were flawless but their Taiwanese was terrible and their father complained to me about it constantly.

Wow. You know a guy. A guy!

I believe that there are a large number of people who would be thrilled to see their children have the option to attend Taiwanese or Hakka class at school and would think it was a very good use of tax dollars.

I don’t believe that many Taiwanese people give more than half a toss about whether their kids can speak Taiwanese. You can see it in their actions. Right or wrong, in my experience and in the experience of other folks posting in this thread, Taiwanese parents want their kids to excel in Mandarin so much that they will speak mostly, if not only Mandarin at home.

Also, I can’t agree with your assessment that a verbal or non-written language offers “little or nothing to work with”. Are you saying that a language must have a body of literature to go with it to make it credible?

If you mean credible as a language of large scale instruction, then that’s exactly what I’m saying. Nobody is stopping Taiwanese people from writing in Taiwanese. It’s now been about 20 years since marshall law was lifted and the language police more or less packed it in. Why in the world should a government pump money into dialect education if the native speakers of that dialect can’t be bothered to produce any critical mass of written work? And I’m not talking about Shakespearean or Dickens type stuff. Do you see dialect writing plastered on billboards and in newspapers? Is there a decent number of popular dialect magazines? Does dialect even have a moderate influence on local kid’s writing? No. There is virtually no popular presence for dialect writing in Taiwan.

The guys at work are always trying to teach me proverbs and sayings in Taiwanese and even Hakka that apparently don’t have Mandarin equivalents.

So what? Every language or dialect has words or phrases that have no direct equivalents in other languages or dialects. That’s not a good enough reason for the government to choose a couple of these dialects that an indefinite portion of the population claim to want their kids to speak and then throw money down the toilet so that these dialects can be taught formally in school.

If you can’t speak Taiwanese or Hakka at all I don’t think you are in a position to judge the content of the languages as they each contain rich amounts of history and culture that are worth preserving.

Oh, wow. So you can flash a phrase or two in Southern Min or Hakka, can you? Does that make you an expert on dialects or bidialectalism? I don’t know if it makes me qualified in your eyes, but I can speak a good bit of Cantonese and read quite a lot of it. That’s right, READ IT. I can read it not because some government standardized it or tossed money at schools to teach it to me or anybody else. I can read it because it is all around me where ever I go. I can read it because a critical mass of its speakers, in spite of having received no government support and in spite of the scorn that most other Chinese heap on dialect writing, have chosen to write it. I can read it because through unfettered use and nothing else, it has reached a level of standardization that exceeds that of baihuawen in the early 20th century. I choose to read it because a large number of people around me think it’s worth putting their thoughts down in it. And some of it is pretty interesting shit to read. Has a critical mass of Taiwanese done the same with Southern Min? I think not. As Joesax said, government policies or funding have little effect on how people use language. If Taiwanese people can’t be bothered to speak Southern Min to their kids, much less start writing it, then why should the government throw money at it?

[ac_dropout]

@TaipeiDawg

Are you assuming that Taiwanese would be promoted disproportionately over the other dialects and therefore no dialects are worth investing in? What are you basing that comment on? Anyway, the entire educational cirriculum here is in Mandarin already - how would the existence of dialects as supplemental education options ruin the educational system?

Tolerance of multiculturalism is the end of Taiwan as we know it…

I think people are more suspect of the politicized nature of how these policies came to be, than the actual teaching of dialect outside of Mandarin. Think about the context of these DPP implemented policies, they are like half bake.

Okay let’s take your proposed project of teaching an incomplete language to the masses. Who would be the teachers? How do you certified them? What is the proper accent?

Issues upon issues that countless man-hours would be required to resolve. While everyone else is dying learning Mandarin.

I have an older Taiwanese friend in Taipei (a Lien Chan fan and DPP hater for your reference) whose kids grew up in Central America and were educated at the American school.

My sympathies for not being able to emigrate to the USA, post 9/11 and anti-immigration sentiments.

When they came back to Taiwan for university their Mandarin, English, and Spanish were flawless but their Taiwanese was terrible and their father complained to me about it constantly.

