Taiwanese a Dying Language?

A lot of the twenty somethings dont even speak Taiwanese anymore, rather preferring mandarin.

Unable to speak Taiwanese, more like…

Unable to speak Taiwanese, more like…[/quote]

Yes thats what I meant. They are actually UNABLE to speak Taiwanese anymore.

TAiwanese is heading towards extinction on the island of Taiwan. Just like Japanese.

Unable to speak Taiwanese, more like…[/quote]

Yes thats what I meant. They are actually UNABLE to speak Taiwanese anymore.

TAiwanese is heading towards extinction on the island of Taiwan. Just like Japanese.[/quote]
I think you are quite right. Perhaps destined to become a minority language unless something is done in home and hearth to keep it alive…

sino-platonic.org/complete/s … nguage.pdf

I dont know if Taiwanese can resurge as far as the young are concerned unless the language of education becomes Taiwanese. Remember Japanese used to be the language of education and all the educated people of Taiwan spoke that language as a result.

I myself can hardly speak Taiwanese for long now (still can understand well though) after I switched to mandarin.

But I dont think TW mandarin is enough different from Chinese Mandarin as to be considered a separate language. But perhaps along the lines of French Canadian versus french French.

Or perhaps Osaka-ben versus Tokyo-ben.

[quote=“tommy525”]http://www.sino-platonic.org/complete/spp172_taiwanese_language.pdf

I don’t know if Taiwanese can resurge as far as the young are concerned unless the language of education becomes Taiwanese. Remember Japanese used to be the language of education and all the educated people of Taiwan spoke that language as a result.

I myself can hardly speak Taiwanese for long now (still can understand well though) after I switched to mandarin.

But I don’t think TW Mandarin is enough different from Chinese Mandarin as to be considered a separate language. But perhaps along the lines of French Canadian versus french French.

Or perhaps Osaka-ben versus Tokyo-ben.[/quote]
My wife (26) speaks Taiwanese fluently, as they speak it at home. They only speak Mandarin to accommodate me. Nothing wrong with her Mandarin, though.
In South Africa people usually speak a home language and English (official language along with 10 others, but the one spoken by most to all), which is used for education etc. Even small minority languages can prosper under such a system as in SA where you have third fourth or even fifth generation immigrants who still speak Portuguese, Greek or Italian at home.

Edit: If anything, one glaring problem is there aren’t any (at least not easy to find, or well advertised) places to learn Taiwanese if you’re a foreigner. Scores of Mandarin schools (unis TLI etc), but lacking in the Taiwanese department.

Not where I live! ALL the old people speak Hoklo, and most 20-30 year olds are equally fluent in Mandarin and Hoklo.

My kid’s a slow learner at speaking, as he’s processing three different languages at once. Poor kid.

I guess that’s Deborah Beaser’s article tommy525 linked to above - if so, I agree with her conclusions if not some of the reasoning. All the languages of Taiwan are endangered, except Mandarin. What’s happening now even in staunchly Taiwanese-speaking areas is that younger people are losing full fluency in the language - yes, they can chat with A-ma or their mates, but the proportion of Mandarin words in their speech is much higher. The creeping preference for Mandarin is claiming ever larger areas of the country, and more and more parents, even in rural areas, are just using Mandarin with their kids, because of a perception that Mandarin is cultured and gets you ahead, and Taiwanese is base, common, or degraded. Everyone above 30 will have experienced the KMT’s oppressive policy towards Taiwanese in schools, where speaking one word of the language got you humiliated, fined, or beaten. That treatment still has a powerful psychological effect.

So, the number of younger people with true fluency is dropping. The areas where Taiwanese is routinely spoken are shrinking. Society’s attitudes towards Taiwanese are still coloured by the martial law Sinicisation policies. If you want an education, want to do business with China, want to get a good job and move up in the world, you need Mandarin. Why bother with an outdated, debased language? That is the growing perception, lamentable though it is. Many in the KMT would be glad to see the language disappear, and many in the DPP are too inept to save it, even when they had eight years to implement solid policies to help.

I rarely hear young people in Taipei speaking Taiwanese, but when I visit the south, it seems most young people are speaking it amongst themselves.

I don;t think there’s any danger of it dying out any time soon.

Forgive my ignorance, but to which Taiwanese language are you referring? Are you talking about the mainland dialect of Min-Nan, or are you talking about the Taiwanese aboriginal languages?

Last I heard, the government is actually going to force elementary kids to learn how to speak Taiwanese and also write diary entries and emails with it, which IMO is a big WTF seeing how Taiwanese the dialect has no real set of Mandarin characters attached to them so unless the Ministry of Education standardizes it there’s no point to force feed kids how to write in Taiwanese.

Only recently to be more PC , we now refer to Taiwanese aboriginal languages as Taiwanese languages along with mandarin and hakka and minnan. This thread deals specifically with Minnan, which most people refer to as “taiwanese”.

Its true that while extinction seems far fetched at this point, it is being marginalized. Many are not able to converse in this language. Certainly not anywhere near their ability to converse in mandarin. Whereas a generation ago a lot of people no only were able to fully converse in it, they hardly spoke mandarin at all. And if they spoke anything other then Taiwanese, it most likely was Japanese.

