As a Taiwanese, I must say: we Taiwanese people just write Chinese, but we has never used Romanized Minnan/Taiwanese in our daily life, schools, etc. It's only used by Americans who wanna learn Minnan dialect. Besides, it hasn't been recognized by we Taiwanese people.
Romanized Minnan/Taiwanese has never been used in Taiwan
(1) http://www.chineselanguage.org/forums/viewtopic.php?f=6&p=21736
"... I don't tell people to use Tadpolenese. I tell them to be self-confident, and write down their language, using whatever means they consider appropriate. Self-confidence of the next generation means a lot more to me. Writing down their mother tongue is a totally secondary issue. Please let them be creative."
(2) If you want to sing Teochew songs in Teochew language, Chinese characters will not help you. You will need to know the pronunciation of words in the Teochew accent. See for instance: http://www.tadpolenese.com/Home/koul-luaan . Tadpolenese helps non-native speakers to be able to sing standard Hoklo or Teochew Hoklo songs.
(3) Similarly, Tadpolenese helps linguistics transcription of a dialectal speech. See for instance transcription of a Da'An Hoklo speech: http://www.tadpolenese.com/speeches/dnuar-wnua-wer . Da'An is a Hoklo-speaking village in coastal Guangdong province, with quite an interesting accent.
Tadpolenese has strong phonetic elements. Yet it mixes in enough morphemic elements to allow interdialectal recognition of the written forms. Anyway, if you know English, you know what I mean: written English is also strongly-phonetic, but it also contains a large number of morphemic elements.
And if you have not realized, Tadpolenese writes out the tonal-phrase structure of Hoklo. Tadpolenese is the ONLY Hoklo transcription system that achieves that. I hope you realize how important this is to the future all Hoklo transcription systems, be it with Chinese characters or with alphabet. This is a major break through in the history of written Hoklo. If you wish, it makes a wake-up call to all Hoklo speakers, so that they can be aware of the single most important feature of their language.
"... I don't tell people to use Tadpolenese. I tell them to be self-confident, and write down their language, using whatever means they consider appropriate. Self-confidence of the next generation means a lot more to me. Writing down their mother tongue is a totally secondary issue. Please let them be creative."
(2) If you want to sing Teochew songs in Teochew language, Chinese characters will not help you. You will need to know the pronunciation of words in the Teochew accent. See for instance: http://www.tadpolenese.com/Home/koul-luaan . Tadpolenese helps non-native speakers to be able to sing standard Hoklo or Teochew Hoklo songs.
(3) Similarly, Tadpolenese helps linguistics transcription of a dialectal speech. See for instance transcription of a Da'An Hoklo speech: http://www.tadpolenese.com/speeches/dnuar-wnua-wer . Da'An is a Hoklo-speaking village in coastal Guangdong province, with quite an interesting accent.
Tadpolenese has strong phonetic elements. Yet it mixes in enough morphemic elements to allow interdialectal recognition of the written forms. Anyway, if you know English, you know what I mean: written English is also strongly-phonetic, but it also contains a large number of morphemic elements.
And if you have not realized, Tadpolenese writes out the tonal-phrase structure of Hoklo. Tadpolenese is the ONLY Hoklo transcription system that achieves that. I hope you realize how important this is to the future all Hoklo transcription systems, be it with Chinese characters or with alphabet. This is a major break through in the history of written Hoklo. If you wish, it makes a wake-up call to all Hoklo speakers, so that they can be aware of the single most important feature of their language.
<<Kaohsiung citizen Sat Oct 18, 2008 2:46 am GMT
As a Taiwanese, I must say: we Taiwanese people just write Chinese, but we has never used Romanized Minnan/Taiwanese in our daily life, schools, etc. It's only used by Americans who wanna learn Minnan dialect. Besides, it hasn't been recognized by we Taiwanese people. >>
I have to agree with you there!
As a Taiwanese, I must say: we Taiwanese people just write Chinese, but we has never used Romanized Minnan/Taiwanese in our daily life, schools, etc. It's only used by Americans who wanna learn Minnan dialect. Besides, it hasn't been recognized by we Taiwanese people. >>
I have to agree with you there!
<<Kaohsiung citizen Sat Oct 18, 2008 2:46 am GMT
As a Taiwanese, I must say: we Taiwanese people just write Chinese, but we has never used Romanized Minnan/Taiwanese in our daily life, schools, etc. It's only used by Americans who wanna learn Minnan dialect. Besides, it hasn't been recognized by we Taiwanese people. >>
Just because you don't know the history of romanized writing in Taiwan, doesn't make the facts go away.
(1) Please visit Wikipedia: http://zh-min-nan.wikipedia.org/wiki/Th%C3%A2u-ia%CC%8Dh
(2) Please visit POJ websites: http://iug.csie.dahan.edu.tw/taigu.asp, and pages there within, e.g: http://iug.csie.dahan.edu.tw/iug/Ungian/chokphin/hoanek/bechhia/lobechhia.htm
(3) Most early written records, including the first newspaper in Taiwan, were written in romanized writings.
