The fate of Taiwanese

The Fate of the Language?

Brought to my attention in my Facebook news-feed, a friend of mine posted a link to this article in the New York Times about how the Cantonese language is facing the possibility of becoming a "dying" language over the next few years in the United States- specifically in New York's Chinatown.

I emphasize language here because it is a language. As far as I can tell from my one-year education in Mandarin, the Cantonese language and Mandarin language are mutually unintelligible. Just as, the Taiwanese language and Mandarin language are mutually unintelligible. And while both languages, Cantonese and Taiwanese, may be facing an uphill battle in surviving as a language- the outlook for Cantonese remains much brighter.

This is due in most part to Cantonese having a fairly well supported written form of itself. On the other hand, Taiwanese is being hit on all fronts by many different systems, from using romanized systems to character systems, where each can be further broken down. This website, Talingua, has a good overview of the various ways you can approach Taiwanese writing/reading. The problem here is (from what I remember/hear) that the KMT government at one point gave money to a bunch of different groups/scholars to each come up with their own system of writing Taiwanese. Sounds good/reasonable right? Well, the result was that each came up with their own, and there ended up being a sort of competition for whose is better. In the end, we have a bunch of different systems that no one can agree upon. So the Taiwanese language continues to lose place in society as the years pass on with no agreed upon writing system.

While a writing system for a language is not the only thing that is needed to help keep it alive, it is a large part of it. But, I believe there needs to be a change that takes place in conjunction with a unified writing system for Taiwanese to maintain it's prominence as a language of Taiwan. That is, the political and social issues that plague the Taiwanese language. Many young Taiwanese these days are plagued with the notion that Taiwanese is/should be used for only in the marketplace and at home. While currently this notion is certainly not unfounded (as Taiwanese is currently mainly used in marketplaces and inside the home), it is a slippery slope of self-fulfilling prophecy that should be reconsidered. It is one thing to put Mandarin on a pedestal and say it's the main language to be used in the business world/work place, but another thing to put Taiwanese down and limit it to the marketplace and home.

The part that I find must unbearable about this is, young Taiwanese telling other Taiwanese, "Why are you speaking Taiwanese? It's so weird." As one who excels in the Taiwanese language, and has the Mandarin capability of probably a 2nd or 3rd grader, I was not one to be ashamed to use my Taiwanese in all aspects of my life and time in Taiwan- from classmates, to professors, other exchange students, at clubs/bars, customer service people, retail workers, you name it, I probably talked to them in Taiwanese. Were they taken aback at first? Yes. Did they get used to it? Yes. Was it easier to make friends because of my Taiwanese? In my point of view, yes. I think we can all do the Taiwanese language a favour, by at the very least, simply not handing out negative remarks over using Taiwanese. I even met a few people who speak Taiwanese with their friends all the time, and it was a refreshing change to see that there are still young people in Taiwan who have respect for their own culture.

Keep in mind, this is no hack on the Taiwanese who don't speak the language, Taiwanese- but rather a reminder to those that do. Furthermore, I want to emphasize here that speaking Taiwanese does not make one more "Taiwanese" than those who don't. I have met plenty of people who don't speak Taiwanese, but are more "Taiwanese" than the current president of Taiwan will ever be.