Nowadays, especially with the younger set and especially in Taipei the ability to converse in Taiwanese is becoming much rarer.

I myself feel that my TAiwanese speaking ability is far far far below my mandarin speaking ability.

Whereas Taiwanese is in fact MY FIRST LANGUAGE.

English my second and Mandarin my 3rd.

They have an official set now.

a-gu.blogspot.com/search?q=Taiwanese+characters

And romanization works fine anyway.

Despite the ignorance and prejudice of people certain people, Taiwanese is alive and well outside of Taipei, even among young people. And it’s noticeable how many people are making a point of speaking only in Taiwanese to their kids or young people.

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The situation for the ‘Taiwanese language’ has improved dramatically in the last decade or so.
Those young people in their 20 and 30 who are not able to speak Taiwanese today were not allowed to speak it when they were in elementary school and were pushed away from the language.
That’s not the case anymore.

Talking about the Taiwanese version of the Sinitic Minnan language.

Well, the government wants to be seen to be promoting the language as a sop to the Southern greens, but their proposals are laughable. Schools have two hours a week of local language instruction, and though they have agreed on a romanisation system, most of the teachers haven’t been trained and some in the KMT are talking about writing in Chinese characters, which presents its own problems. Btw, I dislike calling Taiwanese a “dialect” because it implies a subordinate status and an improper linguistic classification. A dialect of what, exactly? Chinese? Chinese is a vast language family, as varied as the Romance family in Europe. A dialect of Minnan? Well, Minnan is a language group too, not a single language.

For more info on writing systems for Taiwanese, you can check my site (linked to in my signature).

I don’t know, I think that the danger signs are all there - reduced fluency in younger speakers, shrinking area of speech (geographically and socio-politically), political hostility from one party, apathy from the other. The perception of Mandarin as the superior language is entrenched, and getting more deeply so. Most of the people I am in contact with in the Taiwanese language community (those holding professorships, writing books, lobbying government etc.) are putting a brave face on things, but if you speak to them privately will almost all admit that they fear for the future of the language. A language can slide into moribundity with remarkable speed given the right factors - there are examples from Indonesia of languages with millions of speakers post-WWII which are now moribund and destined for extinction. If you go out into the streets of Kaohsiung or small-town southern Taiwan, you will hear the language spoken by everyone. But I think this masks the rotten core, the decline of the language which is ongoing.

I disagree. If anything, the people I know are becoming more and more sensitive to the feeling that their kids are going to know their mother tongues, no matter what the government, in its infinite wisdom :unamused:, tells them what to do.
I only wish the same groundswell of public opinion had been able to shape the language acquisition in my own country several decades ago.
Difference is, in my country, there are only a few pockets of people left who actually use the gaelic, whereas here, its only really in Taipei that people DON’T know how to speak Taiwanese.

I work at theworld’slargesttechnologycompany.com, in a department that is basically staffed by Top 10% graduates from the Tai-Da School of Engineering.
Their ages range from mid-20s to mid-30s. They all converse in Taiwanese by choice.
I also work in a building full of IT-based R&D and product development professionals equally at the top of their game, and conversation in the hallways and around the Smoke Pit is invariably in Taiwanese.
I work, as many of you know, out here in Tu Cheng Nature Preserve, out of town-ish, but still on the Blue Line.
Most days, on the street or on the bus, all I hear is Taiwanese.
I reckon there’s a much stronger prevalence among young and upcoming Taiwaners than there was, say, 15 years ago, when its use was relegated to blue-collar environments.
I also reckon it’s a lot harder to find Mainlander-only (whaddaya call them again?) families than it was 20 years ago.

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[quote=“sandman”]I only wish the same groundswell of public opinion had been able to shape the language acquisition in my own country several decades ago.
Difference is, in my country, there are only a few pockets of people left who actually use the gaelic, whereas here, its only really in Taipei that people DON’T know how to speak Taiwanese.[/quote]

Shee-it, I’ll take you to hang out with my Newfie in-laws, most of them never spoke a sniff of English 'til they hit school.
They get going, it sounds like someone threw IrishStu, Lord Lucan, and 3 crows into a blender.

[quote=“the chief”][quote=“sandman”]I only wish the same groundswell of public opinion had been able to shape the language acquisition in my own country several decades ago.
Difference is, in my country, there are only a few pockets of people left who actually use the gaelic, whereas here, its only really in Taipei that people DON’T know how to speak Taiwanese.[/quote]

Shee-it, I’ll take you to hang out with my Newfie in-laws, most of them never spoke a sniff of English 'til they hit school.
They get going, it sounds like someone threw IrishStu, Lord Lucan, and 3 crows into a blender.[/quote]
Yeah, but when all you really need to say is “squidburger or seal flipper pie?” or “cauld oot today, eh?” it doesn’t really matter what language you use.

:ponder: I don’t know, the chief, maybe those Tai-Da top ten percenters just speak Taiwanese around you so they can talk about you without you understanding them.

Try sneakin’ up on a few of 'em.

Put those ninja skills to use. :bow: