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Encyclopedia > Languages of Taiwan
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Tainan Confucius Temple
Republic of China (Taiwan)

Demographics - Economy - Education - Languages - Military - Politics - Transportation Image File history File links Wiki_letter_w. ... The front gate of Confucius Temple in Tainan. ... Motto: None Anthem: National Anthem of the Republic of China Capital Taipei City (de facto) Nanjing (de jure)1 Largest city Taipei City Official language(s) Mandarin (GuóyÇ”) Government Semi-presidential system  - President Chen Shui-bian  - Vice President Annette Lu  - Premier Su Tseng-chang Establishment Xinhai Revolution   - Declared October... Location map for Taiwan (ROC) File links The following pages link to this file: Republic of China User:DanielZm/test Template:Republic of China infobox Categories: GFDL images ... Ethnic distribution chart. ... The Republic of China (ROC) currently has jurisdiction over Taiwan, Kinmen, Matsu, and the Pescadores Islands (Penghu) and several smaller islands. ...

Culture

Arts - Cinema - Currency - Dance - Funeral - Historic sites - Literature - Religions - Theater The Culture of Taiwan is a blend of traditional Chinese with significant Asian influences notably Japanese and Western influences including American, Spanish and Dutch. ... See also Culture of Taiwan List of Taiwanese authors External links Contemporary Authors Full-Text & Image System 當代文學史料影像全文系統 (in Chinese characters) Mimesis and Motivation in Taiwan Colonial Fiction On-line Alliance of Taiwans Modern Poetry 臺灣現代詩網路聯盟 (in Chinese characters) Taiwan Fiction in Translation Taiwanese Literature (gio. ...

Geography
Environmental conservation
Hot springs
History
Pre-history
Dutch and Spanish settlers
Kingdom of Tungning
Qing dynasty rule
Republic of Formosa
Empire of Japan rule
Republic of China
Categories

Aborigines - Cities - Cuisine - Culture - Economy - Education - Fauna and flora - Geography - Government - Historical sites - History - Languages - Maps - Media - Museums - Organizations - People - Politics - Social movements - Transportation Closer view of hot springs on Seven Star Mountain located in Yangmingshan Taiwan is on the fault line where the Euro-Asian and Philippine continental plates meet. ... See also History of the Republic of China for a history of the government that currently administers Taiwan. ... The Island Formosa and the Pescadores/ Johannes Vingboons/ ca. ... The Kingdom of Tungning or Dongning (東寧王國; pinyin: Dōngníng Wángguó ) was the first Han Chinese state to exist on Taiwan, between 1661 and 1683. ... The flag for the Republic of Formosa, 1895, depicting a tiger. ... The Japanese colonial period in Taiwan refers to the period between 1895 and 1945 during which Taiwan was a Japanese colony. ... The Republic of China (Traditional Chinese: 中華民國; Pinyin: Zhōng huá mín guó) succeeded the Qing Dynasty in 1912, ending 2,000 years of imperial rule. ...

edit

A large majority of people on Taiwan speak Standard Mandarin, which has been the only officially sanctioned medium of instruction in the schools for more than four decades. Native Taiwanese and many others also speak one of the Southern Fujianese dialects, Min-nan, also known as Taiwanese locally. Recently there has been a growing use of Taiwanese in the broadcast media. The Hakka, who are concentrated in several counties throughout Taiwan, have their own distinct dialect. As a result of the half century of Japanese rule, many people born before 1940 also can speak fluent Japanese. Standard Mandarin is the official Chinese spoken language used by the Peoples Republic of China, the Republic of China (Taiwan) and Singapore. ... (Chinese: 福建; Pinyin: Fújiàn; Wade-Giles: Fu-chien; Postal System Pinyin: Fukien, Foukien; local transliteration Hokkien from Min Nan Hok-kiàn) is one of the provinces on the southeast coast of China. ... Min Nan, Minnan, or Min-nan (Simplified Chinese: 闽南语; Traditional Chinese: 閩南語; Hanyu Pinyin: ; POJ: Bân-lâm-gú; Southern Min or Southern Fujian language) is the Chinese language/dialect spoken in southern Fujian province, China and neighboring areas, and by descendants of emigrants from these areas in diaspora. ... See alternative meanings for other possible definitions. ... The Hakka (Traditional Chinese: 客家; Simplified Chinese: 客家; Pinyin: kèjiā, lit. ... Hakka is one language in the family of languages known as Chinese. ...


The Wade-Giles system is commonly used for Chinese romanization on Taiwan, but Chinese romanization on Taiwan tends to be highly inconsistent. Unlike mainland China, Taiwan does not use Roman letters in teaching pronunciation in schools but rather uses a system called Zhuyin. There have been efforts by the educational system to move toward a Roman-based system, but these have been slow due to bureaucratic inertia, political reluctance to follow mainland China's footsteps and the huge cost in teacher retraining. The central government adopted Tongyong Pinyin as the official romanization in 2002 but local governments are permitted to override the standard as some have adopted Hanyu Pinyin and retained old romanizations that are commonly used. Wade-Giles, sometimes abbreviated Wade, is a Romanization (phonetic notation and transliteration) system for the Chinese language based on Mandarin. ... In linguistics, romanization (or Latinization, also spelled romanisation or Latinisation) is the representation of a word or language with the Roman (Latin) alphabet, or a system for doing so, where the original word or language uses a different writing system. ... The highlighted area in the map is what is commonly known as mainland China. Mainland China (Simplified Chinese: 中国大陆; Traditional Chinese: 中國大陸; pinyin: Zhōnggúo Dàlù; literally The Chinese Massive Landmass or Continental China) is an informal (disputed — see talk page) geographical term which is usually synonymous with the area... The Latin alphabet, also called the Roman alphabet, is the most widely used alphabetic writing system in the world. ... Zhuyin Fuhao (Traditional Chinese: 注音符號; Hanyu Pinyin: ; Wade-Giles: Chu-yin fu-hao), or Symbols for Annotating Sounds, often abbreviated as Zhuyin, or known as Bopomofo (ㄅㄆㄇㄈ) after the first four letters of this Chinese phonemic alphabet (bo po mo fo), is the national phonetic system of the Republic of China (Taiwan... Tongyong Pinyin (Chinese: 通用拼音; Hanyu Pinyin: ; literally Universal/General Usage Sound-combining) is the current official romanization of the Chinese language adopted by the national government (although not all local governments) of the Republic of China (Taiwan) since late 2000, announced by the Mandarin Promotion Council of the Ministry of Education. ... Pinyin (拼音, Pīnyīn) literally means join (together) sounds (a less literal translation being phoneticize, spell or transcription) in Chinese and usually refers to Hànyǔ Pīnyīn (汉语拼音, literal meaning: Han language pinyin), which is a system of romanization (phonetic notation and transliteration to roman script) for Standard Mandarin used in the...

