On a narrow peninsula on the Southwestern coast of the island, the Dutch established a fortress named "Zeelandia", after the Dutch province of Zeeland. The peninsula was called Tayouan, meaning terrace bay. This later evolved into Taiwan, and came to be the name for the whole island.
This piques my curiosity as to the etymology of âTaiwanâ. This paragraph implies that the name for the island was of Dutch, not Chinese, origin.
quote: That China hardly had any influence in the coastal waters around Taiwan is apparent from the two following examples: when in the 1870's Taiwanese pirates captured American, Japanese and French ships passing the island, these governments protested to Peking, but the Manchu emperor said: "Taiwan is beyond our territory."
I did a google search that quote âTaiwan is beyond our territoryâ and came up with this same paragraph on several different sites. I fiddled around on google for a while using searchwords like âManchu, emperor, Taiwanâ, trying to flesh out this reported event with more details, but found nothing beyond the information in that paragraph. It doesnât say exactly what year this was supposed to have happened, who the Manchu emperor was at the time, what the outcome of the struggle with the pirates was, or what source this alleged quote comes from. Can anybody find any more data on this?
quote:Originally posted by mod lang:
From Wright's link:
This piques my curiosity as to the etymology of âTaiwanâ. This paragraph implies that the name for the island was of Dutch, not Chinese, origin.
The islandâs modern history goes back to around 1590, when the first Western ship passed by the island, and Jan Huygen van Linschoten, a Dutch navigator on a Portugese ship, exclaimed âIlha Formosaâ (meaning âBeautiful islandâ), which became its name for the next four centuries.
The last sentence: âThe Dutch culture was removed completely from Formosa and Formosa became an integral part of China until after the end of WW-II.â is an interesting argument for independence. Even if Formosa was an âintegral partâ because of proximity to China, it changed after WWII.
The second and third may not have that much about the Spanish and the Dutch, but they offer a lot of interesting materials for anyone interested in the history of Taiwan.
quote:Originally posted by mod lang:
From Wright's link:
On a narrow peninsula on the Southwestern coast of the island, the Dutch established a fortress named "Zeelandia", after the Dutch province of Zeeland. The peninsula was called Tayouan, meaning terrace bay. This later evolved into Taiwan, and came to be the name for the whole island.
This piques my curiosity as to the etymology of âTaiwanâ. This paragraph implies that the name for the island was of Dutch, not Chinese, origin.
I think you will find that the origin of this placename is neither Chinese nor Dutch, but Taiwanese, by which I mean Taiwanese aboriginal, not the Chinese Hokkien dialect which some people like to call âTaiwanese.â The name Taiwan originally refered only to the place now known as Tainan. Since that was the seat of government, eventually the whole island came to be known by that name. Some other place names of aboriginal origin are Jilong/Keelung and Takao (the old name for Gaoxiong/Kaohsiung.) There are many more.
***Adendum: By sheer coincidence, the answer to the origin of the word âTaiwanâ is explained in todayâs edition of the Taipei Times. It comes from a now-extinct Aboriginal language called Siraya, which was spoken in the area around present-day Tainan. Now some of the descendants of the Siraya are trying to revive the language based on notes made by a Dutch missionary. For the full story click here: Keys to lost Siraya culture found by family descended from aborigines. (This story also reminds us that Taiwanese aboriginal languages had their own Latin spellings hundreds of years before either Tongyong or Hanyu pinyin were even thought of, thank you very much.)
The Dutch was driven out of Taiwan by the last of the Ming generals that fled to Taiwan after the lost to Qing. The Ming general also stated that he was going to take back China. The Qing government cleared out the Ming general after they insured their control in China. It was after the Qingâs arrival in Taiwan that there was some sort of official Chinese control of Taiwan. It was limited to just a few officials. Taiwan was part of the Fujin province. It was later upgraded to a province in the late 1800âs, a few years before it was given away when China lost to the Japanese. All this occured with the Qing and the PRC didnât even exist then. Mao was 2 years old when Taiwan was given away to the Japanese.
Kerrâs book, Taiwan Betrayed and su Bingâs Taiwanâs 400 year History: The Origins and Continuing Development of the Taiwanese Society and People are sources of information. Kerrâs book was for a long time the only book widely available about Taiwanese history. The KMT actually bought the rights to it for a while and kept it from being published. I found a copy of it in my collegeâs library that was published in the 1960âs. Some Taiwanese Americans now have the rights to the book so itâs being published again.
Reviving this threadâstarted by none other than the legendary Richard Hartzellâto post a link to a nice feature in todayâs Taipei Times by Han Cheung, who revisits the 1620s in what is now known as Tainan during the Dutch colonial era. Cheung focuses on a little known attempt by a Siraya community to gain support from feudal Japan, including their trip to what is now called Tokyo. Itâs a fascinating story.