Taiwan(ese) Taiwanese
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This has become a hot button issue in recent weeks.
Do we need such a term? What does it signify?
Is there any other kind of Taiwanese?
We have Australian English, British English, and American English; we have Canadian / Quebec French and Belgian French and Louisiana French (I love to hear it), and Swiss French…; Caribbean Spanish, Castilian Spanish, Andean Spanish, Rioplatense Spanish, Canarian Spanish, Central American Spanish, Andalusian Spanish, Mexican Spanish…; Taiwan Mandarin, PRC Modern Standard Mandarin (MSM), Sichuan Mandarin, Northeastern Mandarin….
What's the contrasting / distinguishing term for "Taiwan(ese) Taiwanese"?
Here's an article in Chinese in a Taiwan newspaper that argues for the name of Minnan language on Formosa to be "rectified (zhèngmíng 正名)" as "Táiwān Táiyǔ 台灣台語" ("Taiwan[ese] Taiwanese"). Here's Chau Wu's reaction to the article:
EP0【台語的迷思】台語為什麼不叫閩南語？學台語的重要性是啥？｜台南妹仔教你講台語
Tainan: The 400-year-old cradle of Taiwanese culture (7/10/24)
[VHM: This is a worthy article, covering many facets about the history and culture of Tainan. What the author, Will Buckingham, has to say about Ayo makes clear that she is a treasure for the preservation of Taiwanese language.]
Ayo summarizes it very nicely: Tai-gi is a proper noun, which was developed during the Japanese era and this term has been in customary use since then. Even the dictator Chiang Ka-shek used this term. The situation is no different than the American usage of "English" in this country. This term is a historic term, and is a proper noun. Americans never give a thought to its nominal incongruity (a wrong language in a wrong country – Italian spoken in Italy, Icelandic in Iceland, Japanese in Japan, etc. But English in America?).
I think Chau put it very nicely, especially as he added in a subsequent note:
Taiwan(ese) Taiwanese — enough already!
Selected readings
- "Mixed script writing in Taiwan" (5/24/24)
- "A crack in the hegemonic edifice of hanzi" (5/23/24)
- Taiwanese, Mandarin, and Taiwan's language situation
- Dozens of Language Log posts touching upon American English, British English, Australian English
[h.t. shaing tai]
Philip Taylor said,
July 22, 2024 @ 7:34 am
For Chau (please forward if he does not subscribe here) — « In UK, is English called "English of England" ? » — No, it is called "British English", which is not only a phrase that is used in everyday speech but also the designation of the language in which my operating system operates, the language which my browser seeks in preference to any other topolect, etc.
Peter Taylor said,
July 22, 2024 @ 7:47 am
With respect to Philip Taylor's comment about operating systems, it's worth noting that Windows 10 (I don't have easy access to other versions of Windows to compare) supports 4 varieties of Italian (Italian Italian, Swiss Italian, Vatican Italian, and Sammarinese Italian. It's quite unusual for it to be more specific than nation-state, but the variants of Catalan which it knows are Andorran, French, Italian, Spanish, and Spanish (Valencia). I suspect that at some point the Generalitat Valenciana threatened to move to Linux if Microsoft didn't add that special case.
Benjamin E. Orsatti said,
July 22, 2024 @ 8:36 am
(1) It's true that there's no conscious incongruity when Americans think of English as the national language. We don't think of England when we say English any more than the English think of the Anglic Germanic tribe that gave the name to begin with. It's just "the language we speak", and the term "American English" is generally only called on whenever there's a need to distinguish it from some other form of mater lingua nostra, but even then, we don't _really_ mean "American English" (as if there were such a thing); we really mean the central Midwestern newscaster-speak variety, the closest analogue to which, in terms of use and dispersal, is probably on the continuum of BBC-RP/Estuary.
(2) What in the world is "Vatican Italian"? — I thought that was called "Latin".
David Marjanović said,
July 22, 2024 @ 12:27 pm
The Vatican does largely function in Italian; but are there any spelling differences between the four Italian-using countries or anything? (There are between the German-using countries, though they're tiny except for the lack of ß in Switzerland.)
