Talk:Taiwanese Mandarin

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[edit] Move?

I think this should be moved to Taiwanese Mandarin--Confuzion 08:42, 5 January 2006 (UTC)

[edit] 台灣國語 (Táiwān Guóyŭ) ?

Does the term "台灣國語" (Táiwān Guóyŭ, appears in the first paragraph of the article) really exist? It seems that the Republic of China referred to Standard Mandarin as "國語" (Guóyŭ) (See National language), but not "台灣國語" (Táiwān Guóyŭ). The latter term is often interpreted as "台灣國　語" (State of Taiwan, language) or "台灣　國語" (Taiwan, national language), which are biases towards the supporters of Taiwan independence. Apart from that, is "Mandarin on Taiwan" a better title that "Taiwanese Mandarin"? Because "Taiwanese" is another dialect in the Chinese language. - 169.231.1.116 20:09, 11 January 2006 (UTC)

Please don't read "guoyu" literally. People don't. "Guoyu" in this context is simply meant to be a name for "Mandarin". The literal meaning is not relevant. I don't see a "bias towards the supporters of Taiwan independence" because Taiwan independence proponents want Taiwanese, not Mandarin, to be the national language. And "Taiwanese" here is used as an adjective so it cannot refer to the dialect of Min Nan, but rather the geographical place name (of Taiwan). --Jiang 02:58, 12 January 2006 (UTC)

I agree with Jiang. The term "Taiwan Madarin" was firstly used for academic research, and it refers to the language spoken in Taiwan. Just like we say "American English（美式英語）" or "Singapore Chinese（新加坡華語）", we often use the name of location to stand for it.

Do 臺式國語 and 臺腔國語 exist? Would they be more logical and neutral? — Insta ntnood 21:11, 13 January 2006 (UTC)

Jiang is right - this is not a NPOV issue. The term is recognised in Taiwan by blues and greens alike. Everyone on the island calls it 台灣國語, everyone knows what is meant by the term, so what's the problem? The national language of the Republic of China is 國語, the language as it is spoken by many on the streets is 台灣國語. Of course, how you then use the term can be political, as a pan-blue supporter might mock Chen Shui-Bian for his 台灣國語 (feeling it to be country-bumpkinish) or a pan-green might lambast James Soong for not using 台灣國語 (feeling that the absence of 台灣國語 renders him aloof and removed from the 'man on the street').

By the way, I did a quick straw poll (alright, it was only four people) and no-one had heard the term 臺式國語 or 臺腔國語. Not conclusive I admit, but they were surprised that anyone would want to find another name for 台灣國語. In fact, when I asked one friend he thought I'd got the Mandarin wrong and said 'oh no, you mean 台灣國語'... :)

The Chinese term is clear, widely known and it should not be changed. The English terms 'Taiwan Mandarin' or 'Taiwanese Mandarin' seem the best and clearest translation. I have seen 'Taiwan Mandarin' used in the English literature to refer to 台灣國語 but I think 'Taiwanese Mandarin' is just as accurate. I will attempt to track down some references in the near future to back this up. Taiwantaffy 15:16, 15 January 2006 (UTC)

Thanks so much Taiwantaffy. Nevertheless, if we were to be speculative, it's not really that surprising for pro-independence people to start saying 台灣國語 meaning the Min Nan language, or specifically the Taiwanese dialect. :-) — Insta ntnood 16:41, 17 February 2006 (UTC)

Right, I've found some (scholarly) references to back up my point above; 1, 2, 3, 4. They all refer to the phenomenon as Taiwan Mandarin. I'll be reading these in depth over the coming days and adding more points and references to the article. Also, the Chinese-language Wikipedia article entitled 臺灣國語 is quite clear that the term does not refer to any putative 'Republic of Taiwan' national language, plus it provides plenty of references for the term 台灣國語 being used in Chinese language literature. So I really feel there is no need to change the Chinese term used in the article.

Furthermore, I think there is a case for renaming the article Taiwan Mandarin as this is the term used in the literature. We could add a redirect from Taiwanese Mandarin to Taiwan Mandarin. This is in accordance with Wikipedia policy to use the most common or well-known name for any given phenomenon. What does everyone feel about this? Taiwantaffy 02:20, 16 January 2006 (UTC)

"Taiwanese Mandarin" is more grammatical. On google, it is 865 vs. 958. It is used here: [1] [2]--Jiang 08:57, 21 January 2006 (UTC)

