page_title: Taiwanese Hokkien
section_title: Bible translations
hierarchical_section_title: Taiwanese Hokkien / Sociolinguistics / Bible translations
context_page_description: Taiwanese Hokkien, also known as Taiwanese Minnan, Holo, Taiwanese, or Taigi, is a variety of the Hokkien language spoken natively by about 70% of the population of Taiwan. Commonly known as Holo-ue, it is spoken by the Taiwanese Hoklo people, who descended from immigrants from southern Fujian during the Qing dynasty. The Pe̍h-ōe-jī romanization is a popular orthography for this variant of Hokkien.
  Taiwanese Hokkien is generally similar to the speeches of Amoy, Quanzhou and Zhangzhou, as well as their dialectal forms used in Southeast Asia, and are generally mutually intelligible. The mass popularity of Hokkien entertainment media from Taiwan has given prominence to the Taiwanese variety of Hokkien, especially since the 1980s.
context_section_description: As with many other languages, the translations of the Bible in Taiwanese Hokkien marked milestones in the standardization attempts of the language and its orthography.
  The first translation of the Bible in Amoy or Taiwanese Hokkien in the pe̍h-ōe-jī orthography was by the first missionary to Taiwan, James Laidlaw Maxwell, with the New Testament Lán ê Kiù-chú Iâ-so͘ Ki-tok ê Sin-iok published in 1873 and the Old Testament Kū-iok ê Sèng Keng in 1884.
  The next translation of the Bible in Taiwanese Hokkien or Amoy was by the missionary to Taiwan, Thomas Barclay, carried out in Fujian and Taiwan. A New Testament translation was completed and published in 1916. The resulting work containing the Old and the New Testaments, in the pe̍h-ōe-jī orthography, was completed in 1930 and published in 1933 as the Amoy Romanized Bible (Pe̍h-ōe-jī: Sin-kū-iok ê Sèng-keng) (on Hokkien Wikipedia). This edition was later transliterated into Han characters and published as 聖經台語漢字本; Sèng-keng Tâi-gí Hàn-jī Pún (on Hokkien Wikipedia) in 1996.
  The Ko-Tân (Kerygma) Colloquial Taiwanese Version of the New Testament (Sin-iok) in pe̍h-ōe-jī, also known as the Red Cover Bible (Âng-phoê Sèng-keng), was published in 1973 as an ecumenical effort between the Protestant Presbyterian Church in Taiwan and the Roman Catholic mission Maryknoll. This translation used a more modern vocabulary (somewhat influenced by Mandarin), and reflected the central Taiwan dialect, as the Maryknoll mission was based near Tâi-tiong.  It was soon confiscated by the Kuomintang government (which objected to the use of Latin orthography) in 1975.
  A translation using the principle of functional equivalence, "Today's Taiwanese Romanized Version" (Hiān-tāi Tâi-gú Sin-iok Sèng-keng) (on Hokkien Wikipedia), containing only the New Testament, again in pe̍h-ōe-jī, was published in 2008 as a collaboration between the Presbyterian Church in Taiwan and the Bible Society in Taiwan. A translation of the Old Testament, following the same principle, is being prepared.
  Another translation using the principle of functional equivalence,  "Common Taiwanese Bible" (Choân-bîn Tâi-gí Sèng-keng), with versions of pe̍h-ōe-jī, Han characters and Ruby version (both Han characters and pe̍h-ōe-jī) was published in 2015, available in printed and online.
caption: A copy of Barclay's Amoy translation, opened to the Proverbs.
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