Taiwanese Hokkien

Spoken in

• Sino - Tibetan languages Chinese languages Min Dialect Southern Min dialect Taiwanese

Zh (Chinese Language )

Nan ( Min Nan ), zho ( macro language, Chinese languages)

Taiwanese or Taiwanese ( Taiwanese台湾 话Tâi - OAN - oē or鹤 佬 话Hō - ló - oē ;台 语Chinese, Pinyin or Táiyǔ台湾 话, Táiwānhuà ) is the mother tongue of about 60 % of the population of the Republic of China on Taiwan. The native speakers of Taiwanese are referred to as Holo ( Hō - ló ) or Hoklo.

In RFC 3066 Taiwanese has the name " zh- min-nan -TW ". The language has no standardization authority, but there are privately organized initiatives in this direction.

• 5.1 dissemination
• 5.2 Special forms of art
• 5.3 history
• 5.4 Taiwanese politics

• 6.1 aboriginal languages ​​of Taiwan
• 6.2 Taiwanese dialect of standard Chinese
• 6.3 Taiwanese languages

Classification

Taiwanese is a variant of Southern Min dialect (Min -nan ), which is spoken in Taiwan. Taiwanese is often seen as a dialect within the Chinese language. On the other hand, one can consider it as a separate language within the Sino - Tibetan language family. The decision whether Taiwanese is a dialect or a single language depends not least on political views. The classification may regardless be represented as follows:

The Taiwanese is similar to the language of the southern part of Fujian province, because most people in Taiwan have ancestors who immigrated from Fujian Province in the 17th and 19th centuries. Like the Min -nan dialect, the Taiwanese language has a colloquial version and a written language. The written language dates from the 10th century and was also developed in the province of Fujian. She came with the immigrants to Taiwan; it was formerly used for official documents, but is now almost extinct.

There are modern linguists that bring the structure and the basic vocabulary of the language with which the Taiwanese Austronesian and Tai - language families in conjunction. These theories, however, are controversial.

Phonetics

From a phonetic point of view Taiwanese is a tone language with extremely complex rules of Tonsandhi. Each syllable can have a initial sound, a vowel and a final position have, each of which can be nasally.

Consonants

The Taiwanese language has the following consonants:

There is no labio-dental consonants.

Vowels

There are the following vowels:

• Vowels

When o is a closed O, O · is an open O. There is next to a number of diphthongs and Triphthongen, eg iau.

The vowels m and ng are nasally, all others are not nasally. This but you can make nasally, by appending a ⁿ: a is non- nasal; a ⁿ is the same vowel, but nasalisiert.

Tonality

Taiwanese has seven tones, which are numbered from 1 to 8 (no error ). The second and sixth sound is the same. For example, see the syllable a in the seven notes as follows:

Frequently, the shades are shown on a scale of 1 to 5, with 5 being the highest and 1 the lowest. The notes look like this:

A syllable in the 4th or 8th tone (ie, the two sustained notes ) can p, t or k have at the end. Then the syllable can not be nasal. These three plosives be seen as the counterpart of the nasal Auslauten m, n and ng at other tones.

Nevertheless, syllables can be nasally in the 4th or 8th tone, namely, when they end up on h, such as sia ⁿ h

There is a zeroth tone that has a grammatical function and with two dashes ( - ) will be recorded in front of the syllable.

The dialect of the northern coast of Taiwan knows no distinction between the 4th and the 8th tone; both are pronounced as if it were a fourth tone.

Structure of syllables

Each syllable needs a vowel, diphthong or Triphthong in the middle. All consonants can stand as initial sound at the beginning of the syllable. Consonants p, t, k; m, n and ng (and h, which is a special case ) can be at the end of the syllable.

Thus, one can build syllables as ngiau ( scratch ) and thng ( soup). These two syllables are each nasal: The first has a nasal consonants in initial position, the other has a nasal vowel.