I think the vocabulary section is not very accurate. Lots of people of Taiwan refer bikes as zixinche or dangche. You can't tell if somebody is from China or from Taiwan just by the way they refer bikes. I think a better example would be the way harddrive is referred, since in Taiwan it is called a yingdie and in china it's called yingpang. BlueShirts 18:00, 17 January 2006 (UTC)

does anyone know when mandarin became the official language of the media? I remember there were a lot of movies and television dramas from the 60s or 70s that were in Taiwanese entirely. Was there a policy change in the late 70s BlueShirts 22:57, 19 January 2006 (UTC)

Good question, I'll see what info I can dig up. •

U|T|E 01:31, 20 January 2006 (UTC)

I've had a quick look online and the only reference I can see towards a changing of attitudes in that period is the Presbyterian Church's assertion of the banning of romanized literature in 1975. This could have coincided with a more general restriction on Taiwanese being broadcast, but that is not clear. Plenty of other sites have vague statements like 'during KMT rule Taiwanese was suppressed', but there is not much about specific language policy during the KMT era. If I come across any other info I'll post it here. •

U|T|E 02:12, 20 January 2006 (UTC)

Yeah this is really weird. Some of the best early movies (60s) were in Taiwanese, with traditional Chinese subtitles of course. I think all too often we just hear blanket statements like the KMT banned the use of Taiwanese. I know it's banned in schools (along with all other dialects), but I'm not sure when the media ban started. BlueShirts 22:45, 20 January 2006 (UTC)

This article on Taiwanese movies is of interest. [3]BlueShirts 03:11, 21 January 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Google hits

Defining language usage preferences between the PRC and Taiwan can be a messy art form. The Google hits are meant to help answer the question: "How common is the term __ in the PRC vs. Taiwan?" It is not a particularly sophisticated form of statistical analysis. However, it is quick and easy, and it gets across the general idea. I decided to put in the statistics because of an earlier dispute about the word for bicycle (腳踏車 jiǎotàchē vs. 自行車 zìxíngchē). While zìxíngchē is used in both the PRC and Taiwan, jiǎotàchē is used less outside of Taiwan. This is because jiǎotàchē originated from the Taiwanese word: kha-ta̍h-chhia. A-cai 08:20, 28 January 2006 (UTC)

[edit] POJ

I decided to use POJ for all Taiwanese terms on the Taiwanese Mandarin page. POJ seems to be the most popular way to represent Taiwanese (Min Nan) on the internet. There is even a Taiwanese version of Wikipedia that is written in POJ. Here is a conversion chart for those out there who may have learned another system.

**Vowels**
IPA	a	ap	at	ak	aʔ	ã	ɔ	ɔk	ɔ̃	ə	o	e	ẽ	i	ɪɛn	iŋ
Pe̍h-ōe-jī	a	ap	at	ak	ah	aⁿ	o·	ok	oⁿ	o	o	e	eⁿ	i	ian	eng
Revised TLPA	a	ap	at	ak	ah	aN	oo	ok	ooN	o	o	e	eN	i	ian	ing
TLPA	a	ap	at	ak	ah	ann	oo	ok	oonn	o	o	e	enn	i	ian	ing
Pumindian (普闽典)	a	ap	at	ak	ah	na	oo	ok	noo	o	o	e	ne	i	ien	ing
PSDB (普實台文)	a	ab/ap	ad/at	ag/ak	aq/ah	va	o	og/ok	vo	oi	oi	e	ve	i	ien	eng
zhuyin	ㄚ	ㄚㆴ	ㄚㆵ	ㄚㆶ	ㄚㆷ	ㆩ	ㆦ	ㆦㆶ	ㆧ	ㄜ	ㄛ	ㆤ	ㆥ	ㄧ	ㄧㄢ	ㄧㄥ
example (traditional Chinese)	亞洲	壓力	警察	沃水	牛肉	三十	烏色	中國		澳洲	澳洲	下晡		醫學	鉛筆	英國
example (simplified Chinese)	亚洲	压力	警察	沃水	牛肉	三十	烏色	中国		澳洲	澳洲	下晡		医学	铅笔	英国