Jonathan Smith said,
July 22, 2024 @ 12:29 pm
Haha to the article and to "台灣台語" but the comparison to English above is wrong — a rough parallel to "American English" vs. "British English" etc. would rather be (e.g.) "Taiwan(ese) Hokkien" vs. "Amoy Hokkien" etc. or something. That is, "Taiwanese" is *already* a conventional place-name-based renaming of the language(s) also known as "Taiwan(ese) Hokkien", "Taiwan(ese) Minnan" etc. — THAT'S why "Taiwan Taiwanese" is stupid.
As to why this language gets to be called "Taiwanese" but the Hakka(s) spoken in Taiwan, etc., don't, yeah, what Ayo said — very-long-standing convention. That said, it is not useful / correct to suggest that this language is in special need of the name "Taiwanese" because it's attained some statistically significant degree of difference from "Amoy Hokkien" and the rest due to borrowings from Formosan languages, Japanese, etc… the answer is still convention.
Fascinatingly, Wi-vun CHIUNG writing in Taiwanese at times uses "Tâi-oân" in naming the Hokkien(s) of Taiwan and "Thòi-vân" in naming the Hakka(s) of Taiwan — so in English we could have "Taioanese" vs. "Thoivanese" and so forth which would be awesome… "Taiwanese" would then of course mean Taiwanese Mandarin :D
John Rohsenow said,
July 22, 2024 @ 12:37 pm
Wkipedia quoth: "Taiwanese Hokkien (/ˈhɒkiɛn/ HOK-ee-en, US also /ˈhoʊkiɛn/ HOH-kee-en; Chinese: 臺灣話; Pe̍h-ōe-jī: Tâi-oân-ōe; Tâi-lô: Tâi-uân-uē), or simply Taiwanese, also known as Taiuanoe, Taigi, Taigu (Chinese: 臺語; Pe̍h-ōe-jī/Tâi-lô: Tâi-gí / Tâi-gú),[c][11] Taiwanese Minnan (Chinese: 臺灣閩南語), Hoklo and Holo,[12][13] is a variety of the Hokkien language spoken natively by more than 70 percent of the population of Taiwan.[14] It is spoken by a significant portion of those Taiwanese people who are descended from Hoklo immigrants of southern Fujian.[15] It is one of the national languages of Taiwan. "
Cornelius (Neil) Kubler said,
July 22, 2024 @ 1:27 pm
In 2019 the Chinese government news agency Xinhua published a style guide for reference by newspaper editors and website designers listing hundreds of banned and sensitive terms that should be avoided (新华社新闻信息报道中的禁用词和慎用词, https://cbgc.scol.com.cn/news/170417). Unsurprisingly, one of those many terms is 台语 Táiyǔ.
Victor Mair said,
July 22, 2024 @ 2:36 pm
@Neil
Now THAT is really revealing.
Philip Anderson said,
July 22, 2024 @ 2:42 pm
Unlike Philip Taylor, I wouldn’t say that “British English” is used in everyday speech, though most people are aware that American English is different. We just call it English unless there’s a need to draw attention to a difference (as we often do here). Of course those of us who use computers regularly know that it’s necessary to select English (UK) as a setting, but that’s the usual format – language (country) rather than adjective language.
In Europe, countries tended to coalesce around a language (even if some are peoples, but no longer independent countries). Some parts of Asia too, but not at all in the Americas, where not a single independent state has its own language.
NSBK said,
July 22, 2024 @ 3:00 pm
I've seen "English (UK)" and "English (US)" replaced with "English (Traditional)" and "English (Simplified)" in jokes/memes, though I suppose that's more of a reference to written forms than to spoken ones.
Rocs said,
July 22, 2024 @ 3:27 pm
"Unification" doesn't have to be under the name of PRC.
You can do it, theoretically, under the name of ROC.
Both Taiwan and the Mainland are still theoretically part of ROC as stated in the Constitution of ROC.
AntC said,
July 22, 2024 @ 5:24 pm
The official language in Taiwan is Putonghua ('Mandarin'), _not_ some variety of Hokkien.
