Comments for Tailingua News

Comment on Penang Hokkien in Decline? by GnuDoyng

GnuDoyng — Thu, 17 Jul 2008 08:10:29 +0000

Yup. It’s not at all surprising that they’d probably give up such a conversation, because the tonal values are quite different and thus both speakers may sound awkward to one another. But that doesn’t mean both languages are mutually unintelligible.

Comment on More anti-Taiwanese Media… by admin

admin — Thu, 17 Jul 2008 01:31:20 +0000

Good question. Southern Min is named after the region it’s from - it’s just that it’s not immediately obvious. “Min” is the character 閩, which is used in literary sources and in abbreviations to refer to Fujian Province, and the larger Min grouping of languages (one of the top-level distinctions among Chinese languages). So “Southern Min” = “the language from the south of Fujian”.

Although I included “Fujianese” among the list of aliases for this language, Fujianese is often used to refer to Mindong (a related but different language) - spoken in the area around Fuzhou in eastern Fujian. So if someone says Fujianese it can be difficult to know whether they mean Southern Min (Minnan) or Eastern Min (Mindong). Min contains other smaller groupings and divisions, like Puxian and Minbei, plus Qiongwen, which some people even argue doesn’t belong to the Min group at all.

Confused? Linguists still fight over whether a particular dialect belongs to one group or the other, as there is no “black and white” - simply a procession of changing greys. The terms can be very difficult to keep straight when even the academics can’t agree sometimes.

Comment on Penang Hokkien in Decline? by admin

admin — Thu, 17 Jul 2008 01:14:48 +0000

Interesting - I have both read that this was the case, and seen Teo-chew and Taiwanese speakers struggle in vain to have a conversation before giving up.

I’ll try that video out on a few native speakers and report back!

Comment on More anti-Taiwanese Media… by Silenus

Silenus — Thu, 17 Jul 2008 00:43:34 +0000

Oh, I see. I had thought that Hokkien and Hoklo were variants of Hakka. I had thought that some in Singapore, like in Taiwan, speak Hakka, but I guess Hoklo is a more widely-spoken dialect instead.

I kind of wonder why “Southern Min” isn’t known as Fujianese. After all, Cantonese is named after Guangdong. It seems more useful to have the dialect be named after the region that it comes from.

Comment on Penang Hokkien in Decline? by GnuDoyng

GnuDoyng — Wed, 16 Jul 2008 16:31:32 +0000

Tio-chiu language is not “almost completely unintelligible” to that of E-mng. If you are a native Taiwanese speaker I’m pretty sure you’ll understand most part of this video:

http://www.tudou.com/v/z5Mr7Hd19V4

Comment on More anti-Taiwanese Media… by admin

admin — Tue, 15 Jul 2008 13:38:37 +0000

Hakka and Taiwanese are completely different languages, though they are both part of the Chinese language family. Terms for languages in Taiwan are confusing, but Taiwanese is a local variant of Southern Min, which is known by many names in different places, including Hokkien, Hoklo, Holo, Taiyu, Tai-gi, Tai-gu, Ban-lam, Ban-lam-gi, Ban-lam-gu, Tai-oan-oe, Lanlang, Fukienese, Fujianese, Amoy, Minnan, Minnanyu, Minnanhua and probably more that I’ve forgotten.

Taiwanese speakers make up about 15 million of Taiwan’s 23 million people, whereas Hakka is mostly limited to a few areas and has a shrinking native-speaker population, which is somewhere between 2 and 3 million, if you can believe the reports.

Comment on More anti-Taiwanese Media… by Silenus

Silenus — Sun, 13 Jul 2008 00:03:40 +0000

How is Hakka different from Taiwanese in Taiwan? I thought Taiwanese was the local variant of Hakka.

Comment on Neither Fish Nor Fowl: Radical Romanization by Links 19 May 2008 - David on Formosa

Links 19 May 2008 - David on Formosa — Mon, 19 May 2008 00:06:10 +0000

[…] Tailingua on romanising Taiwanese. […]

Comment on More anti-Taiwanese Media… by admin

admin — Fri, 02 May 2008 10:29:37 +0000

Hi Richard,

I’ve met a few Taiwanese-Americans like yourself who speak Taiwanese fluently but Mandarin not at all or at a basic level - it tends to perplex the local Taiwanese who can’t understand how a youngster could be unable to speak Mandarin! For a famous example, think of Jeff and Stan Ng (or Huang, in Mandarin) from Machi.

POJ is not that hard to learn - I’d really encourage you to give it a go. Native speakers can pick up it very quickly, and even beginners like me can get the hang of it after a few lessons. Unfortunately there are no decent online resources in English for learning the system - I might have to do something about that situation.

Comment on More anti-Taiwanese Media… by Richard

Richard — Sun, 27 Apr 2008 06:22:48 +0000

As a Taiwanese-American, growing up in the U.S., I find it very sad that the main language other than English that I know may die off in the future. I’m unique in that my parents only spoke Taiwanese with me when I was young, and so I only know Taiwanese and English. My Mandarin is probably at the level of a preschooler, if not worse. Anyways, I love this blog/site. I still try to learn new vocabulary of Taiwanese as I’m pretty fluent in basic conversation stuff. I frequent this site for some vocab: http://taiwanesevocabulary.wordpress.com/

I really wished there was a site that introduced vocab, but also an audio clip because I have a hard time reading POJ or other types of romanizations.