The classification of [nan] Chinese (Min Nan)
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[Serendipitously, right while we are in the midst of energetic discussions over the classification of and terminology for the languages of Taiwan, I received a communication from the international body that is charged with such matters for all the languages of the world, namely, an arm of the ISO.
The following (after the page break) is a guest post by Janell Nordmoe, Registrar of ISO 639-3 Language Coding Agency. For those who are not familiar with it, "ISO 639 is a standard by the International Organization for Standardization (ISO) concerned with representation of languages and language groups." (source)
There have been significant changes with the publication of 639:2023, including that the decision on CRs rests with the Maintenance Agency, not SIL as Language Coding Agency for 639-3.
This link describes the four sets within ISO 639, the Maintenance Agency.
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New language code proposals for Taiwanese
While researching Taiwanese, I encountered your work in several places including Language Log, which led me to write to you. The short question I'm requesting your comment on is, how is Taiwanese distinct from Min Nan Chinese/Hokkien [nan] in terms of literature and ethnolinguistic identity?
The long version: In 2021 the Registration Authority for ISO 639-3, SIL International, received two requests to create codes for Taiwanese in the comprehensive set codes for world languages. They can be found at Taigi 2021-044 and Taiwanese 2021-045 (part of an 11-way split of [nan] Chinese, Min Nan) proposal. The consideration of these two requests was delayed due to the expected revision of ISO 639 (which was finally completed at the end of 2023) and is now underway.
Both change requests lack sufficient evidence from scholarship with regard to the creation of a new language code for Taiwanese as distinct from [nan] Min Nan Chinese, which both Ethnologue and Glottolog currently list as dialects of [nan] (in the case of Glottolog, Taipei Hokkien is a sub-dialect of Quan-zhang dialect).
According to the ISO 639:2023 standard, the distinction between a language and a dialect is based on the criteria below. In the case of Taiwanese, we have not found scholars making the case that Taiwanese is not intelligible with Hokkien/Min Nan/[nan] as in (a). The best case seems to rest on the distinct identity and distinct literature basis of criterion c.:
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Two related language varieties are normally considered to belong to the same individual language if speakers of each language variety have inherent understanding of the other language variety at a functional level (they can understand each other based on knowledge of their own language variety without needing to learn the other variety)
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Where spoken intelligibility is marginal, the existence of a common literature or common ethnolinguistic identity with a central language variety that both speaker communities understand is a strong indicator that they should nevertheless be considered varieties of the same individual language
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Where there is enough intelligibility between language varieties to enable communication, they can nevertheless be treated as different individual languages when they have long-standing, distinctly named ethnolinguistic identities coupled with established linguistic normalization and literatures that are distinct
Would you care to comment, for the benefit of the 639 Set 3 Language Coding Agency and for the 639 Maintenance Agency (MA) voting members, on the distinctiveness of Taiwanese from [nan] Min Nan in terms of
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Literature
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Ethnolinguistic identity
Articles and blogs describing Taiwanese tend to compare with Mandarin, or lack distinction. between Taiwan and mainland China where [nan] is spoken.
Selected readings