From: chou@cs.washington.edu (Pai Hsiang Chou)
Newsgroups: soc.culture.taiwan
Subject: Languages vs. Dialects, suppression
Keywords: Caucasian vs Asian-American
Date: 14 Aug 92 22:40:46 GMT
Organization: Computer Science & Engineering, U. of Washington, Seattle

In article <liang.713638841@ash.cs.scarolina.edu> liang@cs.scarolina.edu (Da Dong Liang) writes:
>chou@cs.washington.edu (Pai Chou) writes:
>>...people Taiwan lived in their homeland for hundreds of years.  They
>>did not immigrate to a new land.  Why are their languages
>                                                 ^^^^^^^^^
>I would like to suggest you use dialects rather than languages when
>you (and many others on this newsgroup) come to talk about Taiwanese
>dialect (or Ming3 Nan2 Hua4) which is also spoken by people in southern
>Fujian. Foreigners will get confused when you talk about Chinese languageS.
>Then how many languages are there in Taiwan? 2k probably if you count
>all the dialects. 


The Chinese word "fang1yan2" is not a well defined term.
When most people say "fang1yan2" they really mean
"political dialects."  In Tang dynasty, even Korean,
Japanese, Vietnames, Mongolian, Manchu, etc., were all
considered "fang1yan2."
That is, traditionally Chinese regard any non-official
language a "fang1yan2."  I don't see how my usage of
the term would cause any "foreigners' confusion."

The term "min3nan2hua4" is an inaccurate term to refer to
H"ol"o.  The Ministry of Education commissioned Professor
Chao YuanRen to survey languages in China, and MinNan was
only a geographical region, not a linguistic region.
The MinNan area included ChaoZhou but ChaoZhou's language
is not H"ol"o.  Professor Chao was unable to finish his
survey of the Minnan region due to the war, and later
acknowledged that the term Minnan is a false linguistic
classification.

I use the term "dialect" only to refer to mutually
intelligible ones.  They differ in accent (i.e.
articulation, sandhi tone rules, ...) and vocabulary,
but it is possible to find a common underlying model
to capture them.

Taiwan's languages include H"ol"o, Hakka, Aboriginal
languages, and Taiwan Mandarin.  There were over 20
Aboriginal languages in Ching dynasty, but over half 
of them were lost from the contact and assimilation
with H"ol"o and Hakka.  Taiwanese H"ol"o has many
dialects, characterized by
- their vowel contrast ([i] vs. [y] vs. [u])
- sandhi tone rules ([low-to-middle] => [middle leve] vs. => [low level]),
- the "high enter tone" ([high short] vs. [middle level])
- vocabulary (e.g. 3 words for the word "bicycle")
- and many more..
It is becoming more difficult to categorize them in terms
of geography due to the mobility of the people.

There are also several Hakka dialects/accents, but
I don't know enough to make any comment about them.


>I don't know if KMT really attempted to eliminate Taiwanese dialects. 
>If so, that is definitely wrong.

The evidence of suppression has been enumerated many times, so
I will just summarize my point.
In schools, many students were punished (physical or monetary)
for using their mothertongue at school.
In 1972 the broadcast laws put strict quota on non-mandarin languages,
and allowed the airtime only during non-primetime hours.  In fact,
foreign language programs received twice the quota as all
non-Mandarin Taiwanese languages combined.  Many TV dramas
portrayed non-Mandarin speakers as low-class clown type characters.

The language suppression started before KMT was still in China.
Even as late as 1941 to 1943, KMT was still banning the wearing
of Miao dress and the speaking of the Miao language.
Chinese authorities were ready to assimilate anyone
who adapted to a Chinese way of life, but anyone who
did not do so would be met with scorn and intolerance.

The damage is not only linguistic, but also psychological.
It takes more than additional airtime to heal this wound.


>But the official spoken dialect (Mandarin) of 
>ROC was enacted back in 1910s(?) by the National Parlirmentary. And
>after WWII Taiwan was returned to ROC. So it is legitimate to 
>use Mangarin in school and office while you can speak other dialects at home.



The ministry of Education announced plans to hold a conference
on unification of pronunciation in 1912, within a few months
after the overthrow of Ching dynasty.  The first meeting
was held on Feb 15, 1913  (Taiwan was not part of China at
this time.)  The purpose was to establish a standard
pronunciation of the characters, both written and spoken,
and adopt a set of phonetic symbols for these basic sounds."
However, iniviations had been passed out more on the basis
of political considerations than linguistic expertise.