Never the less, it's Putonghua with Taiwan characteristics. Contrary to what Prof Mair frequently claims, there are many (mostly young/under 40) people in Taiwan who are competent in only Putonghua, not (some variety of) Hokkien. (There were many years under the KMT one-party rule when all other topolects were suppressed; certainly weren't a language of instruction in schools.) That is: they'll claim to understand Hokkien, and indeed might well follow simple set phrases; but they're not capable of an extended conversation.
So it would be entirely reasonable for "Taiwanese" to mean the Taiwan variety of Putonghua. But language/naming things doesn't follow "reasonable" logic like that. When I first took an interest in Taiwan, it was confusing that 'Taiwanese' didn't denote the default language you heard on the streets most of the time.
Compare that with British English, it is both the official language and spoken (not just understood) by everybody (possibly with the exception of recent immigrants). And yet to Chau's question
In UK, is English called "English of England"?
It's called 'British English' (as others have pointed out), and it's not ridiculous to say so. (To Philip Anderson's point: of course whilst you're in England, by default "English" means 'British English'. Now I live in New Zealand, "English" means 'New Zealand English'; conspicuously to NZ-ers I still speak British English. This is mildly amusing to my family back in UK: conspicuously I no longer sound like I speak British English.)
So I think it makes sense to talk of 'Taiwanese Putonghua/Mandarin', and of 'Taiwanese Hokkien'. To call that bare 'Taiwanese' is denigrating all the other Chinese topolects (with Taiwanese characteristics) spoken in Taiwan, including Hakka, Matsu, Wuqiu, and especially insulting to the Formosan indigenous languages.
With all that said, and putting logic to one side, the PRC propaganda (so-called Taiwan newspaper) that Prof Mair quotes is clearly tendentious. So let bare "Taiwanese" said in Taiwan by default mean 'Taiwan Hokkien'.
Victor Mair said,
July 22, 2024 @ 6:29 pm
@AntC
"Contrary to what Prof Mair frequently claims…."
False.
I have often stated how sad I am that many / most young / under 40 people in Taiwan do not speak Taiwanese.
Your last paragraph misses the whole point of the newspaper article and our dissatisfaction with it. I think that some Taiwanese scholars may soon come on board to join Chau Wu in correcting you.
Philip Taylor said,
July 23, 2024 @ 3:52 am
« Unlike Philip Taylor, I wouldn’t say that “British English” is used in everyday speech, … » — I think that may well be true for people who (a) have no particular interest in language(s) per se, and (b) who mixed primarily with other white Britons. But as someone who is (a) interested in language(s), and (b) mixes on an almost daily basis with Vietnamese, Chinese, Filipinos/as, Ukrainians, Romanians and French (just the first six to come to mind — there may well be others — I find that I use the phrase "British English" in a regular basis when discussing with one of the previously named how best to express something in English. I make a point of saying "In British English we might say …" because (a) I know that in other topolects it may well be expressed differently, and (b) the person with whom I am speaking may well have acquired their idiolect from one or more persons who are not native speakers of British English.
KIRINPUTRA said,
July 23, 2024 @ 11:43 am
@ Victor
This topic has been a crazy mess for many years, and that article is a rough point of entry. I’ll just point out that:
— The article opposes the “台灣台語” (or 臺灣台語) moniker.
— Most people seem to agree that “台灣台語” is silly on some level.
— “台灣台語” isn’t meant to differentiate Formosan 台語 from non-Formosan 台語; it doesn’t translate as “Formosan Taioanese”. “Taioanese of Formosa” is a decent literal translation, but “Taioanese Formosan” might better capture the spirit.
— “台灣台語” is meant to neutralize the perceived (-as-politically-incorrect) exclusivity of the 台 in “台語”. In other words, counterintuitively, the emphasis is on a parallel (to Hakka, etc.) Formosanness.
— Notice the role of Quemoy Hokkien 金門福建語 in the saga as it has unfolded so far. (It seems to have been completely ignored.)