**Vowels**
IPA	ɪk	ĩ	ai	aĩ	au	am	ɔm	ṃ	ɔŋ	ŋ̩	u	ua	ue	uai	uan	ɨ	ũ
Pe̍h-ōe-jī	ek	iⁿ	ai	aiⁿ	au	am	om	m	ong	ng	u	oa	oe	oai	oan	i	uⁿ
Revised TLPA	ik	iN	ai	aiN	au	am	om	m	ong	ng	u	ua	ue	uai	uan	ir	uN
TLPA	ik	inn	ai	ainn	au	am	om	m	ong	ng	u	ua	ue	uai	uan	ir	unn
Pumindian (普闽典)	ik	ni	ai	nai	au	am	om	m	ong	ggn	u	ua	ue	uai	uan	i	nu
PSDB (普實台文)	eg/ek	vi	ai	vai	au	am	om	m	ong	ng	u	ua	ue	uai	uan	i	nu
zhuyin	ㄧㆶ	ㆪ	ㄞ	ㆮ	ㆯ	ㆰ	ㆱ	ㆬ	ㆲ	ㆭ	ㄨ	ㄨㄚ	ㄨㆤ	ㄨㄞ	ㄨㄢ	ㆨ	ㆫ
example (traditional Chinese)	翻譯	病院	愛情		歐洲	暗時		阿姆	王梨	黃色	有無	歌曲	講話	奇怪	人員
example (simplified Chinese)	翻译	病院	爱情		欧洲	暗时		阿姆	王梨	黄色	有无	歌曲	讲话	奇怪	人员

**Consonants**
IPA	p	b	pʰ	m	t	tʰ	n	nŋ	l	k	g	kʰ	h	tɕi	ʑi	tɕʰi	ɕi	ts	ʣ	tsʰ	s
Pe̍h-ōe-jī	p	b	ph	m	t	th	n	nng	l	k	g	kh	h	chi	ji	chhi	si	ch	j	chh	s
Revised TLPA	p	b	ph	m	t	th	n	nng	l	k	g	kh	h	zi	ji	ci	si	z	j	c	s
TLPA	p	b	ph	m	t	th	n	nng	l	k	g	kh	h	zi	ji	ci	si	z	j	c	s
Pumindian (普闽典)	b	bb	p	m	d	t	n		l	g	gg	k	h	zi	li	ci	si	z	l	c	s
PSDB (普實台文)	p	b	ph	m	d	t	n	nng	l	k	g	q	h	ci	ji	chi	si	z	j	zh	s
zhuyin	ㄅ	ㆠ	ㄆ	ㄇ	ㄉ	ㄊ	ㄋ	ㄋㆭ	ㄌ	ㄍ	ㆣ	ㄎ	ㄏ	ㄐ	ㆢ	ㄑ	ㄒ	ㄗ	ㆡ	ㄘ	ㄙ
example (traditional Chinese)	報紙	閩南	普通	請問	豬肉	普通	過年	雞卵	樂觀	價值	牛奶	客廳	煩惱	支持	漢字	支持	是否	報紙	熱天	參加	司法
example (simplified Chinese)	报纸	闽南	普通	请问	猪肉	普通	过年	鸡卵	乐观	价值	牛奶	客厅	烦恼	支持	汉字	支持	是否	报纸	热天	参加	司法

**Tones**
IPA	a˥˥	a˥˧	a˨˩	ap˩˩ at˩˩ ak˩˩ aʔ˩˩	a˧˥	a˥˧	a˧˧	ap˥˥ at˥˥ ak˥˥ aʔ˥˥
Pe̍h-ōe-jī	a	á	à	ap at ak ah	â	á	ā	a̍p a̍t a̍k a̍h
Revised TLPA TLPA	a1	a2	a3	ap4 at4 ak4 ah4	a5	a2 (6=2)	a7	ap8 at8 ak8 ah8
Pumindian (普闽典)	ā	ă	à	āp āt āk āh	á	ă	â	áp át ák áh
PSDB (普實台文)	af	ar	ax	ab ad ag aq	aa	aar	a	ap at ak ah
zhuyin	ㄚ	ㄚˋ	ㄚᒻ	ㄚㆴ ㄚㆵ ㄚㆶ ㄚㆷ	ㄚˊ	ㄚˋ	ㄚ⊦	ㄚㆴ̇ ㄚㆵ̇ ㄚㆶ̇ ㄚㆷ̇
example (traditional Chinese)	公司	報紙	興趣	血壓警察中國牛肉	人員		草地	配合法律文學歇熱
example (simplified Chinese)	公司	报纸	兴趣	血压警察中国牛肉	人员		草地	配合法律文学歇热

Note: The bopomofo extended characters in the zhuyin row require a UTF-8 font capable of displaying Unicode values 31A0 - 31B7 (ex. Code2000 true type font).

A-cai 13:34, 28 January 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Explanation for the removal of the reference to the term bacon

If nobody objects, I have taken out the reference to "培根" (péigēn) vs. "煙肉" (yānròu). A quick search on Google reveals that "培根" (péigēn) is actually used far more in the PRC than the term "煙肉" (yānròu). Here are the results:

- 培根 Google hits: .cn
- 煙肉 Google hits: .cn

A-cai 03:10, 18 February 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Reason why "in print" (1st column) characters are different from Taiwanese Han (2nd column)

In the chart of loan words from Taiwanese, why are characters "As seen in print" are different from corresponding "Taiwanese Han" (column 2)? Also, it may be appropriate to add a note that in some cases the Taiwanese Han characters are not standardized. Oniows 14:02, 18 February 2006 (UTC)

- Very good questions.