The meeting came down to be a North vs. South battle.
The Mandarin dialects, which cover a stretch from north of
Guangxi, Yunnan all the way to Manchuria, and as far as
Gansu, had the largest group of mutually-intelligible
speakers.  It had also been the official speech, and was
used at the very meeting.  The Mandarin speaking area
was larger in both area and population than the Southern
areas combined.  Southerners, however, countered
that this Northern language was not acceptable because it had
not preserved many indispensable distinctions that are in
the Southern languages.  Note that Southern languages are
mutually unintelligible, partly due to the mountenous geography
and therefore less mobility. 

The conference reached a deadlock.  It was also full of
naive, uneducated arguments.  After 3 months of bitter
struggle, the Mandarin faction won.  They borrowed the
word GuoYu from Japanese "kokugo" to call this official
language.

As a compromise to appease the Southerners, in 1919
the first Guoyin dictionary marks the 5th tone, also
know as the "entering" tone, even though it has been
lost in the Mandarin speaking area.  Professor Chao
Yuan Ren was the only one who could produce it, but
it sounded like a new language noone had ever heard
before.  Even though they made records they proved
to be futile after 13 years of struggle, and eventually
gave up on this tone.

The dilemma was that the newly formed Republic was
supposed to commit itself to the democratic principles
of the people's rights and dignity, and it is unfair
to condemn millions of citizens to a permanent linguistic
handicap.  In fact, in the 1930's it became a political
battle.  Some argued that a single Mandarin standard
for would doom non-Mandarin speakers to illiteracy (in
their own languages) and effectively to second class
citizenship; a single standard would work only to the
advantage of the bourgeoisie.  There is certainly some
truthfulness of this prediction in Taiwan.


The question is not whether or not Mandarin should be
the official language for Taiwan.  Official languages
existed long ago, but the question is why the official
language should threaten the very existence of people's
mothertongues?  Education by ignorance is not education.



>In fact, WSR also spoke their dialects. And not surprising, their
>second generation can only speak Mandarin. If BSR can complain about their
>dialect, so do those WSR. This, again, is similar to those old immigrants from
>Germany, Italy, Greece, etc., and the new immigrants from China, Korea, Russia,
>Vietnam, etc., in the States who have to learn and use English in school and
>office while speak their native tongues at home.

No, I made this very point in the previous article that
the analogy is invalid, because the roles are reversed.
The 49ers were immigrants.  The so-called BSRs are NOT immigrants,
they have lived their for generations, and have developed their
own culture.



>>forced to die?  Is someone trying to change the Taiwanese
>>identity to something artificial (the model Chinese citizen for
>>the entire China to emulate)?
>
>Can we say that Taiwan is a melting-pot? I can't see anything wrong to be a
>melting-pot. 


Unfortunately education hasn't taught Taiwanese how to respect
others and themselves, only to conform to some central ruling.
For decades students were fed the fairy tale of this utopian
China, and how other foreign thieves and communists destroyed
this beautiful dream.  They were never taught how minorities
throughout history were suppressed and their cultures lost.
They have been condemned for merely expressing things in their
mothertongues.  How will this kind of "melting pot" work??


>I have been puzzled for a long time by the word 'Taiwanese'. Some people
>refer it to BSR who speak Ming Nan Hua, while others refer it to ROC 
>citizen (especially American media). If it's former, then how to define
>those native Taiwanese (Gao1 Shan1 Zhu2)? Or it might be practically used to
>distinguish those who immigrated to the Island before and after WWII (or
>more precisely, 1949)? Very confusing!


I use the word Taiwanese to refer all residents/citizens of Taiwan,
whether they were WWII immigrants, their children, the Aboriginals,
or so called BSR -- everybody who considers Taiwan their homeland.
(the same definition accepted by American media)
I use the term "aboriginal" (Yuan2Zhu4Min2) to refer to the
so called "mountain people".  I avoid the term Gao1Shan1Zu2.


References:
[1] _Taiwan YuYian WeiJi_ (Taiwanese Language Crisis)
    by Prof. Ang Uijin (Hong2 Wei2 Ren2), ChienWei Publishing Co.
    Feb 1992, ISBN 957-9512-30-2
[2] _Languages of China_ by S. Robert Ramsey,
    Princeton University Press, 1987
    ISBN 0-691-06694-9
[3] Article to s.c.t. by Brukhardt Jung <young@ucscb.ucsc.edu>
    Jan 11 1991