As for the underlying issue (“Taioanese”), we should keep in mind that:
— “Taiwan” (& cognates) did not chiefly refer to Formosa as a whole till the 1880s at the earliest; the idea of “Taiwan” as an alt. name for the Repub. of China only goes back three decades. Check out this interview (largely in Hakka, with Mandarin subtitles) with Ms. Kolas Yotaka (Amis herself) where she explains which tribe the Amis word “Taywan” refers to.
https://x.com/SuiTaibun/status/1508314402696863745
— The so-called “African” language is arguably — by some token — a form of Dutch, with (asymmetric?) mutual intelligibility on the same “order of magnitude” as Taioanese vs Hokkien. Everything is consistency.
KIRINPUTRA said,
July 23, 2024 @ 11:49 am
@ Jonathan Smith
“Taioanese” was a REnaming only to the extent that it was called (as it still is) “Hoklo” (& cognates). Away from the Hakka-Hoklo contact zones, what became Taioanese did not have a stable, specific name.
“Minnan” (& cognates) did not precede “Taioanese”; nor was pre-Taioanese called “Hokkien” (or equivalent) or “Amoy” (or equivalent). Outside of the Hakka-Hoklo contact zones, it was referred to situationally. Mackay in his memoirs generally called it “Chinese”.
Well said.
KIRINPUTRA said,
July 23, 2024 @ 11:50 am
@ Cornelius (Neil) Kubler
Except when referring to the Tai language family, right? ;)
Jonathan Smith said,
July 23, 2024 @ 12:31 pm
@ KIRINPUTRA
Good point; "renaming" makes wrong implications re: chronology — I should have said that "Taiwanese" is a conventional place-name-based *alternative designation for* the language(s) also known as "Taiwan(ese) Hokkien (etc.)". All such terms are kinda new…
FWIW accounts of names for this language/languages generally include Tâi-oân-ōe, place-name-based in the same way, but also plausibly older Lán-lâng-ōe, which is not (place-named-based) but still interestingly contrastive… any idea re: context in which this term emerged?
Also — the article quotes some authority saying (paraphrasing) "the term Minnanyu is used everywhere including say Singapore; if it is good enough for everyone else it should be good enough for Taiwan" — but I didn't have the impression that this term/cognates were typical in Singapore or indeed anywhere among the insular Southeast Asian diaspora. Correct or?
Chris Button said,
July 23, 2024 @ 4:21 pm
Wouldn't that be 泰 instead?
Chris Button said,
July 23, 2024 @ 4:42 pm
Oh wait, 台 for the Tai language family, but 泰 for the Thai language that belongs to it.
KIRINPUTRA said,
July 23, 2024 @ 9:53 pm
@ Jonathan Smith
Fair, although some of its cognates (such as “Taywan” in Amis) might not be place-name-based at all.
Almost certainly from situational use, alongside similar expressions like LÁN Ê ŌE 咱个話. In modern Taioanese, LÁN LÂNG CHA̍P-GŌ͘ 咱人十五 means the 15th of the traditional (E. Asian) month, while LÁN LÂNG CHA̍P-GŌ͘ HÒE 咱人十五歳 means “15 years old, in the traditional reckoning”. These usages arose in contact situations. LÁN LÂNG ŌE 咱人話 as a lexical usage only seems to exist in the Philippines, poss. only since 1920, once a second Chinese language (Mandarin) had become salient in (the highly literate) Philippine Chinese society. I’ve never heard LÁN LÂNG ŌE used spontaneously (lexically or not) in Taioanese or in Straits Hokkien; not sure about LÁN LÂNG Ê ŌE 咱人个話, which might not leave an impression in Formosa (and might not make sense in the Straits).
You’re right, they’re not. Was the academic truly ignorant, or did the writer misquote him? Was the academic once misinformed by a Chinese Malaysian student-immigrant (typically Neo-Chinese nationalists, to fetishistic proportions) that everybody calls Hokkien “闽南语” in his homeland? The possibilities are exhausting.
Min said,
July 24, 2024 @ 1:06 am
Olympic. Paris 2024. No Taiwan team. Only "Chinese Taipei".