Yes, I know to be able to brag that one’s offspring is not only educated overseas but also a true hanji (sweat potato). To not be able to bask in that glory, my heart breaks for him.

I believe that there are a large number of people who would be thrilled to see their children have the option to attend Taiwanese or Hakka class at school and would think it was a very good use of tax dollars.

These are the same people that want to teach ROC was founded by a foriegn potted plant, I bet.

Are you saying that a language must have a body of literature to go with it to make it credible?

It would be nice to way to assign homework by referrence pages. I always found it a difficult assignment when the instructor request that I obtain the oral history from my grandma. She’s always going off on tangents and never staying on point. Always going on about how tough she had it…I’ll never get my homework done.

The guys at work are always trying to teach me proverbs and sayings in Taiwanese and even Hakka that apparently don’t have Mandarin equivalents.

I suspect their knowledge of Mandarin proverbs are not as deep as they think.

If you can’t speak Taiwanese or Hakka at all I don’t think you are in a position to judge the content of the languages as they each contain rich amounts of history and culture that are worth preserving.

Now this is just wishful thinking. Do you actually think 13-day is a great way to measure distance? Languages evolve, time to move onwards instead of being stuck in the past.

[TaipeiDawg]

As long as you’ve abandonded the topic allow me to reply in kind.

[quote=“ac_dropout”]My sympathies for not being able to emigrate to the USA, post 9/11 and anti-immigration sentiments.[/quote] It was long before 9/11 - probably about the same time your family decided to vacate the glory of the ROC.

[quote=“ac_dropout”]Yes, I know to be able to brag that one’s offspring is not only educated overseas but also a true hanji (sweat potato). To not be able to bask in that glory, my heart breaks for him.[/quote] I believe you mean “sweet potato”? Both Mandarin and English seem to challenge you - where do you get off evaluating other languages? And what were your parents thinking when they dragged you to the land of the long-nosed brutes? Now they’ve got a foreigner in the family who can only seem to identify with the conceptual ‘Greater China’, which you’ve virtually never ever been a part of either. The perfect blueprint for an ROC loyalist.

[quote=“ac_dropout”]These are the same people that want to teach ROC was founded by a foreign potted plant, I bet.[/quote]No, they know the ROC was founded by a bunch of thugs who had lofty ideals on paper but never practiced them in reality, got run out of town, retreated to Taiwan as a temporary base of operations to retake their rightful kingdom, and lived a daydream for decades while inspiring the hatred of the locals. I’d say a potted plant is bestowing too much of an honor.

[TaipeiDawg]

[quote=“Jive Turkey”] You nailed it on the head. In case you haven’t noticed, Taiwan is still governed under the constitution and government of the the Republic of China.[/quote]Now you’re getting political - the ones who identify with their dialects the most identify with the ROC the least.

[quote=“Jive Turkey”]Do you propose that the government invest in mother tongue education programs for all Cantonese, Anhuihua, Hunanhua, Sichuanhua, Minbeihua, or whatever other dialect speakers happen to be around? That seems to be the logical end to what you are advocating.[/quote] I think logic would dictate that for a starting point it be proportional to the amount of representation in the population with other factors also taken into consideration. Depending on how much priority - if any - provinces of China placed on promoting their dialects is up to the people and governments of those places.

By the way, I’m not necessarily “advocating” anything. This topic seems to be of much more vital importance to you than it is to me. I’m not a professional language teacher. I’m merely providing a countervoice to the notion that Mandarin should be the sole language and everything else should fall to the wayside and languish of its own devices. I believe that Mandarin should be the primary language of education but that there is a place in society and culture for others.

[quote=“Jive Turkey”]The fact that only Southern Min, Hakka and aboriginal languages have been named in the government’s policy.[/quote] I think this is pretty logical, grounded in demographics, and not being exclusionary.

