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Nowadays, with better Mandarin education, Taiwan Guoyu has become rare except in the older generation.
3.2.5 Aboriginal Languages
Each of the fourteen officially recognized aboriginal groups in Taiwan has its own language. These aboriginal languages are known as Formosan groups in Taiwan, and Yami (Malayo-Polynesian language) of Orchid Island. The use of these languages is highly restricted since the population of each aboriginal group is quite small.
Aboriginal people growing up in the environment filled with Mandarin and Hoklo speakers, the new generation has become more fluent in Mandarin and Hoklo than their mother tongues. Besides, Mandarin and Hoklo have served as the intergroup communication tools.
3.3 Evolution of Spoken Language of Taiwan
Since Taiwan has experienced frequent political transitions, the speaking practices of Taiwan have also received a number of influences from various ruling regimes. This thesis divides the evolution of spoken language of Taiwan into seven periods: before seventeenth century, European colonial, Koxinga, Qing dynasty, Japanese rule, ROC government to present.
3.3.1 Before Seventeenth Century
The exact ancient linguistic makeup of Taiwan is still unknown. Though now the majority of the population in Taiwan is Han Chinese, scholars still could not reach an agreement on when the Chinese acquired knowledge of the island and began to immigrate there.
Before Chinese immigration from the mainland took place, there were groups of
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early Austronesian language speakers. These Neolithic inhabitants cultivated millet, taro, yams, rice, and beans, and also lived on hunting and gathering from six thousand years ago. Collectively referred to as the aboriginal people of Taiwan, these non-Sinitic people significantly outnumbered other later settlers on the island until seventeenth century.57 That is, aboriginal languages, though without writing systems, were the most widely spoken languages before seventeenth century in Taiwan.
Due to the close distance between Taiwan and mainland China, the Chinese started emigrating to Taiwan, and after a few waves of mass immigration during the second half of the seventeenth century, Chinese composed the greater part of the population.58 As the number of Chinese immigrants grew, the aboriginal people that lived in the Western plain had more opportunities to be in contact with them. The value of Taiwan compared with the negligent management from Ming Dynasty. The Dutch was highly interested in developing Taiwan into a profitable colony for future exploitation since it was an ideal trading base with fertile land. As a result, the Dutch
57 Simpson, Andrew. (ed.). Language and National Identity in Asia. New York: Oxford University Press, p. 237.
58 Beaser, Deborah. 2006. The Outlook For Taiwanese Language Preservation. Sino-Platonic Papers No. 172, p. 4.
59 Chiung, W. T. 1999. Language Attitudes toward Taibun- the Written Taiwanese. Master’s thesis, University of Texas at Arlington, pp. 4-5.
60 Ming Dynasty did not regard Taiwan as its territory, so the Dutch invasion of Taiwan was not harshly intervened. However, the Dutch abandoned occupation of the Pescadores since Ming Dynasty claimed sovereignty over the islands and protected the islands with military actions.
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government needed laborers, and the nearby mainland China gradually became an important source of laborers. Furthermore, wars and natural disasters that was plaguing China also forced the Chinese to leave their homes to search for new lives in Taiwan. Thus, the number of Chinese immigrants increased rapidly. These Chinese immigrants were mostly from the southeast provinces of China so that most of them spoke either Hoklo or Hakka language varieties.
Nevertheless, during Dutch colonial period, the population was still composed mostly of the aboriginal people. The number of the aboriginal people was around one hundred fifty thousand to two hundred thousand while that of the Chinese was around five thousand to twenty five thousand and the Caucasians around three thousand.61 In other words, the most common language during this period was the mutually unintelligible aboriginal languages.
The Dutch language did not have much influence on local speaking practices. On the one hand, the number of Dutch people was relatively small and most of them lived in a few forts (such as Provintia and Zeelandia) and settlements on the western coast of Taiwan; on the other, their interactions with the local people were limited to trade, agriculture, and Christianization of the populace.62
Besides the Dutch, the Spanish also wanted to expand their power to Taiwan for trading purposes. After a few military clashes between the Dutch and Spanish, the Spanish successfully seized control of northern Taiwan, but its rule was severely obstructed and short. The Spanish also brought Chinese immigrants to Taiwan to work.
In 1642, the Spanish were driven out by the Dutch. In a word, the Spanish only had very minor influence over the linguistic makeup of Taiwan.
61洪惟仁，1995，”台灣的語言戰爭及戰略分析”， 發表於 1995 年第一屆台灣本土文化學術研 討會，台北：國立台灣師範大學，1995 年 7 月。第二頁。
62 Sandel, Todd. L. 2003. Linguistic capital in Taiwan: The KMT’s Mandarin language policy and its perceived impact on language practices of bilingual Mandarin and Tai-gi speakers. Language in Society, 32, p. 528.
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Some other European powers during this period had visited Taiwan, but did not leave any lasting impacts.