Tonsandhi

Taiwanese has extremely complex rules of Tonsandhi. This means that the sounds in a word group ( which can be a word, a thought or a sentence be - what this phrase is exactly in this context, is still being researched ) influence each other.

Vocabulary

The modern linguistics estimates that a majority of the words of the Taiwanese language has relatives in other Chinese dialects. This does not apply for about 10 to 25 percent of the words. But there are also many false friends, for example, the word Chau, which means running in Taiwanese, while the word zǒu means go in standard Chinese.

Writing system

In most cases, the Taiwanese language is written with Chinese characters, called Han characters. However, there are a certain number of special characters that occur only in the Taiwanese language and are sometimes used in informal documents. Sometimes Taiwanese is also a Latin alphabet, PEH oē - jī, written, developed and promoted by missionaries of the Presbyterian Church since the 19th century. Lately there are also texts that use a mixture of Chinese characters and western alphabet, this kind of texts is not (yet ) rare. There are next to other writing systems that are based on the Latin alphabet, the most important of these hot TlpA (Taiwanese Language Phonetic Alphabet ), Modern Literal Taiwanese and Tongyong Pinyin.

Sociolinguistics

( Zhangzhou in Fujian Changchew ) and Tio - chiu ( within the Min -nan -speaking Community of Southeast Asia is the pronunciation of Xiamen high-level language, the other variants are those of Choa ⁿ - chiu ( Chinchew Quanzhou in Fujian province ), Chiang - chiu Teochew; Chaozhou in Guangdong province ).

Within Taiwan, the high-level language is that of Tâi - lâm ( Tainan, southern Taiwan ). There are also

• The northern accent. Typical is the lack of the 8th tone, and that shift vowels (i for ' u', e of oe ).
• The central accent, especially near the port city of Taichung and Lok Kang ( Lugang ). This accent has an extra vowel between i and u, which is displayed as 'ö '.
• The north / north-east coast accent, from gi - Lan ( Yilan ). One recognizes him that the vowel ng moves here after ui ⁿ.

Dissemination

Most people in Taiwan speak both Mandarin Chinese and the Taiwanese language, although the degree of control can be very different. What language is chosen depends very much on the situation:

• In an official situation Mandarin Chinese is usually preferred. In an informal situation rather the Taiwanese language is spoken.
• In the countryside Taiwanese is more common, whereas Mandarin Chinese in the cities, especially in the capital, Taipei, is to be found.
• The older people tend to prefer the Taiwanese language, while the younger people speak more Mandarin Chinese.
• In the media, the Taiwanese language in soap operas, dramas and variety is used, documentaries and game shows are produced in relatively high Chinese.

Special forms of art

Chhit - jī -á is a typical Taiwan meter in which each rhyme consists of seven syllables.

There is a special form of stage performance, the Taiwan opera, in which the plot usually revolves around an event in history. There is also a Taiwanese puppet theater, which is found only in Taiwan and has evolved over the last twenty years, so that there are large puppet theater spectacle on television today.

History

In the 18th and 19th centuries, there were many in Taiwan unrest and armed conflicts. Some of these conflicts were resistance against the government ( both Chinese and Japanese governments ). However, there have also been numerous conflicts between the different groups of the population. These conflicts often revolved around the language. There are records about conflicts between the Hakka and the taiwanischsprachigen population, between those who spoke one of the aboriginal, and the population and taiwanischsprechenden however, under the Taiwanese -speaking people who spoke different dialects.

In the 20th century the distinction between the dialects in Taiwan is even more sensitive than in other regions of China. The dialect spoken differs the people who have come after 1949, the year of the founding of the People 's Republic of China and the end of the Chinese Civil War, according to Taiwan, by those who have long settled on the island. In the meantime, the differences have blurred both politically and linguistically, the political issues that revolve around the use of the Taiwanese language, but are still complex and controversial. The relation to the standard Chinese is particularly complex.