[quote=“Jive Turkey”]If the government only does what it has said it has planned, I would bet my bottom dollar that 1.) it will have little or no effect on how much or in what situations people use Taiwanese; 2.) it will pose no danger to Mandarin’s status; and 3.) it will be a complete waste of money.[/quote] You could be exactly right - and you are perfectly entitled to your opion. In fact, it translates into exactly one vote - in Hong Kong if I read your profile correctly.

[quote=“Jive Turkey”]I don’t believe that many Taiwanese people give more than half a toss about whether their kids can speak Taiwanese. You can see it in their actions. Right or wrong, in my experience and in the experience of other folks posting in this thread, Taiwanese parents want their kids to excel in Mandarin so much that they will speak mostly, if not only Mandarin at home.
[/quote] Opinions, opions, opinions… Why are my personal observations discounted but yours are supposed to represent the actual? You beat up that guy earlier about no providing data. If you’ve got any about this - now’s the time to whip it out… I doubt that any exists, though… So, it goes back to the gov’t being forced in the right direction by voters - in Taiwan…

[quote=“Jive Turkey”] Nobody is stopping Taiwanese people from writing in Taiwanese. It’s now been about 20 years since marshall law was lifted and the language police more or less packed it in. Why in the world should a government pump money into dialect education if the native speakers of that dialect can’t be bothered to produce any critical mass of written work? And I’m not talking about Shakespearean or Dickens type stuff. Do you see dialect writing plastered on billboards and in newspapers? Is there a decent number of popular dialect magazines? Does dialect even have a moderate influence on local kid’s writing? No. There is virtually no popular presence for dialect writing in Taiwan.[/quote] The US government supports native American Indian languages. Is that illogical or a waste of money?

[quote=“Jive Turkey”] So what? Every language or dialect has words or phrases that have no direct equivalents in other languages or dialects. That’s not a good enough reason for the government to choose a couple of these dialects that an indefinite portion of the population claim to want their kids to speak and then throw money down the toilet so that these dialects can be taught formally in school.[/quote] In your opinion it’s money down the toilet - I understand your reasoning. Some people may agree wth you and others may not. Goes back to the vote thing… Do they still do that in HK? I always find it interesting at how angry people who pay no taxes to the government of Taiwan get at what the Taiwan government does with tax money.

[quote=“Jive Turkey”]Oh, wow. So you can flash a phrase or two in Southern Min or Hakka, can you? Does that make you an expert on dialects or bidialectalism?[/quote] I never said I could speak any of the dialects worth a damn. Or that I was an expert. I said that YOU were not an expert unless you could.

[quote=“Jive Turkey”]I don’t know if it makes me qualified in your eyes, but I can speak a good bit of Cantonese and read quite a lot of it. That’s right, READ IT. I can read it not because some government standardized it or tossed money at schools to teach it to me or anybody else. I can read it because it is all around me where ever I go. I can read it because a critical mass of its speakers, in spite of having received no government support and in spite of the scorn that most other Chinese heap on dialect writing, have chosen to write it. I can read it because through unfettered use and nothing else, it has reached a level of standardization that exceeds that of baihuawen in the early 20th century. I choose to read it because a large number of people around me think it’s worth putting their thoughts down in it. And some of it is pretty interesting shit to read. Has a critical mass of Taiwanese done the same with Southern Min? I think not. As Joesax said, government policies or funding have little effect on how people use language. If Taiwanese people can’t be bothered to speak Southern Min to their kids, much less start writing it, then why should the government throw money at it?[/quote] I admire your efforts and ability of reading Cantonese. I guess I treat Mandarin like a dialect because I just speak it, can just read enough to get by, and write very little. But I don’t feel guilty or deprived that I can’t read Tang dynasty poetry, however. When I came to Taiwan I wanted to learn Mandarin because I thought I would get the most mileage out of it - and I was right. Very practical approach… However, over time I find myself becoming interested in learning some Taiwanese and Hakka as well because people commonly speak it, and enjoy speaking it - especially in less formal, friendly situations. And I don’t tell people in Hong Kong or any other province of China what language they should or should not speak/learn or what their government should do with their tax money.