Contents


National language

Mandarin

Main article: Taiwanese Mandarin

In 1945 when the island of Taiwan came under the control of the Republic of China Kuomintang, Mandarin was introduced as the official language and made compulsory in schools. (Before 1945, Japanese was the official language and taught in schools.) Since then, Mandarin has been established as a lingua franca among the various groups in Taiwan: the majority Taiwanese-speaking Hoklo, the Hakka who have their own spoken language, Mainlanders whose native tongue may be any Chinese variant in mainland China, and the aboriginals who speak aboriginal languages. Taiwanese Mandarin (Traditional Chinese: 台灣國語; Hanyu Pinyin: ; also 台灣華語, Táiwān HuáyÅ­) is the dialect of Mandarin Chinese spoken on Taiwan. ... Motto: None Anthem: National Anthem of the Republic of China Capital Taipei City (de facto) Nanjing (de jure)1 Largest city Taipei City Official language(s) Mandarin (GuóyÇ”) Government Semi-presidential system  - President Chen Shui-bian  - Vice President Annette Lu  - Premier Su Tseng-chang Establishment Xinhai Revolution   - Declared October... The Chinese Nationalist Party (Traditional Chinese: 中國國民黨; Simplified Chinese: 中国国民党; Hanyu Pinyin: ; Wade-Giles: Chung-kuo Kuo-min-tang; Tongyong Pinyin: Jhōngguó GuómíndÇŽng), commonly known as the Kuomintang (KMT), is a conservative political party currently active in the Republic of China (ROC) on Taiwan. ... Lingua franca, literally Frankish language in Italian, was originally a mixed language consisting largely of Italian plus a vocabulary drawn from Turkish, Persian, French, Greek and Arabic and used for communication throughout the Middle East. ... Template:Dablick Taiwanese (Traditional Chinese: 台語, 台灣話; Pinyin: TáiyÇ”, Táiwānhuà; Taiwanese Pe̍h-oÄ“-jÄ«: Tâi-gí or Tâi-oân-oÄ“) is a dialect of Min Nan spoken by about 70% of the Taiwanese population. ... Hoklo (pronounced Holo; Chinese ; Mandarin pronunciation--pinyin: Fulao) can refer to an ethnic-cultural group originating in Fujian province, China. ... The Hakka (Traditional Chinese: 客家; Simplified Chinese: 客家; Pinyin: kèjiā, lit. ... Hakka is one language in the family of languages known as Chinese. ... Mainlanders are those humans who live, or were born, in a mainland. ... A Rukai villege Chief visiting Department of Anthropology in Tokyo Imperial University during the Japanese rule. ...


Until the 1980s the Kuomintang administration heavily promoted the use of Standard Mandarin and discouraged the use of Taiwanese and other vernaculars, even portraying them as inferior. Mandarin was the only sanctioned language for use in the media. This produced a backlash in the 1990s. Although some more extreme supporters of Taiwan independence tend to be opposed to standard Mandarin in favor of Taiwanese, efforts to replace standard Mandarin either with Taiwanese or with a multi-lingual standard have remained stalled. Today, Mandarin is taught by immersion starting in elementary school. After the second grade, the entire educational system is in Mandarin, except for local language classes that have been taught for a few hours each week starting in the mid-1990s. The Chinese Nationalist Party (Traditional Chinese: 中國國民黨; Simplified Chinese: 中国国民党; Hanyu Pinyin: ; Wade-Giles: Chung-kuo Kuo-min-tang; Tongyong Pinyin: Jhōngguó Guómíndǎng), commonly known as the Kuomintang (KMT), is a conservative political party currently active in the Republic of China (ROC) on Taiwan. ... Taiwan independence (Traditional Chinese: 台灣獨立; Pinyin: , Pe̍h-oē-jī: Tâi-oân To̍k-li̍p; abbreviated to 台獨, Táidú, Tâi-to̍k) is a political movement whose goal is primarily to create an independent and sovereign Republic of Taiwan (out of the lands currently administered by the...


Taiwanese Mandarin, like Singlish, is spoken at different levels according to the social class and situation of the speakers. Formal occasions call for the acrotectal level of Guoyu, which in practice differs little from Putonghua. Less formal situations often result in the basilect, which has more uniquely Taiwanese features. Bilingual Taiwanese speakers often code-switch between Mandarin and Taiwanese, sometimes in the same sentence. Singlish, a portmanteau of Singapore and English, is the English-based creole spoken colloquially in Singapore. ... An acrolect is a register of a spoken language that is considered formal and high-style. ... In linguistics, a basilect is a dialect of speech that has diverged so far from the standard language that in essence it has become a different language. ... Code-switching is a term in linguistics referring to alternation between one or more languages, dialects, or language registers in the course of discourse between people who have more than one language in common. ...