Why don't they change? Black hand from Beijing.
For the last 8 years, DDP was in control of the Congress.
President Tsai was also DDP (as opposed to the "evil pro-Beijing Nationalist (KMT)".
They did not abolish the term ROC and create their favorite "Republic of Taiwan".
They are good at all these little dramas.
What do you think:
https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=61560319677788
Min said,
July 24, 2024 @ 3:07 am
"Don't have the guts to declare independence. Only play with little dramas instead":
https://www.facebook.com/story.php?id=61560319677788&story_fbid=122119869308343989
Min said,
July 24, 2024 @ 9:18 am
Amendment:
DDP should be DPP (Democratic Progressive Party).
“Oy vey! The news network you cited from belongs to the pro-China, pro-"Re-unification" United Daily News organization (Note: PRC has never controlled Taiwan, and the latter has never been part of the former, so why call it "re-unification"?). Of course, their reporters will seek out opinions from the so-called scholars who would spit out such non-sense.”
I am not sure if you are trying to relate “Unification” with the word “United” from “United Daily News organization”. If it is of yes, then it may disappoint you. You could look up online and see why it is called “United”.
Even if it is about “Reunification”, it does not have to be done under the name of PRC. Both the Mainland and Taiwan were once ruled in the name of ROC at the same time. The Constitution of ROC, up to this moment, still states that the Mainland is still part of ROC.
Of course you can stay away from “such non-sense” by ignoring reports from this press. You have that wonderful “sandwich” (三“民”“自”)* to suit your appetite.
* Note: In Taiwan, there are three media nicknamed as “三明治” (San Ming Zhi）("sandwich")： “三”(san)立電視, “民”(min)視,“自”(zhi)由時報. They have such a "good" reputation of broadcasting the ideas and opinions from DPP.
James Wimberley said,
July 24, 2024 @ 9:54 am
My reading of the Valencian situation is different. Valencian is a dialect of Catalan. The non-secessionist Valencians want to keep using it, but not to be identified with those lunatics in Barcelona. So they have invented and promoted a Valencian language as a convenient myth. Google for one isn't buying it. My Google homepage (I live in Spain) states that "Google is offered in Español catala galego euskara", reflecting a professional understanding of linguistic differences.
Rodger C said,
July 24, 2024 @ 12:37 pm
What James Wimberley said. I've known Valencians who insisted that their dialect was a language because of no reduced vowels etc. But in fact the main dialect division in Catalan is between Eastern Catalonia (etc.) on the one hand and Western Catalonia and Valencia on the others.
Victor Mair said,
July 24, 2024 @ 12:44 pm
From Chau Wu:
Please see a recent article in Liberty Times on this topic, written by a Master's degree holder in Taiwan Studies. It gives a clear historical perspective of the term "Taigi".
https://talk.ltn.com.tw/article/paper/1658205
It confirms my statement in your post:
"Tai-gi is a proper noun, which was developed during the Japanese era (underline added just now) and this term has been in customary use since then."
I also said even the dictator Chiang Kai-shek used this term (i.e., 台語). Here's a picture of the cover of a 1958 book as a proof.
(VHM book cover photo omitted in this comment)
Winnie said,
July 24, 2024 @ 3:31 pm
Dictator, dictator, dictator. Are you trying to seek endorsement from a dictator? If it is the case, then I feel so embarrassed for you.
Dictator is to be cursed and demystified. It is now 2024, not 1964. Why DPP did not declare independence for the last 8 years? Try to do something the dictator Chiang Kai-shek had not done to show that how democratic progressive you are.
KIRINPUTRA said,
July 24, 2024 @ 11:51 pm
Way to go. It may surprise distant observers, but the record shows that the SOUTHERN MIN 閩南語 set of terms entered Formosan society top-down via the Chinese Nationalist dictatorship — *after* the dictatorship caught on to the dictatorship-destroying potential of “Taioanese” (language name). (The record also shows that the SOUTHERN MIN 閩南語 set of terms only spread through Hokkien-speaking China from the early 1900s, again in step with the Chinese Nationalist project.) So the Chinese Nationalists called Taioanese “Taiwanese” (台語) when they first arrived. They must have assumed this was just a language named after its province, like “Cantonese”, or “Szechwanese” (to use an example that Chinese Nationalists tend to fall back on), or (in the Malaysian context) “Kwongsai” 廣西.