[Joesox]

@Jive Turkey

[quote=“UN Publication: Ensuring Children Complete Primary Schooling: Protecting the World’s Languages”]Native and second languages are spatially separated in Broca’s area (see image below), which is a region in the frontal lobe of the brain that is responsible for the motor parts of language movement of the mouth, tongue and palate. In contrast, the two languages show very little separation in the activation of Wernicke’s area-an area of the brain in the posterior part of the temporal lobe-which is responsible for comprehension of language.

I don’t know why you’re posting this little factoid as it is irrelevant to early bilinguals. It is late bilinguals’ whose fMRIs show clear spatial seperation in the Broca’s area. It’s been a while since I’ve sat in a psycholing seminar, but this is textbook level stuff. Early bilinguals show a high degree of overlap in the Broca’s area. It’s practically impossible to have full overlap since nobody is going to use their languages in completely the same domains.[/quote]That’s what I thought. It’s been a while since I read about this kind of stuff but there is clearly a difference between somebody growing up with two or more languages from a very early age, and someone who starts learning a language a bit later. I believe that a fair bit of the research and writing about bilingual education comes from the U.S., where you’ve got some native Spanish-speaking kids getting their first serious exposure to English in elementary school. In that situation I believe it does make sense to start subject education for the first year or two in the native language. While I think Stephen Krashen is too dogmatic and political about some things, I think he’s right to campaign against complete immersion in English from day one, in that particular situation in the U.S.

I guess it’s possible that there might be some kids in Taiwan who haven’t heard much Mandarin by the time they enter first grade. They’d definitely be in the minority, though. What surprises me is that most kids’ Taiwanese is so weak.

[quote=“Jive Turkey”][quote=“twocs”]

[quote=“UN Publication: Language in education: a factor in poverty among indigenous peoples”]Educating minority, indigenous or tribal children exclusively
in the language of the dominant culture rather than
in their mother tongue actually perpetuates poverty.[/quote]

I feel that this is a political issue because some people would rather listen to their gut feelings than to the scientists. The media in Taiwan is split between Taiwanese and Mandarin: preferring to watch Taiwanese programs demonstrates that many in Taiwan use Taiwanese as their native language. It’s not the same neurologically to study in your first language or in another language. Let’s give everyone the chance to study in their first language.[/quote]
I feel that you’re trying to impose random bits of western thinking on bilingualism and bilingual education onto a culture where it doesn’t quite fit. I also think you’re trying to use bits of science to establish authority on the subject when the science you cite is not relevant to the debate.

What is a Southern Min primary education supposed to include? There is virtually no canon of written Southern Min. When the UN brochure you link to acknowledges that “mother tongue” education is expensive, it sounds to me like they’re working on the premise that there is already a body of written language out there to work with and that the main task is to just write localized materials for, say, teaching Spanish in a US context. I don’t disagree with that. It’s a completely different kettle of fish when no education materials or any critical mass of written materials of any sort exist in the mother tongue in question.[/quote]Good practical points there. However, if there were large numbers of kids in Taiwan whose strongest language was Taiwanese and for whom Mandarin really was a “second language”, I’d say that there’d still be room for debate. As far as I’m aware this is not the case, though. Most kids’ strongest language is Mandarin and when this is coupled with the fact that there are many decent subject education materials available in Mandarin and very few in Taiwanese, Hakka, or aboriginal languages, there’s really no debate.

[quote=“Jive Turkey”]I don’t oppose dialect writing. I have no beef with anybody who prefers to use dialect in any situation in which they feel comfortable using it, so long as they are sensitive to the fact that not all can use that dialect. I don’t have a problem with Canto or Southern Min speakers who would like to develop these dialects into languages that could one day be used in a wide range of domains, including education. However, I take issue with those who would like to spend government revenue to promote some dialects over others, even when there is little or nothing to work with in existing language and when a large portion, if not the majority of the population now learn and use Mandarin as their strongest language from their first words. That, to me, is politicizing this just to make a point to a bunch of 49ers who are either long since dead or out of power.[/quote]As far as I know, current teaching of Taiwanese in schools is language teaching itself, not subject teaching. I’m all for that, and my impression is that this education has improved kids’ ability to communicate in Taiwanese. But I don’t think there are any serious governmental plans to change the policy and start subject education in Taiwanese, Hakka, and aboriginal languages. I’m sure that some people would like this to happen, but I don’t think there’s the money to do that, plus there are the serious practical problems you’ve described.

