When I first arrived, I was told (I can’t remember by who) that Taiwanese was a dialect of Chinese, like Mandarin and Cantonese. As all three - Mandarin, Cantonese and Taiwanese - all use the same characters, I never had reason to doubt.
However, recently some one said that Taiwanes is NOT related to Chinese. Though, Taiwanese speakers have adopted Chinese characters. Can someone clear this up for me? Thanks.
I was told the same by a Taiwanese the other day. But i fiercely disagree with him and told him to come up with a prove to base his argument.
ax
Taiwanese, Cantonese, Mandarin and other Chinese dialects are kind of like sister languages. They are called “dialects” rather than separate languages because there exists a more-or-less uniform writing system that sort of unifies them. People spend a lot of time arguing about whether they’re really separate languages or dialects, but frankly I could care less. 
The relationship between them is rather like the relationship between Spanish, French, Catalan and Italian. French would be in the position of Taiwanese: it split off from Latin earlier (I think…can’t remember exactly) and so it retains some earlier Latin-y stuff (if this is coming back to me correctly). Taiwanese is a more conservative dialect than Mandarin (note the greater number of tones, the final consonants allowed on syllables, stuff like that; these are features that were seen in Ancient and Archaic Chinese, and are retained in Cantonese and Taiwanese, but not Mandarin (only final consonants allowed in Mandarin are nasals n, ng).
A prof I once had commented that Tibetan decided to go with a super-wacky alphabet (they stack consonants three and four high) to produce words that sound alike but are written differently; Chinese, on the other hand, went with characters. Not sure which makes life easier (I studied Tibetan briefly in the States – hearing that monk spell his way down those consonant stacks was an experience I assure you).
The basic relationship between Taiwanese and Mandarin are as sisters. However, like all siblings, they’ve had different experiences, and they’ve been exposed to different things, so they’ve picked up some baggage from other places (in Taiwanese, most notably from Japanese for obvious historical reasons).
Taiwanese has not “adopted” Chinese characters. The factions for “how we should write Taiwanese” are still at war, with some preferring Church Romanization, some a scheme using tonal spelling, some others preferring this system that uses silent symbols to indicate some kind of meaning in a Romanized word (I couldn’t quite get my mind around THAT one, personally), and others preferring to use Chinese characters, although with some additions. Anyone who wants to see this can go to the “tai wan e tiam” store on the first alley above McDonald’s across from Taida…they sell tons of Taiwanese books, and their sign has the character for “e” (which is kind of like the possessive “de” in Mandarin) which looks kind of like a drunken “xia4” for “down” in Mandarin. Hard to describe.
It’s fun, however, to read Taiwanese written in characters because people who don’t know that Taiwanese can be written with characters can’t figure out what the heck it says in many cases. I was on a plane once next to a Chinese guy and I had a book by Robert Cheng, who does research on Taiwanese. It just about drove my seatmate crazy, and he finally had to ask what kind of book it was because his sidewise glances weren’t enough to figure out what language it was!
From a linguistic perspective the use of the term dialect is incorrect to refer to languages such as Cantonese and Taiwanese. The term dialect is used purely for political reasons. China wants to be seen as “unified” and if the world really understood that there are about eight different languages widely spoken in China the “unity” of the nation might be more strongly questioned.
Another example of political motives for describing languages is in Scandinavia. Danish, Swedish and Norwegian are all referred to as separate languages, but they are in fact dialects.
A more correct use of the term dialect to refer to Chinese languages is to say that Taiwanese is a dialect of Minnan–the language spoken in Southern Fujian. Or to say that the Mandarin spoken in Taiwan is a dialect of Mandarin.
The basic test for dialects is that they are mutually intelligible. Someone from Taiwan can easily communicate in Mandarin with someone from Beijing although there may be some differences in pronunciation, grammar and vocabulary (much like the differences between British and American English which are also dialects).
Languages are mutually unintelligible. A Cantonese speaker can talk all day to a Mandarin speaker and the Mandarin speaker will have no idea what they are saying.
Yes, Taiwanese (or Amoy or Hokkien) is related to Mandarin, just as French is related to Italian and Spanish and Romanian, and Engilsh is related to German. The relationship is distant, therefore: people who speak Taiwanese and only Taiwanese can not communicate fully with monolingual speakers of Mandarin or Cantonese. By typically definition, therefore, they are languages, not dialects. The term “dialect” carries political implications, since a nation likes to promote the idea of unity regardless of linguistic realities.
I agree that “Taiwanese is a dialect of Chinese, like Mandarin…” note this doesn’t mean it is a dialect of Mandarin.
Minnanyu is a meld of two Chinese dialects. One is the ancient “Baiyue” dialect of a people inhabiting Fujian since over 1000 years ago, and which has links to Vietnamese. Invaders fron the Chungyuan culture several hundred years ago imposed their dialect. This is why many characters have two pronunciations in Taiwanese, a “colloquial” one from the old dialect and a “formal” one from the new.