In some sense, though, Taioanese *is* named after … the Taiwan province, in the abstract. Again, distant observers may be surprised, but much of the support for “Taiwanese” (language name) & its cognates comes from people who are — for better or worse — loyal to both the Chinese nation in the abstract (i.e., neither of the republics) and the abstract, spiritual province of Taiwan.
Chas Belov said,
July 26, 2024 @ 3:09 am
AntC said
My understanding was it way Guoyu (Mandarin, literally National Speech) rather than the PRC designation of Putonghua.
I could be wrong as I learned the National Speech term in my Cantonese course.
Chas Belov said,
July 26, 2024 @ 3:10 am
*was it was
Chris Button said,
July 26, 2024 @ 11:30 am
Would they not have used the stroke-heavy 臺 for 臺語 back then?
Would certainly help distinguish it from the 台 "Tai" as opposed to 泰 "Thai" distinction noted above.
KIRINPUTRA said,
July 26, 2024 @ 12:21 pm
(To add, as a response to something somebody said off site —) This matter of names is distinct from the (perhaps more interesting) question of whether Taioanese (台語) is a language apart from Hokkien, etc., as a matter of social reality.
KIRINPUTRA said,
July 26, 2024 @ 12:35 pm
(Officially? I think so. 臺灣話, 臺語, etc.) Here I meant not just "Taiwanese" (in English) or "台語" (in sinographic representation), but all the various spoken equivalents, not only in Taioanese itself or Mandarin, but also in Cantonese, Shanghainese, Hakka, etc.
Come to think, I've never heard Shanghainese-speaking 49ers call Taioanese anything but "臺湾閑話" (≈ Taiwanese) in Shanghainese….
Jonathan Smith said,
July 26, 2024 @ 1:22 pm
@KIRINPUTRA
It makes sense that Chiang et. al. would come to see "Minnanyu" as rhetorically preferable to "Taiyu" — the former, while not pan-Chinese per se, can be read as evoking a putative cross-strait linguistic and cultural unity (cf. continuing efforts relating to Matsuism.) Whatever the specifics of how this terminology was deployed in early R.O.C. period Taiwan (which would be most interesting to learn more about), a result has evidently been that the term "Minnanyu" and relatives is pretty well skunked in green-leaning circles.
However, I would still point out that "Min" in reference to language is in origin a nerdview term from dialectology / historical linguistics, always referring (along with Minyu / Minnanyu~hua / etc.) to hypothetical language groupings. For instance, Wang Li (1936, 中國音韻學) uses "Min" (plus "Yue", "Wu", "Guanhua", and "Kejia") in his tentative description of the Chinese linguistic situation (now looking specifically at p. 279 second volume, his account of the extent of "Min" is as follows: "包括福建之大部份，及潮州汕頭瓊州等処。其在國外最佔勢力的地方是馬來半島，新加坡，蘇門答臘，台灣，菲律賓等處。") Same in Li Fang-Kuei's finer-grained account of 1937 (who wrote "Minyu" I think) or Tung Tung-ho later, who ended up in Taiwan with the Institute of History and Philology in the early 50's and began doing interesting survey-style work on "Minnan" — again always in reference to a group of apparently related languages.
FWIW Wang Li worked at first on the languages of Bobai county in Guangxi… Li Fang-Kuei famously worked on Tai and on indigenous languages of the Americas… Tung Tung-ho spent his last years working on Formosan languages. It is hard to see the term "Min" or work on Min as part of n/Nationalist project per se, especially given that "Min"/"Wu"/"Yue" could be considered to refer explicitly to non-Chinese peoples/polities.
TL;DR "Min" etc. was and remains a hypothetical linguistic grouping; from such a POV it would be weird to assert (e.g.) "I speak Minnanyu," as I've pointed out on here before. So the interesting question to me is how/when this scientific language was co-opted for political purposes in Taiwan.