Unusually for a thread in the politics forum, it seems that most posters here agree on one main point: the new policy on official languages will have little effect on the ground.

[twocs]

@Jive Turkey

I think you’re posting up tidbits of science that are not relevant to the situation we’re talking about in Taiwan, and that you yourself don’t fully understand the science you are linking to.

Well, I do believe they are relevant to the topic of bilingual education. They are from a website about bilingual education. I provided some science background and you are free to disagree with the interpretation of the data, but not to ignore that there has been research in this area, that there are experts in the field do know what they are talking about.

There are many people in Taiwan who speak Taiwanese, Hakka, television and radio stations that broadcast in Taiwanese. The advertisers on these stations are there because there’s money. That means they also have money to pay taxes, yet the schools their children went to had not, for about a hundred years, taught classes in their language. Their tax money should be going towards what the UN and researchers suggest: bilingual education, particularly that the language spoken at home should be respected at school. It’s not expensive to allow a teacher to speak in a language that everyone understands, which had previously been illegal. It’s not a choice between one language or another; children can learn both languages to a higher level, where they can discuss cerebral topics with their parents and grandparents in what they consider to be their language. If Mandarin is the only language used in tests, and tests are considered the important part of school, then parents will necessarily focus on Mandarin without a thought to the importance of their own culture (which includes language).

I don’t believe that there will be immediate result of the government plans, but learning a language doesn’t happen overnight, nor would acquiring the language of your culture to be able to speak in it at an educated level. In Tainan, they are teaching Taiwanese in elementary schools; five years ago they were not. Thus, that change is on its way.

[Jive_Turkey]

First, TD, let me apoligize for being unnecessarily harsh in my posts last night. I had had a bad day talking to my dissertation supervisor and had an itch to decapitate somebody.

@TaipeiDawg

[quote=“Jive Turkey”] You nailed it on the head. In case you haven’t noticed, Taiwan is still governed under the constitution and government of the the Republic of China.[/quote]Now you’re getting political - the ones who identify with their dialects the most identify with the ROC the least.

To me, my statement above is no more policital than those who want to choose a couple of major dialects to promote.

[quote=“Jive Turkey”]Do you propose that the government invest in mother tongue education programs for all Cantonese, Anhuihua, Hunanhua, Sichuanhua, Minbeihua, or whatever other dialect speakers happen to be around? That seems to be the logical end to what you are advocating.[/quote] I think logic would dictate that for a starting point it be proportional to the amount of representation in the population with other factors also taken into consideration. Depending on how much priority - if any - provinces of China placed on promoting their dialects is up to the people and governments of those places.

That is certainly one way to decide it, but I don’t think it is the only way. Why not give the most support to the languages of the people who were here earliest? Seems fair, right? Why not choose whichever group is the most disadvantaged economically and thus unable to prop up their dialect or language with their own means? There are a lot of ways to choose, all of which adhere to some sort of principal of fairness or logic. To me, unless one can show strong evidence that a great number of kids right now are suffering because of Mandarin education, then there is little reason to support dialect education to the degree of teaching them in schools.

I’m merely providing a countervoice to the notion that Mandarin should be the sole language and everything else should fall to the wayside and languish of its own devices.

I don’t question your intentions, but where have I said that I think dialects should fall by the wayside and languish? I think I’d be a lot more in favor of dialect education/teaching if a a larger number of Taiwanese would show some real initiative-initiatiative that doesn’t rely on government seed money.

I believe that Mandarin should be the primary language of education but that there is a place in society and culture for others.

