Global InformationTaiwanese Mandarin information
| Taiwanese Mandarin | |
|---|---|
| 中華民國國語, Zhōnghuá Mínguó Guóyǔ 臺灣國語, Táiwān Guóyǔ 臺灣華語, Táiwān Huáyǔ | |
| Native to | Taiwan |
| Speakers | L1: 4.6 million (2017)[1] L2: 15 million[1] |
Language family | Sino-Tibetan
|
Writing system | Traditional Chinese characters |
| Official status | |
Official language in | Republic of China (Taiwan) |
| Regulated by | Ministry of Education (Taiwan) |
| Language codes | |
| ISO 639-3 | – |
| ISO 639-6 | goyu (Guoyu) |
| Glottolog | taib1240 |
| IETF | cmn-TW |
 Percentage of Taiwanese aged 6 and above who spoke Mandarin at home in 2010; darker blue corresponds to a greater density of Mandarin speakers | |
| Taiwanese Mandarin | |||||||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Traditional Chinese | 臺灣國語 | ||||||||||||||
| Simplified Chinese | 台湾国语 | ||||||||||||||
| |||||||||||||||
| National language of the Republic of China | |||||||||||||||
| Traditional Chinese | 中華民國國語 | ||||||||||||||
| Simplified Chinese | 中华民国国语 | ||||||||||||||
| |||||||||||||||
Taiwanese Mandarin, frequently referred to as Guoyu (Chinese: 國語; pinyin: Guóyǔ; lit. 'National language') or Huayu (華語; Huáyǔ; 'Mandarin language'), is the variety of Mandarin Chinese spoken in Taiwan. A large majority of the Taiwanese population is fluent in Mandarin, though many also speak a variety of Min Chinese known as Taiwanese Hokkien, commonly called Minnanyu (Chinese: 閩南語; pinyin: Mǐnnányǔ; Pe̍h-ōe-jī: Bân-lâm-gú), Southern Min, or Hokkien.[note 1] This language has had a significant influence on Mandarin as spoken on the island.
Mandarin was not a prevalent spoken language in Taiwan before the mid-20th century. Early Chinese immigrants who settled in Taiwan before Japanese rule mainly spoke other varieties of Chinese languages, primarily Hakka and Hokkien. By contrast, Taiwanese indigenous peoples speak unrelated Austronesian languages. Japan annexed Taiwan in 1895 and governed the island as a colony for the next 50 years, introducing Japanese in education, government, and public life. With the defeat of Imperial Japan in World War II, Taiwan was handed to the Republic of China, ruled by the Kuomintang (KMT), which by 1950 had been expelled by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) out of the Chinese mainland. The KMT promulgated Standard Mandarin as the national language — Guoyu — while suppressing non-Mandarin languages in the public sphere in Taiwan. At the same time, in the People's Republic of China on the mainland, Putonghua (simplified Chinese: 普通话; traditional Chinese: 普通話; pinyin: Pǔtōnghuà; lit. 'common speech') was likewise promoted as the national language.[note 2]
Putonghua in mainland China and Guoyu in Taiwan are highly similar and derive from the same standard based on the phonology of the Beijing dialect of Mandarin Chinese and the grammar of written vernacular Chinese in the early 20th century.[3] Standard Guoyu pronunciations tend to be based on prescribed dictionaries of the period, whereas Standard Putonghua integrated colloquial Northern Mandarin pronunciations for some words. Notable characteristics of Guoyu as is commonly spoken in Taiwan include its somewhat different tonal qualities compared to Putonghua, the lack of the erhua phenomenon, and the lack of retroflex consonants (with zh-, ch-, sh- being pronounced like z-, c-, and s-) in most contexts. Guoyu also incorporates vocabulary from Minnanyu and Japanese. Written Chinese (both Guoyu and Chinese languages like Hakka and Minnanyu) in Taiwan generally uses traditional characters, in contrast to mainland China (excluding Hong Kong and Macau), where simplified Chinese characters were adopted beginning in the 1950s. Some grammatical differences also exist, often due to the influence of Minnanyu. The two forms of Mandarin have evolved additional differences over the decades of political separation between the Republic of China in Taiwan and the People's Republic of China in the mainland, though both remain mutually intelligible.
Guoyu spoken in Taiwan exists on a spectrum, from the most formal, standardized variety to the least formal, with the heaviest influence of non-Mandarin Chinese languages, primarily Minnanyu. On one end of the spectrum, there is Standard Guoyu (標準國語; Biāozhǔn Guóyǔ), the official national language of the Republic of China (Taiwan). This variety is taught as the standard in the education system and is employed in official communications and most news media. The core of this standard variety is described in the Ministry of Education Mandarin Chinese Dictionary. Very few people speak purely standard Guoyu, however. Mandarin, as colloquially spoken in Taiwan, can be broadly called "Taiwan Guoyu" (台灣國語; Táiwān Guóyǔ). Taiwan Guoyu diverges in varying degrees from Standard Guoyu, with some speakers being closer to Standard Guoyu than others. These divergences are often the result of Taiwan Guoyu incorporating influences from other languages used in Taiwan, primarily Minnanyu, but also Japanese. Like Standard Guoyu, Taiwan Guoyu is also mutually intelligible with Putonghua, but when compared with Standard Guoyu, Taiwan Guoyu exhibits greater differences in pronunciation, vocabulary, and grammar.
This article uses Taiwan Guoyu to refer to the colloquial varieties of Mandarin in Taiwan, Standard Guoyu for the prescribed standard form, Putonghua to refer to Standard mainland Chinese Mandarin, and simply Guoyu or Taiwanese Mandarin when a distinction is unnecessary.
- ^ a b Chinese, Mandarin at Ethnologue (25th ed., 2022)
- ^ Wiedenhof 2015, p. 5. "But even inside China, the term Guóyǔ remains in use among speakers of non-Mandarin Sinitic languages when they refer to Mandarin."
- ^ Chen 1999, pp. 22–24.
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