Taiwan dialect /Taiwanese

[bluepoppy]

It's not confusing, but it does slight the other languages spoken by non-MinNanHua speaking Taiwanese. It would be like calling English "American" or "Australian."

Taiwanese do call English '美語' mei2yu3 'American'. So I used to tell my friends I was learning '新加坡語'. Not that I am petty or anything.

Actually while the language is called Taiyu or Taiwanhua in Mandarin it is often refered to as Hoklo when people speak Taiwanese. This is also what the "majority Minnan speaking ethnic group" in Taiwan call themselves. I am not sure what the characters for Hoklo (if any) are or the exact origin of the word.

I didn't know you could write Minnanhua/Taiwanese in characters. Could someone give an example? Do they have their own characters like HK? I don't think I ever saw it when I was in Taiwan.

[gato]

For some writings in MinNanHua, see http://www.twl.ncku.edu.tw/uibun/english/writing/writing.htm (click on the selected works).

Here's one example, a story entitled "Granma's Private Savings":

1994 The prose "A-ma e Saikhiachi~(Grandma's Private Savings)" won the fifth prize in the "One Hundred Stories of Our Grandmothers" articles solicitation of "Women Right Promotion Association" in Taipei.

阿媽的sai-khia錢

http://www.twl.ncku.edu.tw/uibun/chuliau/sanbun/saikhia.htm

　　Se-han的sichun，kui家伙仔kap阿公阿媽toa做伙；he是半chng-kha的所在，因為若講草地，離車頭koh近近-a nia，騎車to免分鐘leh。He是hit種古早式的厝瓦-厝，頭前是一個phak chhek-a的埕kap菜園仔；聽阿媽講，本來lng-peng beh koh khi chhun-chhiu-a，毋過因為hit時手頭khah an，toaN-a無koh khi，kantaN tiam正peng khi一間豬-tiau kap雞-tiau；au-piah是chau-kha、柴間仔kap一台退休的老牛車，另外伊的to-peng是一間豬-tiau。

The page below has a good overview of sociolinguistics of MinNanHua as used in Taiwan.

http://www.answers.com/topic/taiwanese-linguistics?hl=hoklo

As a branch of Min-nan, there are both a colloquial version and a literary version of Taiwanese. The literary version, which was originally developed in the 10th century in Fujian and based on Middle Chinese, was brought to Taiwan by the migrants. Literary Taiwanese was used at one time for formal writing, but is now largely extinct.

In most cases, Taiwanese speakers write using the script called Han characters as in Mandarin, although there are a number of special characters which are unique to Taiwanese and which are sometimes used in informal writing. Where Han characters are used, they are not always etymological or genetic; the borrowing of similar-sounding or similar-meaning characters is a common practice.

When writing Taiwanese in Han characters, some writers create 'new' characters when they consider it is impossible to use directly or borrow existing ones; this corresponds to similar practices in character usage in Cantonese, Vietnamese chữ nôm, Korean hanja and Japanese kanji. These are usually not encoded in Unicode (or the corresponding ISO/IEC 10646: Universal character set), thus creating problems in computer processing.

In the 18th and 19th centuries, civil unrest and armed conflicts were frequent in Taiwan. In addition to resistance against the government (both Chinese and Japanese), battles between ethnic groups were also significant: the belligerent usually grouped around the language they use. History recorded battles between the Hakka and the Taiwanese-language speakers; between these and the aborigines; and between those who spoke the Choâⁿ-chiu variant of what became the Taiwanese language and those who spoke the Chiang-chiu variant.

Later, in the 20th century, the conceptualization of Taiwanese is more controversial than most variations of Chinese because at one time it marked a clear division between the Mainlanders who arrived in 1949 and the pre-existing majority native Taiwanese. Although the political and linguistic divisions between the two groups have blurred considerably, the political issues surrounding Taiwanese have been more controversial and sensitive than for other variants of Chinese.

The history of Taiwanese and the interaction with Mandarin is complex and at times controversial. Even the name is somewhat controversial. Some dislike the name Taiwanese as they feel that it belittles other variants such as Mandarin, Hakka, and the aboriginal languages which are spoken on Taiwan. Others prefer the name Min-nan or Hokkien as this views Taiwanese as a variant of the speech which is spoken on Fujian province in Mainland China. Others dislike the name Min-nan and Hokkien for precisely the same reason. One can get into similar controversial debates as to whether Taiwanese is a language or a dialect.

In 2002, the Taiwan Solidarity Union, a party with about 10 % of the Legislative Yuan seats at the time, suggested making Taiwanese a second official language. This proposal encountered strong opposition not only from Mainlander groups but also from Hakka and aboriginal groups who felt that it would slight their home languages, as well as others who objected to the proposal on logistical grounds and on the grounds that it would increase ethnic tensions. Because of these objections, support for this measure is lukewarm among moderate Taiwan independence supporters, and it appears very unlikely to pass.

In 2003, there was a controversy when parts of the civil service examination for judges were written in characters used only in Taiwanese. After strong objections, these questions were not used in scoring. As with the official-language controversy, objections to the use of Taiwanese came not only from Mainlander groups, but also Hakka and aborigines.

[gato]

Taiwanese do call English '美語' mei2yu3 'American'. So I used to tell my friends I was learning '新加坡語'. Not that I am petty or anything.

I also saw signs advertising the teaching of 加语 (Canadian English). I wonder how successful they've been in teaching kids speak in a Canadian twang as opposed to an American one. For instance, Canadians seem to pronounce "about" as "a-boat".