Actually, I have different opinions for different dialect areas. In HK, I see kids daily who have extreme difficulties with writing Standard Modern Chinese. These are 18 or 19 year olds in a vocational college who passed GCSE kind of level Chinese. They simply cannot write SMC to save themselves. I’m talking about very basic academic writing. They cannot construct paragraphs that make any sense or transfer ideas to sentences. However, some of these kids are excellent writers in Cantonese (all of you native Chinese writers of SMC, go fuck yourselves if you’re laughing at that last part). Why do I say they are excellent writers? I mean, they only dare use it in informal genres of writing or when writing some sort of reflection on learning for me (I get crucified in the staff room for telling them that it’s OK to write it in Canto). I’ve come to believe that they’re excellent writers in Canto for the following reasons:
1.) They make sense. I can read SMC at an advanced academic level within a few fields, but I just don’t get what these kids write in SMC. I don’t think they do, either. When I first came to HK, I thought the problem was mine. I only read Canto slowly seeing as how I’m not good at the spoken language it follows. However, after I had gotten a grasp of written Canto grammar words, that was enough for me to read basic Canto prose, and it became pretty obvious to me that some of these kids, even though they’ve not really been formally taught, can string some pretty coherent discourse together when they’re writing in Canto. And what originally seemed bizzare to me about it is that there is not standard setting body for Canto in HK. Standards have just naturally evolved, and they’re adhered to pretty well by most people who bother or dare to write Canto.
2.) It belongs to these kids. Some of the kids I know who take a bit of pride in writing Canto seem to feel a sense of ownership of it that they just don’t have with SMC. A design student who I got to talk to me about written Canto basically told me that when he writes Canto, he feels like he can rely a bit on his intuition as a native speaker in the language to decide what reads right, but when he writes SMC, he is constantly worried about how others will judge his writing. I probably attached a lot more meaning to what he said than he did. I remember being scared shitless of writing anything until I left home for university because my language prescriptionist mother was critical of anything anybody in our house wrote. Relative to how I felt, these kids are schizo when it comes to SMC.

I think this is pretty logical, grounded in demographics, and not being exclusionary.

I’m not convinced at all that it is grounded in demographics. Yes, the greatest number of people in Taiwan come from families that speak or spoke Southern Min. Does that mean that all of these people now use it, or much less, care about using it? It actually seems quite a lot like the Singaporean government telling all ethnic Chinese that they have to learn Mandarin because it is their “mother tongue.” I suppose you know what a load of BS that is.

So, it goes back to the gov’t being forced in the right direction by voters - in Taiwan…

I think it’s a bit of a stretch to claim that a majority of voters want this.

The US government supports native American Indian languages. Is that illogical or a waste of money?

Not quite the same issue. That issue in itself is a political one. Tribes were acknowledged as nations, and rightly so. They got screwed pretty hard. I don’t think Taiwanese have been screwed anywhere near as hard as native Americans.

In your opinion it’s money down the toilet - I understand your reasoning. Some people may agree wth you and others may not. Goes back to the vote thing… Do they still do that in HK? I always find it interesting at how angry people who pay no taxes to the government of Taiwan get at what the Taiwan government does with tax money.

You should not assume that I pay no tax to the ROC government.

[Joesox]

@twocs

[quote=“Jive Turkey”]I think you’re posting up tidbits of science that are not relevant to the situation we’re talking about in Taiwan, and that you yourself don’t fully understand the science you are linking to.

Well, I do believe they are relevant to the topic of bilingual education. They are from a website about bilingual education. I provided some science background and you are free to disagree with the interpretation of the data, but not to ignore that there has been research in this area, that there are experts in the field do know what they are talking about.

There are many people in Taiwan who speak Taiwanese, Hakka, television and radio stations that broadcast in Taiwanese. The advertisers on these stations are there because there’s money. That means they also have money to pay taxes, yet the schools their children went to had not, for about a hundred years, taught classes in their language. Their tax money should be going towards what the UN and researchers suggest: bilingual education, particularly that the language spoken at home should be respected at school. It’s not expensive to allow a teacher to speak in a language that everyone understands, which had previously been illegal. It’s not a choice between one language or another; children can learn both languages to a higher level, where they can discuss cerebral topics with their parents and grandparents in what they consider to be their language. If Mandarin is the only language used in tests, and tests are considered the important part of school, then parents will necessarily focus on Mandarin without a thought to the importance of their own culture (which includes language).