Maybe "as seen in print" is confusing. I will try to explain in greater detail here, and then we can decide how to word-smith the article. If you were to read Chinese language newspapers and periodicals (as well as the Chinese subtitles to English language movies) in Taiwan on a regular basis (For example: The China Times or The Liberty Times), you are likely to notice the occasional use of a Taiwanese word. It is estimated that less than 70% of the people in Taiwan speak Taiwanese. Also, many Taiwanese speakers are not educated in Taiwanese as written with Chinese characters (台文, POJ: Tâi-bûn). Therefore, many publications elect to choose Chinese characters whose Mandarin pronunciation approximates the sound of the Taiwanese word. For example, the Chinese characters for the Taiwanese word tòng-bē-tiâu (can not bear something; compelled to do something) are 擋未住. However, if you were to pronounce the characters in Mandarin, it would be dǎng wèi zhù (which is an awkward construct in Mandarin and does not really match the sound of the Taiwanese word). However, if you say the characters 凍未條 in Mandarin really fast (Pinyin: dòng wèi tiáo), it sounds a little like the Taiwanese word. There are advantages and disadvantages to this approach. For one thing, 凍未條 makes no sense if you are trying to read the characters for meaning (凍: freeze 未: not yet 條: long narrow strip). On the other hand, the very fact that the characters are non-sensical indicates to many Taiwanese that they should be read for the sound, and not the meaning. If Taiwanese were a European language, we would probably use the word transliteration to describe this phenomenon. Sometimes, the transliterations can be rather humerous as in the case of tòng-soán (當選: to win an election); the characters chosen to represent the Taiwanese sound, 凍蒜 (Pinyin: dòng suàn), mean "frozen garlic" when taken literally.
Nearly all Chinese dialects struggle with this phenomenon. This brings me to your second point. There is a generally excepted way to depict most Taiwanese words with Chinese characters. This is particularly the case for common compounds (such as 語言 POJ: gú-giân, Pinyin: yŭyán). However, there is a lot of variation. This is something that is talked about (or should be) in the Min Nan and Taiwanese pages. I have primarily relied on two sources for column two:

In cases where multiple variations exist, I try to pick Chinese characters that tend to shed light on the etymological or phonetic origin of the word. For example, the Taiwanese word mài (don't) can be written in Chinese using either 莫 or 勿. I would tend to pick 莫 (Pinyin: mò) over 勿 (Pinyin: wù) because my gut tells me that 勿 was only adopted for use because its meaning matches the Taiwanese mài, whereas 莫 also appears to capture the original sound. A-cai 06:03, 19 February 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Blurring between n and l ?

the distinction between n and l is blurred

I removed the above line from the list of Taiwanese-influenced differences from Mandarin because it is innacurate or needs to be nuanced. Taiwanese language does make a distinction between the two phonemes n and l.

Thus, if there is indeed a blurring between the two sounds in Taiwan (and I don't know if there is; no example of it was given), it cannot be attributed to the lack of a corresponding Taiwanese sound; it should be listed in another category (such as: "influence of Taiwanese cognates", "other influences", or "later phonological shifts", if it were the case).

By the way, it has been noted elsewhere that such blurring is occurring in Cantonese, especially among younger speakers. But that is a Cantonese phenomenon. --HYC 03:06, 27 February 2006 (UTC)

- HYC is correct in pointing out that the Taiwanese language contains both l and n. It is also true that a portion of Taiwanese speakers of Mandarin have difficulty distinguishing between l and n. This usually stems from a lack of sufficient training in Standard Mandarin. Here is an illustration of the problem:

Chinese	Mandarin (Pinyin)	Taiwanese (POJ)	English
南	nán	lâm	south
藍	lán	nâ	blue

- For the above two words, n and l are swapped when moving from Taiwanese to Mandarin. This phenominon can occassionally lead to a "hybrid" Taiwanese-Mandarin pronunciation such as "lán" for south!

A-cai 10:08, 27 February 2006 (UTC)

In Mandarin dialects:

In some (especially southern) areas people do not distinguish between initial l- /l/ and n- /n/ sounds, and may merge them in some or all words, to either l- or n-. --Skyfiler 18:52, 23 March 2006 (UTC)

[edit] basilect vs. acrolect

I have taken a closer look at the Taiwanese influenced section. After reading the definitions for basilect and acrolect, I am not sure that this section accurately captures the situation in Taiwan. Bear in mind that my comments are not from the point of view of an expert in linguistics.