3.3.3 Koxinga Period (1661-1683)
Koxinga, one of the remnant force leader that strived to restore Ming dynasty (明 朝, 1368-1644), was mainly in control of the coastal areas of southeast China. After
being defeated in trying to retake the capital, Koxinga decided to retreat to Taiwan and transform it into a base against Qing dynasty. As a result, Koxinga successfully drove away the colonial Dutch government and then established another ruling regime, the first political regime set up by Han people in the history of Taiwan.63
Koxinga was from southern Fujian, and so were most of his followers. Thus, they spoke Hoklo language variety mostly.64 At the end of Koxinga regime, approximately one hundred fifty thousand Chinese people lived in Taiwan. From then on, the aboriginal people were outnumbered by the Chinese.
Hence, we could deduce that aboriginal languages and Hoklo language variety were commonly spoken while Hakka also played a role during this period.
3.3.4 Qing Dynasty Period (1683-1895)
Taiwan came under the official control of mainland China for the first time in 1684. During this period, poor Han Chinese kept moving to Taiwan to seize land despite several prohibitions set up by the Qing dynasty against immigration to Taiwan in the early stage. Due to the geographic proximity to Taiwan, almost all of the immigrants originally came from the two southeast provinces of China: Fujian and
63 Chiung, W. T. 1999. Language Attitudes toward Taibun- the Written Taiwanese. Master’s thesis, University of Texas at Arlington, p. 7.
64 Tsao, Feng-fu. 1999. The Language Planning Situation in Taiwan. Journal of Multilingual and Multicultural Development, 20(4 & 5): 331.
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Guangdong ( 廣 東 ). Those from Fujian were further divided into two groups according to their respective hometown prefectures: Changchou people (漳州人) and Chuanchou people (泉州人). These two groups of people were lumped together and called Hoklo. Their language has also been called Hoklo despite that they spoke different dialects of Hoklo. The third group that migrated primarily from Guangdong was Hakka and their language has also been called Hakka.65
Among the Chinese immigrants, Changchou people and Chuanchou people roughly consisted of 80% of them. In other words, Hoklo was spoken predominantly in Taiwan during Qing rule. On the contrary, those of Guangdong origin only accounted for about 15%, making the Hakka language occupy a marginal position in society.66
3.3.5 Japanese Rule Period (1895-1945)
Taiwan was ceded to Japan at the end of Sino-Japanese War in 1895. The shift of Taiwan from a Chinese territory to a Japanese colony undoubtedly brought a significant impact on the speaking practices of Taiwan. One of the goals of Japan’s occupation of Taiwan was to completely assimilate the local Taiwanese people into Japanese culture and way of life. Therefore, a strict language policy that aimed at the eradication of all local languages was imposed upon Taiwan.67
Japanese was thus promoted by the government and became the lingua franca of various language groups. Consequently, a large portion of Taiwanese population was bilingual, with their first language being either Hoklo or Hakka and their second Japanese.68
65 Hsiau, A-chin. 2000. Contemporary Taiwanese Cultural Nationalism. London: Routledge, p. 4.
66 Ibid.
67 Beaser, Deborah. 2006. The Outlook For Taiwanese Language Preservation. Sino-Platonic Papers No. 172, p. 3.
68 Chang, Mei-yu. 1996. Language Use and Language Attitudes among Taiwanese Elementary School
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Table 3-2 shows the percentage of the Taiwanese population able to comprehend Japanese during a 40-year span (from 1905 to 1944), as published by the colonial Taiwan General Government. By 1944, one year before the end of colonization, 71%
of Taiwanese understood Japanese.69
Table 3-2: The Growing Percentage of Taiwanese Population Understanding Japanese (1905-1944)
Year 1905 1915 1920 1925 1932 1933 1934
% 0.38 1.63 2.83 6.00 22.7 24.5 27
Year 1935 1936 1937 1938 1939 1940 1944
% 29 32.3 37.8 41.9 45.59 51 71
Taiwan local languages were severely suppressed; nevertheless, they did survive this period in a few different forms. Even though they were restricted to the private domain, many people continued to educate their children in their local languages.70 Although Japanese had become the dominant language in the public sphere, by the mid-1940s language use was stratified. The older generation relied on native languages, the middle generation had mixed native tongue/Japanese ability, and the younger generation tended toward use of Japanese. Local Taiwan languages were still quite active in other domains, however, and did not completely bow down under the influence of Japanese hegemony.71
To sum up, during this period, Japanese was the colonial and dominant language
Students in Native Language Instruction Programs: A Study on Language Maintenance, Language Shift, and Language Planning in Taiwan. Ph. D. dissertation, Indiana University, p. 68.
69 Li, Chin-an. 2008. Lexical influence of language policies on Taiwanese novel writing, 1924-1998: a computer-assisted corpus analysis. Journal of National Taiwan Normal University, 53(1): 66-67.
70 Beaser, Deborah. 2006. The Outlook For Taiwanese Language Preservation. Sino-Platonic Papers No. 172: pp. 3-4.
71 Brubaker, Brian Lee. 1995. Language Attitudes and Identity in Taiwan. Master’s thesis, University of Pittsburgh, p. 19.