I don’t believe that there will be immediate result of the government plans, but learning a language doesn’t happen overnight, nor would acquiring the language of your culture to be able to speak in it at an educated level. In Tainan, they are teaching Taiwanese in elementary schools; five years ago they were not. Thus, that change is on its way.[/quote]It seems that you may not have had time to read Jive Turkey’s and my posts thoroughly yet. Fair enough. I’ll summarise the main issues so that if you want to continue the discussion in a meaningful sense, you can.

1 There’s a big difference between learning a second language starting from first grade, and what some might call “true bilingualism” where kids are exposed to two languages from birth. Agree or disagree?
2 The information you quoted seemed to be criticising the kind of “immersion” education where students receive subject teaching in a language with which they have very little ability. Agree or disagree?
3 The majority of elementary-aged kids in Taiwan have native speaking ability in Mandarin, but ability in Taiwanese varies widely and few kids are really proficient. It seems that most people on this thread agree with me on this. You don’t, however. Could you provide some evidence regarding the number of kids for whom Mandarin is a true second language – i.e. they haven’t had much contact with it by the time they’re a few years old?
4 Current teaching of Taiwanese in schools is language teaching – not subject teaching in Taiwanese. Agree or disagree? (By the way, I’m not sure why you singled out Tainan. Taiwanese is taught in elementary schools all over Taiwan, isn’t it? It certainly is in Taichung).
5 Language teaching and subject teaching in a language are quite different things. Language teaching of Taiwanese, Hakka, and aboriginal languages is probably a good thing if done well, as it facilitates communication with older generations and may help preserve cultural heritage. Agree or disagree?
6 Substantial subject teaching in Taiwanese, Hakka, and aboriginal languages is a bad idea as there are insufficient materials and very few kids are proficient in these languages by the time they go to elementary school. I guess you disagree, but I’d like to see good reasoning as to why.

[ac_dropout]

TaipeiDawg,

Dr Sun was a thug?!? I think you should brush up on your Chinese and read the history of China from either the ROC or PRC perspective, none of them thought Dr. Sun was a thug. Many complained that he died to early leaving a power vacuum in the new State. Ignorance is bliss if you believe CKS is the founder of ROC.

This is akin to that short-lived political movement in the USA to have public school recognize and teach a dialect of American English, ebonics.

The same social restriction and linguistic maturity that prevents language of hip-hop culture from gaining a foot hold in proper written and spoken language for mass American use also prevents Minnan and any other dialect on Taiwan from becoming the guan yu.

Another US analogy one can use to shed light on this matter of language and dialect is how immigrant’s proficiency in their mother tongue is lost in subsequent generations. It is not surprising to find Latino-Americans and Italian-American to lose use of their “mother tongue.” It is not surprising when some well educated American speak in a non-regional accent much different from the rural accent they had as a child. Why would Hakka-Chinese, Hoklo-Chinese, and Aboriginal-Chinese be any different in a State that promotes democratic unity among Taiwanese-Chinese?

One is more than welcome to go back to the Mainland, where Putonghua usage is even less among the mass and one can even more easily restrict themselves to only dealing with a population of Minnan speakers.

You might not be aware of this but localization and sub-ethnic pride is even stronger on the Mainland, than it is ROC. One reason why the PRC central government is perceived as harsher because their influence is less in certain aspects of the individual lives.

If everyone agrees this is a useless policy, then I don’t see how my original conjecture is incorrect at this point. Pork legislation pandering to a minority constituency.

[Jive_Turkey]

@twocs

[quote=“Jive Turkey”]I think you’re posting up tidbits of science that are not relevant to the situation we’re talking about in Taiwan, and that you yourself don’t fully understand the science you are linking to.