Mandarin is spoken fluently by almost the entire Taiwanese population, except for some elderly people who were educated under Japanese rule. In the capital Taipei, where there is a high concentration of Mainlanders whose native language is not Taiwanese, Mandarin is used in greater frequency than in southern Taiwan and more rural areas where there are fewer Mainlanders. City nickname: the City of Azaleas Government Official Website City of Taipei Mayor Ma Ying-jeou Capital District Xinyi Geographical characteristics Area  - Total  - % water Ranked 16 of 25 271. ... Mainlanders are those humans who live, or were born, in a mainland. ...


Chinese alphabet

Main article: Zhuyin Fuhao

Zhuyin Fuhao (Traditional Chinese: 注音符號; Hanyu Pinyin: Zhùyīn Fúhào; Wade-Giles: Chu-yin fu-hao), or "Symbols for Annotating Sounds", often abbreviated as Zhuyin, or known as Bopomofo (ㄅㄆㄇㄈ) after the first four letters of this Chinese phonemic alphabet (bo po mo fo), is the national phonetic system of the Republic of China (Taiwan) for teaching the Chinese languages, especially Standard Mandarin, to people learning to read and write and/or to people learning to speak Mandarin. (See Uses). The system uses 37 special symbols to represent the Mandarin sounds: 21 consonants and 16 vowels. Each symbol represents a group of sounds without much ambiguity. Zhùyīn Fúhào (注音符號), or Symbols for Annotating Sounds, often abbreviated as Zhuyin, or known as Bopomofo (ㄅㄆㄇㄈ) for the first four syllables of these Chinese phonetic symbols, is the national phonetic system of the Republic of China (based on Taiwan) for teaching the Chinese languages, especially Standard Mandarin, to people... Image File history File links An update of Menchis Graphic File history Legend: (cur) = this is the current file, (del) = delete this old version, (rev) = revert to this old version. ... Traditional Chinese characters are one of two standard character sets. ... Pinyin is a system of romanization (phonemic notation and transcription to Roman script) for Standard Mandarin, where pin means spell(ing) and yin means sound(s)). This article describes the most common variant called Hanyu Pinyin (Simplified Chinese: 汉语拼音; Traditional Chinese: 漢語拼音; pinyin: HànyÇ” PÄ«nyÄ«n), also known as scheme... Wade-Giles, sometimes abbreviated Wade, is a Romanization (phonetic notation and transliteration) system for the Chinese language based on Mandarin. ... In human language, a phoneme is a set of phones (speech sounds or sign elements) that are cognitively equivalent. ... A Specimen of typeset fonts and languages, by William Caslon, letter founder; from the 1728 Cyclopaedia. ... Phonetic (pho-NET-ic) is a nationwide voicemail-to-text messaging service available for most digital mobile phones in which a subscriber is provided a custom voice mailbox for the purpose of receiving all incoming voice messages as actual transcribed text for reading via short messaging (also known as SMS... Motto: None Anthem: National Anthem of the Republic of China Capital Taipei City (de facto) Nanjing (de jure)1 Largest city Taipei City Official language(s) Mandarin (GuóyÇ”) Government Semi-presidential system  - President Chen Shui-bian  - Vice President Annette Lu  - Premier Su Tseng-chang Establishment Xinhai Revolution   - Declared October... Standard Mandarin is the official Chinese spoken language used by the Peoples Republic of China, the Republic of China (Taiwan) and Singapore. ... A consonant is a sound in spoken language that is characterized by a closure or stricture of the vocal tract sufficient to cause audible turbulence. ... Note: This page contains IPA phonetic symbols in Unicode. ...