It seems to me that the part that talks about pronunciation differences between basilect and acrolect could better be described as the difference between a speaker of Standard Mandarin (which also de-emphasizes the retroflex "r" ending) and a native speaker of Min Nan who speaks Mandarin with a Min Nan accent. I will use two of Taiwan's most well known politicians to illustrate my meaning. Ma Ying-jeou is the current mayor of Taipei. His family came to Taiwan after 1949, he is not a fluent Min Nan speaker. Chen Shui-bian is the president of Taiwan. His ancestors moved to Taiwan from Fujian Province several hundred years ago. Chen is a native Min Nan speaker. Obviously, both of these men give frequent speeches in Mandarin. According to the description in the article, neither of the two should ever pronounce "fei" as "hui" in a formal speech. This is always true for Mayor Ma, but not often true for President Chen. The reason is not because President Chen forgets that he should use the acrolectal form when giving a formal speech. The man has a Min Nan accent!
The issue of zh-z, sh-s etc. is not confined to Taiwanese Mandarin. I would call this a feature of Mandarin as spoken in many parts of Southern China. Again, Mayor Ma's parents are from Hunan, but he often says "zeli" rather than "zheli" (here 這裡), even in formal settings (same is true for Lien Chan). On the other hand, I don't often hear him saying "suo" instead of "shuo" (speak 說). Of course, this is my subjective opinion. A speaker with a thick Beijing accent might mistake Mayor Ma's "sh" for an "s" for all I know.

I am writing this on the discussion page because the section in question was clearly written by a linguistics major. However, I do think my comments should be taken into consideration. Perhaps some of my observations could be worked into the wording.

A-cai 14:02, 27 February 2006 (UTC)

on the same theme, this link brief comparison of the accents of Chen Shui-bian (Taiwanese peasant background), Soong Chu-yu (Hunan mainlander background), and Lien Chan (Taiwanese aristocrat background): [4] --Jiang 05:53, 20 March 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Loan words from Japanese

I'm not sure that some of the recent additions to the loan words are legitimate. I would say that 'Odobai' and 'Biru' are used almost exclusively in Holo (Taiwanese) and that any use in a Mandarin sentence would fall under code-switching rather than genuine loan words. Thus in my opinion they are loan words from Japanese into Taiwanese, not into Mandarin and so don't belong in this article. Perhaps another article could be created for loan words into Taiwanese? • U|T|E 05:27, 20 March 2006 (UTC)

In the end, I think it really comes down to where you draw the line between loan words and code-switching, the boundary is often quite fuzzy. As a student I've personally heard various Japanese terms from Holo slang either "Mandarinized" into normal Mandarin speech (sometimes to the point where they're pronounced using Mandarin, i.e. 霸咖/霸咖鴨摟, 頭拉褲), or could be considered in the same category as other Holo loanwords, with the exception that they were in turn loaned from Japanese. (As a side note it's taking me all of my self-restraint not to stick 阿魯巴 under English loanwords.) -Loren 05:40, 20 March 2006 (UTC)

Further examples of transliteration to Mandarin (note that other character variations may exist):

* Obdobai -> 歐都拜

* Baka -> 霸咖

* Obasan -> 歐霸桑

* Odosan -> 歐豆桑

-Loren 06:03, 20 March 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Explanation

Jiang, please explain what's wrong with my edits?--Bonafide.hustla 06:09, 8 August 2006 (UTC)

what is your reason for removing "Taiwan Huayu"?
Mandarin links to a disambiguation page. The proper article is Mandarin (linguistics).
"is almost identical" --> "somewhat differs": This edit is not factually accurate. The standards are indeed almost identical. Whether people follow the standards is another issue, independent of this statement.
"However, Mandarin as spoken informally in Taiwan" --> "Mandarin spoken in Taiwan": The distinction needs to be made between documentary narrator-speak, news anchor-speak, and noodle-shop owner speak. There are clearly differences between formal and informal levels of Mandarin
"Also Taiwan does not use the pin-yin system and write in traditional characters as opposed to the PRC.": What does this have to do with Mandarin, which is a spoken language? Taiwan does use the Hanyu Pinyin system, in street signs such as those in Taipei, and in Chinese language schools geared towards non-locals.
"Mainlanders" --> "post-1949 immigrants": used in context, the term "mainlanders" is unambiguous in referring to waishengren. --Jiang 08:20, 8 August 2006 (UTC)

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