[ala]

There existed 平，仄，入聲 in archiac Mandarin but 入聲 disappears in modern Mandarin nowaday. But luckily , it is said our Minnan dialect still remain 入聲．Sorry, I am not able to give you an example about 入聲 because I have no idea about it.

Most southern dialects (Wu, Min, Yue, Hakka, Gan, Xiang) all have 入聲. I would say Yue's preserved it the best, while Wu is left with a glottal stop.

Only Wu and Min still have voiced consonants, some Wu dialects also have voiced implosives.

The naming of 美语，加语 shouldn't be surprising. Chinese traditionally named languages on location names, not on actual genetic relationship. This is why the Mandarin dialect used in Tianjin can be called Tianjinhua, while the much more different Cantonese is also just Guangzhouhua. 粤语 has been a recent development.

[Quest]

Back to the dialect tree. Cantonese seems to have been descended from 巴蜀语, but 巴蜀 is in 四川。So, what happened? Why is it only spoken in 广东 now? Also, 刘邦's base was in 巴蜀, I know he moved there later in his life, but what language did he speak? I assume many of his soldiers spoke 巴蜀语? Did he adopt 巴蜀 or 关中语 as the national language?

How different was 楚语 from 秦语 at the time?

[ala]

The highest echelon of society probably could all speak a common language (or pretty close variants), while also speaking regional languages. Somewhat like European leaders all being able to speak English today.

秦语 had "oi" rhyme and full Rusheng.

How different was 楚语 from 秦语 at the time?

古楚語 and 秦語 are likely to be very different languages, but 楚語 later became increasingly Sinicized. Words involving human action and body parts in 楚語 are quite similar to the Tibeto-Burman (藏缅) branch of languages. Some vocabulary of 楚語 remain today in Wu and to a lesser extent in Min dialects. It is possible the simplistic tonal system of 楚語 has influenced (or survived as) the kind of tone sandhi we see in Wu and Min dialects today. There isn't a lot of information for 楚語.

[ala]

【 文献号 】1-46

【原文出处】方言

【原刊地名】京

【原刊期号】199901

【原刊页号】33～44

【分 类 号】H1

【分 类 名】语言文字学

【复印期号】199905

【 作 者 】张光宇

【 标 题 】东南方言关系综论

【作者简介】张光宇 （台湾）清华大学语言学研究所

Excerpts:

2.5 吴闽方言关系 自罗杰瑞（1983 ）"闽语中的古方言词"以来，吴闽方言关

系的论述不数年已蔚为大观。这是东南方言关系中继客赣方言之后学界瞩目的焦点。底

下举几个例。

附图{图}《切韵》同摄三四等在汉语方言当中只有吴闽方言还有区别。吴语见于浙

南咸山两摄，三等元音较高，四等元音较低；闽语不限于咸山两摄，三等读[ia]，四等

读[ai]。

附图{图}咸山两摄三四等在吴闽方言都有高元音一读

附图{图}。这个现象遍布吴语全境，在闽语则主要见于闽南。

附图{图}第三人称的说法，南方方言一般只用"渠"，只有吴方言"伊、渠"并见

。闽方言多用"伊"。

附图{图}"麻ｃí＠③"这个以糯米蒸熟后捣碎制成的食品名称，在中国境内主要

见于吴闽方言区。

关于吴闽方言关系，周振鹤、游汝杰（1986）认为："闽语的主要渊源应该是东汉

三国时期的吴语，因为福建的汉人主要是这一时期开始从江浙一带迁入的。他们带来的

这一时期的吴语与当地闽越语言经过交融后，逐渐形成与今日吴语大不相同的闽语。"

（页15）"吴语历史虽然最为久远，但在表现形态上却不算最古老。因为三千年来它一

直受到不断南下的北方话的影响。比较原始的吴语特征反而保留在闽语里头。"（页38

）他们的看法用公式表述就是：闽语＝古吴语＋闽越语，吴语＝古吴语＋北方话。有人

把他们的推论简单化，认为"南北朝的吴语就是现在闽语的前身，当时的北语则是现在

吴语的祖先。"（丁邦新1988）后一段结论令人想到鲁国尧（1988∶200 ）"通泰方言

是三四世纪汉语北方话的后裔"的说法，实际上难以相提并论。

[Claw]

Back to the dialect tree. Cantonese seems to have been descended from 巴蜀语, but 巴蜀 is in 四川。So, what happened?

In the book The Languages of China by S. Robert Ramsey, it says:

Page 33: The exception is Sichuan in the Southwest. Like the rest of the South, Sichuan began to be settled early, and it too was populated and Sinified in about the same time frame. But in the thirteenth century the population of Sichuan and the entire Upper Yangtze region dropped precipitously. Just what caused this disaster is not totally clear, but it is suspected to have been due at least in part to a series of plauges (bubonic?) that are reported to have swept over the region around the time of (and perhaps beginning slightly before) the Mongol invasions. The net result was that the population of Sichuan was reduced back to the level of a frontier. For several hundred years the region remained stagnant.

Pages 39-40: Sometimes new waves from the North completely supplanted broad expanses of older varieties of Chinese. The most striking case where this has happened is in Sichuan (together with the immediately adjacent province of Guizhou and the northern part of Guangxi). This enormous area—Sichuan is the largest of China's twenty-two provinces—is entirely Mandarin-speaking in spite of the fact that it is geographically in the heart of the rice-growing South. Clearly the large-scale migrations into Sichuan between the sixteenth and nineteenth centuries, well after the historical formation of Mandarin in the North, fundamentally changed the kind of Chinese that was spoken there. The fact that Sichuan is dialectally one of the most uniform places in all of Inner China is further evidence that the varieties of Chinese spoken there have been formed relatively recently.