These phonetic symbols sometimes appear as ruby characters printed next to the Chinese characters in young children's books, and in editions of classical texts (which frequently use characters that appear at very low frequency rates in newspapers and other such daily fare). In advertisements, these phonetic symbols are sometimes used to write certain particles (e.g., ㄉ instead of 的); other than this, one seldom sees these symbols used in mass media adult publications except as a pronunciation guide (or index system) in dictionary entries. Bopomofo symbols are also mapped to the ordinary Roman character keyboard (1 = bo, q = po, a = mo, and so forth) used in one method for inputting Chinese text when using the computer. Ruby characters, also called ruby, rubi or furigana, are sometimes used in the typography of ideographic languages, especially Japanese and Chinese. ... Look up book in Wiktionary, the free dictionary. ... A dictionary is a list of words with their definitions, a list of characters with their glyphs, or a list of words with corresponding words in other languages. ... Since the Chinese language uses a logographic script—that is a script where one or two character corresponds roughly to one word or meaning—there are vastly more characters, or glyphs, than there are keys on a standard computer keyboard. ... A Lego RCX Computer is an example of an embedded computer used to control mechanical devices. ...


Unlike pinyin, the sole purpose for Zhuyin in elementary education is to teach Standard Mandarin pronunciation to children. Grade one textbooks of all subjects (including Mandarin) are entirely in zhuyin. After that year, Chinese character texts are given in annotated form. Around grade four, presence of Zhuyin annotation is greatly reduced, remaining only in the new character section. School children learn the symbols so that they can decode pronunciations given in a Chinese dictionary, and also so that they can find how to write words for which they know only the sounds. Students in Rome, Italy. ...


Pinyin, on the other hand, is dual-purpose. Besides being a pronunciation notation, pinyin is used widely in publications in mainland China. Some books from mainland China are published purely in pinyin with not even a single Chinese character. Those books are targeted to minority tribal groups or Westerners who know spoken Mandarin but have not yet learned written Chinese characters. The highlighted area in the map is what is commonly known as mainland China. Mainland China (Simplified Chinese: 中国大陆; Traditional Chinese: 中國大陸; pinyin: Zhōnggúo Dàlù; literally The Chinese Massive Landmass or Continental China) is an informal (disputed — see talk page) geographical term which is usually synonymous with the area... The Peoples Republic of China officially describes itself as a multinational unitary state and as such officially recognizes 56 nationalities or Mínzú (民族), within China: the Han being the majority (>92%), and the remaining 55 nationalities being the national minorities. ... The term Western world or the West can have multiple meanings depending on its context. ... 漢字 Chinese character in hànzì, hanja, kanji. ...


Zhuyin will probably never replace Traditional Chinese just as hiragana has never replaced characters in Japanese texts even though substituting hiragana for characters is always an option. Not only are the characters valued for esthetic and other axiological reasons, but (once they have been learned) reading characters required fewer eye fixations and eliminates the ambiguities in any alphabetic or syllabic writing system caused by the immense number of homonyms in Chinese. Traditional Chinese characters are one of two standard character sets of printed contemporary Chinese written language. ... Japanese writing Kanji 漢字 Kana 仮名 Hiragana 平仮名 Katakana 片仮名 Uses Furigana 振り仮名 Okurigana 送り仮名 Rōmaji ローマ字 Hiragana ) are a Japanese syllabary, one of the four Japanese writing systems, along with katakana, kanji and rōmaji (i. ... Aesthetics (or esthetics) (from the Greek word αισθητική) is a branch of philosophy dealing with the nature of beauty. ... Axiology, from the Greek axia (αξια, value, worth), is the study of value or quality. ...