KIRINPUTRA said,
July 27, 2024 @ 7:00 am
Among other things, I wanted to point out that the term BÂN-LÂM 閩南 suddenly came into vogue among local (i.e., not Formosan) literati c. the 1910s, when what I’ve neutrally called the Chinese Nationalist project really took off. All that is good & well enough.
Nobody said it was, but — come to think — maybe there’s a good bit of overlap….
Also, how did the 1930s Fathers know in advance that MIN was going to be a thing, if the evidentiary basis for the lang. fam. didn’t come together till the last 60-odd years? Was there no non-scientific predisposition towards such a conclusion at all?
And how (besides a few drops of Neo-Chinese nationalism) do we explain the English translation of 閩 being invariably & insistently “Min”, via a random (?) language external to the flock?
This assumes that using the MIN or SOUTHERN MIN terms to refer to languages began with the linguists, maybe in the 1930s. But how sure are we that it did? (I’m not saying this is not plausible. It is.)
BTW, SOUTHERN MIN terms referring to a language are attested in the Taioanese Church literature from Dec. 1950 at the latest. One would have to have decent knowledge of & access to, say, Nationalist-era Banlam-region (if you will) publications to be able to know when the usage started to get around on the continent.
The Chiangs didn’t care about that stuff per se. In any case, the loaded notion of Taiwan as a (spiritual, at least) province packs all the Sino-unity a body could need. The Chiangs didn’t get this; the Anglophone media doesn’t see that forest either. Formosa can’t be the province of Taiwan & become a nation at the same time — although there are co-existing blocs that represent one vision or the other, or talk up one vision while walking the other.
The Blue-Green overlay is shallow, not conducive to modeling reality. For ex., some folks favor the SOUTHERN MIN terminology not for Chinese reasons, but for the sake of what ethnic equality or harmony as-they-see-it. Others favor the TAIWANESE terminology not for Formosan-nationalist reasons, but (subconsciously) b/c it is proper (in the Confucian sense) in light of “Taiwan” being — spiritually, to them — no less than its own province (as of the 1880s). Both of these groups will tend to be a lighter shade of Green.
Jonathan Smith said,
July 27, 2024 @ 11:27 pm
"The truth never hurts": a working and doubtless overly hopeful hypothesis, idea being that, like a kid getting a shot, a reasonably rational person will in the end never find their idiosyncratic beliefs/commitments damaged beyond repair by exposure to facts. Just as no-one's world should be destroyed by the fact that Southern Min/Minnan wasn't/isn't a single language as it is presented in the academic literature, there is by the same token nothing to fear in the early 20th century emergence and later iterative refinement of the notion of a group of genetically related languages spoken in/around Fujian province and called (in the scheme of things arbitrarily) "Min". I don't see how thinking in terms of conspiratorial "Fathers," closeted nationalists, etc., makes any sense or more to the point is of any use here. Or tell me why I'm wrong. (FWIW the specific, caveated linguistic reasons Wang Li grouped these particular languages as "Min" are listed a page or two over in that same book.)
IDK the answers to the questions about the ultimate origins of the "Min" terminology with respect to language but am certainly interested in them… for fun allow me to speculate that the popularity of "Minnanyu" / "Bân-lâm-gú~gí" in southern Fujian (maybe specifically Amoy/Choan-chiu?) to refer to the local vernaculars (contrast with the marked oddness of calling say the local language of Guangzhou "Jyut6jyu5", etc., etc.) could be due to developments in Taiwan post-'49.
KIRINPUTRA said,
July 28, 2024 @ 3:51 am
You're reading something into my shorthand that's not there.
Sure. But "Min" (in English) is still a purely academic usage. It seems far from unreasonable to question it and modify or replace it accordingly. (As opposed to popular usage, e.g. people of Japanese descent being referred to as "chinos" in Latin America, incl. by themselves. In that case the useful scholarly response is of course to take note & take notes.)
Makes sense! The use of -GÚ 語 strongly suggests a non-People's Republic source.