Comments on: Theatre in translation: A-beng does the Bard

By: Mark S.

Mark S. — Fri, 26 Oct 2007 02:27:31 +0000

For examples of some such claims, see Linguistic Nationalism: The Case of Southern Min, especially section IV, “On the ‘Superiority’ of a Topolect.”

By: admin

admin — Fri, 26 Oct 2007 00:56:44 +0000

Hi Mark - I’m afraid your reply got caught by my over-zealous spam filter and I’ve only just seen it now.

In reference to your comment, I think that the director is talking about the emotional range of Taiwanese, rather than the sheer number of vocabulary items. It’s common for Taiwanese speakers to categorise the language as being more expressive than Mandarin; as to how justified they are in those claims, I wouldn’t like to say.

By: Mark

Mark — Sat, 20 Oct 2007 16:41:58 +0000

vocabulary of Taiwanese offer a greater range than Mandarin

It’s very, very hard to take that sort of claim seriously, especially considering how many more Mandarin speakers there are.