Romanization

Wade-Giles, sometimes abbreviated Wade, is a Romanization (phonetic notation and transliteration) system for the Chinese language based on Mandarin. ... Gwoyeu Romatzyh (Simplified Chinese: 国语罗马字; Traditional Chinese: 國語羅馬字; Pinyin: GuóyÇ” LuómÇŽzì), abbreviated GR, is a romanization (formerly used officially in the Republic of China) with complex spelling rules which allow for tonal distinctions (unlike most other Romanizations, which require additional diacritics or numerals). ... Mandarin Phonetic Symbols II (國語注音符號第二式), abbreviated MPS II, is a romanization system formerly used in the Republic of China (Taiwan). ... Tongyong Pinyin (Chinese: 通用拼音; Hanyu Pinyin: ; literally Universal/General Usage Sound-combining) is the current official romanization of the Chinese language adopted by the national government (although not all local governments) of the Republic of China (Taiwan) since late 2000, announced by the Mandarin Promotion Council of the Ministry of Education. ... Pinyin (拼音, Pīnyīn) literally means join (together) sounds (a less literal translation being phoneticize, spell or transcription) in Chinese and usually refers to Hànyǔ Pīnyīn (汉语拼音, literal meaning: Han language pinyin), which is a system of romanization (phonetic notation and transliteration to roman script) for Standard Mandarin used in the...

Other languages

Taiwanese

Taiwanese is a variant of Min-nan which is spoken in Taiwan. Taiwanese is often seen as a Chinese dialect within a larger Chinese language. On the other hand, it may also be seen as a language in the Sino-Tibetan family. As with most "language or dialect?" distinctions, how one describes Taiwanese depends largely on one's political views (see Identification of the varieties of Chinese). In any case, the classification may be represented hierarchically as: Template:Dablick Taiwanese (Traditional Chinese: 台語, 台灣話; Pinyin: TáiyÇ”, Táiwānhuà; Taiwanese Pe̍h-oÄ“-jÄ«: Tâi-gí or Tâi-oân-oÄ“) is a dialect of Min Nan spoken by about 70% of the Taiwanese population. ... Min Nan, Minnan, or Min-nan (Simplified Chinese: 闽南语; Traditional Chinese: 閩南語; Hanyu Pinyin: ; POJ: Bân-lâm-gú; Southern Min or Southern Fujian language) is the Chinese language/dialect spoken in southern Fujian province, China and neighboring areas, and by descendants of emigrants from these areas in diaspora. ... Spoken Chinese The Chinese spoken language(s) comprise(s) many regional variants. ... Chinese (written) language (pinyin: zhōngw n) written in Chinese characters The Chinese language (汉语/漢語, 华语/華語, or 中文; Pinyin: H nyǔ, Hu yǔ, or Zhōngw n) is a member of the Sino-Tibetan family of languages. ... Sino-Tibetan languages form a language family of about 250 languages of East Asia, second only to Indo-European in terms of the number of speakers. ... Chinese forms part of the Sino-Tibetan family of languages. ...

Sino-Tibetan ChineseMinMin-nanTaiwanese

As a branch of Min-nan, there is both a colloquial version and a literary version of Taiwanese. The literary version, which was originally developed in the 10th century in Fujian and based on Middle Chinese, was brought to Taiwan by the immigrants. Literary Taiwanese was used at one time for formal writing, but is now largely extinct. A great part of the Taiwanese language is mutually intelligible with Hokkien and other dialects of Min-nan. Sino-Tibetan languages form a language family of about 250 languages of East Asia, in number of speakers worldwide second only to Indo-European. ... A is a subset of B, and B is a superset of A. In mathematics, especially in set theory, a set A is a subset of a set B, if A is contained inside B. The relationship of one set being a subset of another is called inclusion. ... Min (閩方言 in pinyin: min3 fang1 yan2) is a general term for a group of dialects of the Chinese language spoken in the southeastern Chinese province of Fujian as well as by migrants from this province in Guangdong (around Chaozhou-Swatou, and Leizhou peninsula), Hainan, three counties in southern Zhejiang... Min Nan, Minnan, or Min-nan (Simplified Chinese: 闽南语; Traditional Chinese: 閩南語; Hanyu Pinyin: ; POJ: Bân-lâm-gú; Southern Min or Southern Fujian language) is the Chinese language/dialect spoken in southern Fujian province, China and neighboring areas, and by descendants of emigrants from these areas in diaspora. ... Min Nan, Minnan, or Min-nan (Simplified Chinese: 闽南语; Traditional Chinese: 閩南語; Hanyu Pinyin: ; POJ: Bân-lâm-gú; Southern Min or Southern Fujian language) is the Chinese language/dialect spoken in southern Fujian province, China and neighboring areas, and by descendants of emigrants from these areas in diaspora. ... Middle Chinese (Traditional Chinese: 中古漢語; Pinyin: zhōnggÇ” HànyÇ”), or Ancient Chinese as used by linguist Bernhard Karlgren, refers to the Chinese language spoken during Northern and Southern Dynasties and the Sui, Tang, and Song dynasties (6th century - 10th century). ...