But even when the name is there is still no agreement. Many prefer the name Taiwanese language for the Taiwanese variant of Southern Min dialect, because this sets the language on the same level with high Chinese, Hakka and Aboriginal languages. Others prefer the name Min -nan (Southern Min dialect) or Hokkien, because it expresses that a variant of Taiwanese Min -nan language is spoken in Fujian province in today's PRC. Many reject these names from just this reason. You can lead with the Taiwanese long debates whether Taiwanese is a language or a dialect. In linguistics, the distinction between language and dialect is never a linguistic criterion; a language and a dialect are identical under purely formal criteria. The difference is the number of speakers, the amount of existing literature and especially the political status.

Taiwanese politics

The Kuomintang attempted until the 1980s, the Taiwanese language in favor of the standard Chinese, in Taiwan as a "national language " (Chinese国语, Pinyin Guóyǔ, language of the nation ') referred to displace. Thus, the use of Taiwanese in school was forbidden. In the electronic media, the amount of the shipments was limited in Taiwanese language. In the nineties, such measures have ceased. In the education sector Higher Chinese is still the dominant language; but it is possible to learn Taiwanese, Hakka or aboriginal language in school.

The use of the Taiwanese language instead of the standard Chinese is part of the movement for Taiwanese independence. However, the connection between politics and the language is not as strong as it once was. Who wants to win a political office in Taiwan, both Taiwanese and Mandarin Chinese must speak fluently. This applies both to those politicians who advocate independence for Taiwan, as well as for those who stand for unification with China.

The politician James Soong was the beginning of his career responsible for ensuring that Taiwanese and other local languages ​​were limited in the media. Later he was one of the first politicians, although for the unification with China were, but sometimes the Taiwanese language used in informal situations. Since then, the Taiwanese language, many politicians who oppose Taiwan independence talk on the campaign trail, even if they do not speak this language as their mother tongue and they dominate all bad. Conversely, use politicians who stand up for the independence, standard Chinese in formal situations. An example of this is the former president Chen Shui -bian, who spoke in all official speeches standard Chinese, during the election campaign or in less formal occasions, such as when concerning the delivery of new year greetings, he spoke Taiwanese.

Despite all these similarities, there are still differences in the attitude to standard Chinese and the Taiwanese language. In general, the proponents of unification with China think that while all languages ​​that are spoken in Taiwan, must be respected, but want a preferred status for Mandarin Chinese as a working language between the different groups of the population. The pro-independence think that the Taiwanese language or no language should have a preference. In 2002, a party proposed to make the Taiwanese language to the second official language of the Republic of China. This proposal was rejected not only by the proponents of the association, but also of Hakka and aborigines because they feared that their mother tongue would be marginalized. Others rejected this for practical reasons or they wanted to avoid ethnic tensions in the country.

In 2003, a debate broke out as a test for judges Chinese characters occurred, which are used only in the Taiwanese language. Ultimately, these issues were not considered in the calculation of the result. As with the discussion about the official language of the objections came here not only by those in favor of unification with China, but also of Hakka and aboriginal representatives.

Other possible meanings

Languages ​​of the aborigines

In the West, the term is sometimes used for the Taiwanese languages ​​languages ​​of the original inhabitants of the island of Taiwan. To avoid misunderstandings, it should be used in this case, the term aboriginal languages ​​of Taiwan.

Taiwanese dialect of standard Chinese

The term Taiwanese language is sometimes mistakenly used for calling that Mandarin Chinese, which is the official language of the Republic of China. This of about 80 percent of the population of Taiwan fluent spoken Mandarin Chinese is different though regarding vocabulary, grammar, and specifically the debate of Mandarin Chinese in the People's Republic of China, but the differences are much smaller than those between Mandarin Chinese and Taiwanese. The differences are similar to the differences between High German and Viennese. In modern linguistics, the Taiwanese version of the standard Chinese is called the Taiwanese dialect of standard Chinese.

Taiwanese languages

As a gesture of equality was proposed that all languages ​​that are spoken in Taiwan, to be called Taiwanese languages. This would all possible meanings that are mentioned in this article include, and seek Hakka, and local dialects among Japanese and English minorities.