Well, I do believe they are relevant to the topic of bilingual education. They are from a website about bilingual education. I provided some science background and you are free to disagree with the interpretation of the data, but not to ignore that there has been research in this area, that there are experts in the field do know what they are talking about.[/quote]
You still don’t get it, do you? The Broca area stuff you posted has absolutely nothing to do with the arguments you or the UN brochure were making. The difference is that the writer of the UN brochure knew that it was just a random factoid. You don’t seem to understand that.

OK, I’m argueing that all dialects in Taiwan should be banished forever because the sun is composed mainly of hydrogen. There you go. Science. The experts who wrote about hydrogen in the sun surely knew what they were talking about. It’s pretty widely accepted that the sun is made of hydrogen, so I better not hear one dialectal syllable the next time I’m in Taiwan. My position is supported by science.

[TaipeiDawg]

[quote=“Jive Turkey”]First, TD, let me apoligize for being unnecessarily harsh in my posts last night. I had had a bad day talking to my dissertation supervisor and had an itch to decapitate somebody. [/quote] No offense taken - these forums are a good release valve at times so it’s perfectly OK to vent. And also, thanks for the interesting and informative posts - you’ve shared a lot of good information here.

[bob]

@TaipeiDawg

The US government supports native American Indian languages. Is that illogical or a waste of money?

Wow, is it ever. I recall a situation in Canada where some wing nut government sponsored pot head hippy types got funding to teach an aborigine dialect to a bunch of economically disadvantaged kids because the last native speaker of the language was about to die. That’ll useful.

[TaipeiDawg]

[quote=“ac_dropout”]Dr Sun was a thug?!? I think you should brush up on your Chinese and read the history of China from either the ROC or PRC perspective, none of them thought Dr. Sun was a thug. Many complained that he died to early leaving a power vacuum in the new State. Ignorance is bliss if you believe CKS is the founder of ROC.[/quote] That’s true - my bad, you did specifically say the ‘founder’ of the ROC and were referring to the plant swap in the Presidential Office. I’m well aware that it was Sun and that he himself was well-regarded, but to most people here Sun is a more obsure character than CKS, and CKS is the one whom most people associate the KMT with. Compare how many coins, bills, memorials, statues, portraits, and everything else in Taiwan portray CKS as compared to Sun. The Generalissimo’s presence far outweighs Sun’s for some reason.

[quote=“ac_dropout”]This is akin to that short-lived political movement in the USA to have public school recognize and teach a dialect of American English, ebonics. The same social restriction and linguistic maturity that prevents language of hip-hop culture from gaining a foot hold in proper written and spoken language for mass American use also prevents Minnan and any other dialect on Taiwan from becoming the guan yu.[/quote] Not exactly comparing apples to apples here as ebonics exists within English, whereas Mandarin and Min-An are only remotely related.

[quote=“ac_dropout”]Another US analogy one can use to shed light on this matter of language and dialect is how immigrant’s proficiency in their mother tongue is lost in subsequent generations.[/quote] Yeah, but in the case of Taiwan it’s opposite - where the latest ‘immigrants’ kept their ‘mother tongue’ and forced it on everyone else. It is the next generation of natives that is losing the proficiency in their ‘mother tongue’ - the immigrants have lost nothing except maybe their original accent. On the Mainland, any Mandarin speakers from Taiwan are easily identified as such by their accent.

[quote=“ac_dropout”]You might not be aware of this but localization and sub-ethnic pride is even stronger on the Mainland, than it is ROC. One reason why the PRC central government is perceived as harsher because their influence is less in certain aspects of the individual lives.[/quote] Yes, I’m aware of this and know that it is one of the major challenges facing the PRC central government.

[TaipeiDawg]

@bob

[quote=“TaipeiDawg”] The US government supports native American Indian languages. Is that illogical or a waste of money? [/quote]Wow, is it ever. I recall a situation in Canada where some wing nut government sponsored pot head hippy types got funding to teach an aborigine dialect to a bunch of economically disadvantaged kids because the last native speaker of the language was about to die. That’ll useful.

As I recall, Canada is bilingual and, in Ontario at least, all government employees must be competent in both French and English and answer the phone with both “Hello” and “Bonjour”.

[bob]

That is not true. We are nil lingual and in this way offend no one.