I’ve just about got the site ready to go, so please have a look. The idea is to bring together information in English about Taiwanese to form an introduction to the language, especially for people who cannot read written Chinese. I have lots more content to add, but I felt it was better to start with the content that is ready now, rather than wait for everything to be perfect (!) before putting it online.
If you have any suggestions for future development or criticism of what’s already there, please let me know – I’ll be happy to hear from you. Already planned is a phonics section, as well as expansions to the information and bookshelf sections, and more detail on scripts, including a conversion table. I’ll be adding this content as and when it’s fully ready, and will post here when something new goes up.
Congratulations on opening your site! The information you already have here is useful and refreshingly straightforward. The structure looks like it could support lots more information as the site grows, which I’m much looking forward to.
Best of luck.
BTW, the PHP in your copyright notice is unhappy. You might want to check the paths.
Thanks for the kind words Mark. I’ve disabled the copyright notice for now – as you say it’s probably the paths, but I’ll have a proper look tomorrow.
Looks great, I’ve already learned a few things. Two suggestions:
1. More links sprinkled throughout, please! For example, it wouldn’t hurt to have a link to the Wikipedia page right on your introduction. I, for one, have never found much value in a dedicated “links” page.
2. Could you make it less Taiwan-centric? I’m a newbie to this language, but from what I’ve read the Taiwan dialect is nearly identical to the Xiamen dialect, and (again, from what I’ve read) is considered the prestige dialect of Minnan. You don’t mention the mainland much, if at all.
Thanks for your comments, Chris.
Regarding your points: (1) – sounds reasonable. I can add more links when I update the pages.
(2) Southern Min in China, Malaysia, Indonesia and so on is interesting and in some cases very close to Taiwanese – particularly, as you say, in regards to the E-mng (Xiamen) variety. As far as a prestige dialect goes – there are really two major centres – the Taiwanese look to Tai-lam (Tainan) and the Chinese look to E-mng.
The reason I haven’t mentioned other varieties of Southern Min much is because (a) I live in Taiwan, and am interested primarily in the version spoken here, and (b) I really don’t know much about the language as spoken elsewhere (though I am happy to learn). Even within Taiwan, there is variety in vocabulary and pronunciation in different areas, so there’s more than enough to keep me busy here.
Absolutely fabulous! Really pleased to see the site launch, and really pleased to see what a cracker it’s become.
Long live Tailingua!