Is Taiwanese Mandarin?

On 2002-10-18 18:26, ludovici wrote:

Urgent question from a client.

I assume that the question is only relevant to the spoken language, not the written one.

Your learned replies would be most appreciated.

thanks

paola l m

http://www.lexitech.ca

http://www.proz.com

co-mod EN>IT







Hello, Paola



Buon giorno!



I can see you and your client are in a very confusing situation. Sorry about that! I will try my best to explain it to you, and try to keep it short,too.



The quick answer to you question is \"No.\" Taiwanese and Mandarin are two different things.



Taiwanese is a usage that nowadays is getting more popular. By the word itself, I think it meant ONLY the people who are born and/or live in Taiwan, or even from Taiwan. It should NOT be used to refer to a written or spoken language that is used by the people in Taiwan. This is because that, in the reality, the written language used in Taiwan is the Chinese language written in Traditional Characters. It is used daily in most of the publications and mass media in Taiwan.



As for spoken language, it is also a far fetch to label anything that is uniquely Taiwan. Mandarin from the mainland China is popularly used in the local government, TV, Radio, school and universities, and can be considered as the official spoken language. In the recent years, especially after the shift of its political power to the new party, the regional dialects, such as Min-nan-hua,a dialect from Fujian Province, China, became more popularly used in the circumstances that usually Mandarin has been used. There is another popular regional dialect called Hakka,which is also from China. There are several spoken languages used by the mountain people or tribes, but they are never in the mainstream. As a matter fact, those spoken languages of the minorities in the mountain areas are struggling for survival. In such a situation, I wonder who can pinpoint which written or spoken language can be labeled as Taiwanese?



Just for your information, Chinese in Simplified Characters is used as written language in the mainland China, and the official spoken language there is Mandarin.



I guess you can certainly help you client to narrow down the exact targeted readers or audiences your client is trying to communicate with. Personally, I think to call Taiwanese a language is too vague and misleading.



Grazie!



[ This Message was edited by: on 2002-10-19 02:11 ] ▲ Collapse

On 2002-11-05 04:04, Li-chuan wrote:

Dear Kevin



I myself use pinyin as it took too long to learn where the zhuyin keys were. As a advocate of pinyin and our Mayor Ma, I\'m not very happy about the government\'s decision on adopting tongyong instead of pinyin. But that\'s it, we learn another system just like we had to learn Wade-Giles. Perhaps one day the government changes its mind, and the company who makes the street name plates will have another chance of increasing their income!



Li-chuan

[ This Message was edited by: on 2002-11-05 13:44 ]







Wow, Li-chuan, I was so impressed by your comment. You are absolutely outstanding. It took mainland China more than 10 years to get over the \"Cultural Revolution.\" It seems to me that Taiwan is going through something similar. The local people have to pay for the cost now and many years to come. I hope it will not take 10 years. I am watching the Taiwan TV programs everyday from my satellite receiver. I really hope Mayor Ma can be re-elected as the Mayor of Taipei. Please say hello for me when you see him!

[ This Message was edited by: on 2002-11-06 05:36 ] ▲ Collapse

On 2002-10-18 18:26, ludovici wrote:

Urgent question from a client.

I assume that the question is only relevant to the spoken language, not the written one.

Your learned replies would be most appreciated.

thanks

paola l m

www.lexitech.ca

www.proz.com

co-mod EN>IT

▲ Collapse