Taiwanese was further influenced by Japanese and its Western loan words as well as Aboriginal languages.
Now the big influence is Mandarin, a similar melding to the original may now be taking place.
Re: ‘dialect’ vs ‘language’.
My understanding is that ‘dialect’ is used when the two are mutually intelligble - that is to say if someone speaking Taiwanese could be understood by a Mandarin speaker, it would be a dialect. As this is not the case, it should be considered a separate language.
Brian
Absolutely correct. But as previously stated, this is political. “We are all Chinese” and “More people speak Chinese than any other language”.
BTW, I had a Taiwanese friend (50 years old, well educated) argue this very point with me several weeks ago. He said that “language” is what a government says is official. Anything else is dialect. He continued by saying that Spanish spoken by Mexicans in the United States is not a language because the “official language” of the US is English. So much for “well educated”. 
Can all we say “brainwashed”?
I think the problem is that although the English word “dialect” is used to translate the Chinese word “fangyan,” they don’t mean exactly the same thing.
Anyway, anyone who claims that “Taiwanese” (actually Hokkien or Minnan or Amoy) is not related to Mandarin is talking out of their rear end - unless they are talking about the real Taiwanese languages - the aboriginal ones.
That’s a big problem, yes. In official Qing dynasty documents even Korean, Japanese, and Vietnamese were sometimes referred to as fangyan.
Some linguists have taken to using “topolect,” which is a fairly literal translation of fangyan.
di
What is the difference between Hakka and Taiwanese?
Completely different members of the Chinese language family. I remember hearing that there are several types of Hakka, and that they are the languages of groups who immigrated from north to south China many years ago but did not assimilate with the rest of the population.
In Chinese Hakka is Kejia Ren, which means ‘guest people’. As Daltongang says they supposedly moved form the North of China to the South but didn’t assimilate. I think they lived on marginal land. They were at the forefront fo the Chinese diaspora throughout SE Asia, so as well as having a lot in Taiwan, they make up a large number (perhaps a majority) of the Chinese in Indonesia. Singapore, Malaysia etc.
I think the language is sort of a bit different again from the other main Southern languages. Ask Ax. It’s his native tongue. There are a lot of similarities though. I think he said the formal numbers in Taiwanese are almost identical to the Hakka.
In Taiwan Hakka/Kejiaren have a reputation for being more conservative than (other) Taiwanese.
Brian
The Fiance speaks Hakka nd she says its more like Cantonese
[quote=“Taiwan boy”]From a linguistic perspective the use of the term dialect is incorrect to refer to languages such as Cantonese and Taiwanese. The term dialect is used purely for political reasons. China wants to be seen as “unified” and if the world really understood that there are about eight different languages widely spoken in China the “unity” of the nation might be more strongly questioned.
Another example of political motives for describing languages is in Scandinavia. Danish, Swedish and Norwegian are all referred to as separate languages, but they are in fact dialects.
A more correct use of the term dialect to refer to Chinese languages is to say that Taiwanese is a dialect of Minnan–the language spoken in Southern Fujian. Or to say that the Mandarin spoken in Taiwan is a dialect of Mandarin.
The basic test for dialects is that they are mutually intelligible. Someone from Taiwan can easily communicate in Mandarin with someone from Beijing although there may be some differences in pronunciation, grammar and vocabulary (much like the differences between British and American English which are also dialects).
Languages are mutually unintelligible. A Cantonese speaker can talk all day to a Mandarin speaker and the Mandarin speaker will have no idea what they are saying.[/quote]
You’re exactly right. I’ve taken several linguistics courses and agre with what you’re sayin.
Wow, you got me totally confused … not by the explanations tho… just that i was planning to study chinese in taiwan, after reading your posts now i don’t know anymore. what if they taught me taiwanese instead of chinese? or the other way around and then when i find myself in taipei no one would understand me? … help please!
Don’t worry. In Taipei about 95% of the poulation speak Mandarin (just a guess - it might be higher). Although Taiwanese is spoken in the majority of households, Mandarin continues to be the public language that you will here on the streets, in the workplaces and in the schools of Taipei. You’ll hear older people speaking Taiwanese mroe often, and further south there’s more Taiwanese.
Brian
IMHO, coming to Taiwan to learn Mandarin would be like going to the Louisiana Bayou to learn English. Before, Taiwan was a nice place to learn Chinese because of the many modern conveniences that it offered to Westerners, but with China catching up so quickly economically (even in the “back waters” of Xi’an where I studied 5 years ago, I didn’t have any problems adjusting), I don’t see why anyone would want to come here to learn Mandarin. It’s MUCH more expensive, you have to deal with a very strong local accent, and personally, it’s nowhere near as interesting as the mainland in terms of places to travel and historical/cultural sites to see.
What a load of bullocks.