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in the public sphere. However, in the private sphere, native languages such as Hoklo and Hakka were popular. Mandarin was rarely spoken.
3.3.6 ROC Government Period (1945 to Present)
When Japan was defeated in World War II, it was KMT (Kuomintang or Chinese Nationalist Party, 中 國 國 民 黨 ) that immediately sent troops and official representatives to Taiwan to take control. In 1949, the entire Republic of China government relocated to Taiwan after the civil war with the Communists in mainland China. Since then, more than one million Chinese people (including soldiers, officials, workers and refugees) that spoke various Chinese language varieties immigrated to Taiwan with KMT. And another language genocide was repeated.
Owing to decades of Japanese occupation, Japanese culture and language were ubiquitous, a phenomenon that made the ROC government unable to fully trust the local Taiwanese people. As a result, efforts to “de-Japanize” and “re-Sinicize” the population were launched. One of the policies was the promotion of Mandarin as the lingua franca.
Even though Hoklo language variety, followed by Japanese, was most widely spoken in Taiwan while the number of people able to speak Mandarin was quite limited, Mandarin was still proclaimed the National Language and the system of diglossia was imposed upon Taiwanese society especially during martial law period.
Thence, Mandarin was regarded as the only “high” language while all the other local language varieties were considered “low,” and this distorted perception of languages still, more or less, exists even nowadays. Proficiency in Mandarin thus became one of the necessary conditions to work or get promoted in the public sector and to obtain a higher socio-economic status.
Gradually, Taiwanese people became more and more fluent in Mandarin.
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90% of those born in Taiwan in 1965 were able to understand Mandarin in 1973.
By 1991, 90% of the population was able to speak Mandarin. A survey that conducted among students in the mother tongue classes in Taipei County in 1996 found that most parents spoke Mandarin instead of the mother tongues to their children. On average, nearly 72% of language use at home was Mandarin. Table 3-3 illustrates the situation.72
Table 3-3: Language Use at Home in Taipei County in 199673
Father to child Mother to child Between siblings
Mandarin 66.5% 69.7% 79.6%
Hoklo 29% 26% 14.6%
Hakka 2.4% 2.5% 1.4%
Aboriginal 0.7% 0.7% 0.4%
Others 0.2% 0.4% 3.4%
In summary, Mandarin gained its dominant status during this period while all the other local language varieties gradually lost their territories.
3.3.7 Present Situation
Although the government is no longer controlled by an authoritarian regime, Mandarin is still the national language, and the most widely-used language of the academic world. People are free to express themselves in any language they choose;
however, Mandarin remains the predominant language of the media.74
A research conducted in 2004 concluded that Hoklo spoke Hoklo language variety more fluently than Mandarin; however, both Hakka and aboriginal people
72 Li, Chin-an. 2008. Lexical influence of language policies on Taiwanese novel writing, 1924-1998: a computer-assisted corpus analysis. Journal of National Taiwan Normal University, 53(1): 68.
73 Ibid.
74 Beaser, Deborah. 2006. The Outlook For Taiwanese Language Preservation. Sino-Platonic Papers No. 172, p. 6.
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spoke more fluent Mandarin than their mother tongues. Moreover, the Mandarin fluency of Hoklo, Hakka and aboriginal people exhibited a continual drop from the young to the old while their proficiency in mother tongues moved in the opposite direction. As far as the younger generation is concerned, Mandarin is the common language of today. Fluency in Mandarin among the youth has increased tremendously while fluency in Hoklo, Hakka and aboriginal languages decreased by a large scale.
This lack of enthusiasm towards local language usage is the key reason that could lead to their demise. Education also had a great impact on Mandarin proficiency. People with high education spoke better Mandarin than those with low education.75
In public settings, Mandarin has always been dominant while the rest of the local language varieties mostly function in private domains. However, since the opposition DPP (Democratic Progressive Party, 民主進步黨) won the presidential election in 2000, the situation has somewhat turned in favor of a multicultural and multilingual society. To promote aboriginal and Hakka cultures, the Council of Indigenous Peoples and the Council for Hakka Affairs were established in 1996 and 2001 respectively;
moreover, Hakka TV Station and Taiwan Indigenous TV Station were founded in 2003 and 2004 respectively. After the establishment of the government agencies and TV stations, Hakka and aboriginal people have found themselves a powerful mechanism of preserving and promoting their mother tongues as well as cultures. The certifications of Hoklo, Hakka, and aboriginal language proficiency (台、客、原住民 語言認證) have also encouraged students to learn and appreciate the beauty of their
mother tongues. Academic institutes since 2000 have sprung up to do researches on these local language varieties.
In a word, although the speaking practice in Taiwan is still dominated by
75 Yeh, Hsi-nan, Hui-chen Chan, and Yuh-show Cheng. 2004. Language Use in Taiwan: Language Proficiency and Domain Analysis. Journal of Taiwan Normal University: Humanities & Social Sciences, 49(1): 99-100.
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Mandarin, Hoklo, Hakka, and aboriginal language varieties are gradually obtaining attention from people in Taiwan.