Recent work by scholars such as Ekki Lu, Sakai Toru, and Lí Khîn-hoāⁿ (also known as Tavokan Khîn-hoāⁿ or Chin-An Li), based on former research by scholars such as Ông Io̍k-tek, has gone so far as to associate part of the basic vocabulary of the colloquial language with the Austronesian and Tai language families; however, such claims are not without controversy. Ong Iok-tek (王育德 pinyin: Wáng Yùdé; January 30, 1924–September 9, 1985) was a Taiwanese scholar and early leader of the Taiwan independence movement. ... The Austronesian languages are a language family widely dispersed throughout the islands of Southeast Asia and the Pacific ( with a few members spoken on continental Asia). ... The Tai languages are a subgroup of the Tai Kadai language family. ...


Hakka

Main article: Hakka (linguistics)

Hakka (Simplified Chinese: 客家话, Traditional Chinese: 客家話, Hakka: Hak-ka-fa/-va, pinyin: Kèjiāhuà) is a Chinese dialect/language spoken predominantly in southern China by the Hakka ethnic group and descendants in diaspora throughout East and Southeast Asia and around the world. ...

Formosan

Main article: Formosan languages

The Formosan languages are the aboriginal Austronesian languages of Formosa (mainland Taiwan). They are spoken by 2% of the population. The Formosan languages do not form a single group, but rather comprise several primary branches of Austronesian. There are around 20 Formosan languages known, a number of them already extinct. The Formosan languages are a group of Austronesian languages spoken 2% of the population of Taiwan, almost exclusively aboriginals. ... A Rukai village Chief visiting the Department of Anthropology in Tokyo Imperial University during Japanese rule of Taiwan. ... The Austronesian languages are a language family widely dispersed throughout the islands of Southeast Asia and the Pacific ( with a few members spoken on continental Asia). ... Formosa is a place name which comes from Portuguese and old Spanish word formosa (*from latin formosus, meaning beautiful). The following places bear the name: The geographically named island of Formosa, upon which the Taiwanese live, also sometimes called the Republic of China Formosa Strait (Taiwan Strait) Formosan languages, the...


Nowadays, all Formosan languages are slowly being replaced by the culturally dominant Mandarin-Chinese, but in the last decades the Taiwanese government started an aboriginal reappreciation program that included the reintroduction of Formosan mother tongue education in Taiwanese schools. Motto: None Anthem: National Anthem of the Republic of China Capital Taipei City (de facto) Nanjing (de jure)1 Largest city Taipei City Official language(s) Mandarin (GuóyÇ”) Government Semi-presidential system  - President Chen Shui-bian  - Vice President Annette Lu  - Premier Su Tseng-chang Establishment Xinhai Revolution   - Declared October... First language (native language, mother tongue, or vernacular) is the language a person learns first. ...


Japanese

External links

  • How to Forget Your Mother Tongue and Remember Your National Language by Victor H. Mair



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Taiwan society consists of Han and Austronesian people who, despite their cultural differences, are able to work together and make their respective contributions to society.
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Taiwanese Sign Language (TSL) is the sign language most commonly used in Taiwan.
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