It's not just "Americans", it's the very same Taiwanese people that used the romanized writing, many of them at the top universities in Taiwan, including National Taiwan University. And not only in Taiwan, but also in Mainland. And not only for Hoklo, but also for other Min dialects, like Min Dong dialect on Mainland China: see http://cdo.wikipedia.org/wiki/T%C3%A0u_Hi%C4%95k. All Minnan dictionaries in Mainland , and most Minnan dictionaires in Taiwan, do use alphabetic phonetic symbols to show the pronunciation of words. I suppose you guys have never bought and have never used any Minnan dictionary. It is also safe to say that you guys have never ever written down onr single page in the Minnan language. I suggest you guys go out and start from the beginning: get a dictionary.
It is from the alphabetized writings that we can best recover the phonetics of the old days. And when it comes to Chinese dialectology, you have no choice: there are so many different dialects. Without alphabetized writing, you can't write down their pronunciations properly. Chinese characters are just not good enough to write down the sounds of its hundreds of dialects. And for Karaoke song videos, you will see more and more often romanized writing together with Chinese characters. The need for romanized writing is not going to go away. It is going to show up more and more often, especially when more and more people are paying attention to local cultures, in Mainland, in Taiwan, in Malaysia, in Singapore, in Indonesia. And it's not just Hoklo: even Wu languages are starting to use various romanized writings.
As a Taiwanese, I must say: we Taiwanese people just write Chinese, but we has never used Romanized Minnan/Taiwanese in our daily life, schools, etc. It's only used by Americans who wanna learn Minnan dialect. Besides, it hasn't been recognized by we Taiwanese people. >>
Just because you don't know the history of romanized writing in Taiwan, doesn't make the facts go away.
(1) Please visit Wikipedia: http://zh-min-nan.wikipedia.org/wiki/Th%C3%A2u-ia%CC%8Dh
(2) Please visit POJ websites: http://iug.csie.dahan.edu.tw/taigu.asp, and pages there within, e.g: http://iug.csie.dahan.edu.tw/iug/Ungian/chokphin/hoanek/bechhia/lobechhia.htm
(3) Most early written records, including the first newspaper in Taiwan, were written in romanized writings.
It's not just "Americans", it's the very same Taiwanese people that used the romanized writing, many of them at the top universities in Taiwan, including National Taiwan University. And not only in Taiwan, but also in Mainland. And not only for Hoklo, but also for other Min dialects, like Min Dong dialect on Mainland China: see http://cdo.wikipedia.org/wiki/T%C3%A0u_Hi%C4%95k. All Minnan dictionaries in Mainland , and most Minnan dictionaires in Taiwan, do use alphabetic phonetic symbols to show the pronunciation of words. I suppose you guys have never bought and have never used any Minnan dictionary. It is also safe to say that you guys have never ever written down onr single page in the Minnan language. I suggest you guys go out and start from the beginning: get a dictionary.
It is from the alphabetized writings that we can best recover the phonetics of the old days. And when it comes to Chinese dialectology, you have no choice: there are so many different dialects. Without alphabetized writing, you can't write down their pronunciations properly. Chinese characters are just not good enough to write down the sounds of its hundreds of dialects. And for Karaoke song videos, you will see more and more often romanized writing together with Chinese characters. The need for romanized writing is not going to go away. It is going to show up more and more often, especially when more and more people are paying attention to local cultures, in Mainland, in Taiwan, in Malaysia, in Singapore, in Indonesia. And it's not just Hoklo: even Wu languages are starting to use various romanized writings.
Wu language romanization website:
http://www.wu-chinese.com/romanization/ext.html
http://blog.chinaunix.net/u/8057/showart_385503.html
http://www.wuxihua.com.cn/?action-viewnews-itemid-3
etc, etc.
One can really see that romanization is really needed, and a lot of people are working for a lot of dialects.
When you think about it, by using Chinese characters, we have lost thousands of years of phonetic information of the historical languages in China.
Romanized writing also helps people to get to know each other's dialect. With romanized writing, you can start to sing karaoke songs with your dialect-speaking friends. With Chinese characters, you cannot.
http://www.wu-chinese.com/romanization/ext.html
http://blog.chinaunix.net/u/8057/showart_385503.html
http://www.wuxihua.com.cn/?action-viewnews-itemid-3
etc, etc.
One can really see that romanization is really needed, and a lot of people are working for a lot of dialects.
When you think about it, by using Chinese characters, we have lost thousands of years of phonetic information of the historical languages in China.
Romanized writing also helps people to get to know each other's dialect. With romanized writing, you can start to sing karaoke songs with your dialect-speaking friends. With Chinese characters, you cannot.
Its just like ancient egyptian which ppl in taiwan NOW doesnt use anymore and no one opposes u to live in 19th century but ppl in taiwan of 21st century speak mandarin and write chinese just like egyptians speaking and writing arabic.