Taiwanese Mandarin
| Taiwanese Mandarin | |
|---|---|
|
國語 Guóyǔ/Kuo-yü 臺灣華語 Táiwān Huáyǔ |
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| Native to | Taiwan |
|
Native speakers
|
4.3 million (1993) L2 speakers: more than 15 million (no date) |
|
Sino-Tibetan
|
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| Traditional Chinese characters | |
| Official status | |
|
Official language in
|
Taiwan |
| Regulated by | National Languages Committee (Ministry of Education, ROC). |
| Language codes | |
| ISO 639-3 | – |
| ISO 639-6 | goyu (Guoyu) |
| Glottolog | taib1240 |
Percentage of Taiwanese aged 6 and above speaking Mandarin at home in 2010
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Taiwanese Mandarin is the Standard Mandarin spoken in Taiwan. Its standard lect is known in Taiwan as Kuo-yü (Chinese: ; pinyin: Guóyǔ; literally: "National language") and is based on the phonology of the Beijing dialect together with the grammar of vernacular Chinese.
The official Guoyu is almost identical to the official language of the People's Republic of China, called Pǔtōnghuà, with the exception of their writing systems. However, Mandarin as spoken informally in Taiwan has some notable differences in vocabulary, grammar and pronunciation with Standard Mandarin, differences which have arisen mainly under influence from Taiwanese Hokkien (the native variety of about 70% of the population of Taiwan), other mother tongues of Taiwan like Hakka (spoken natively by about 15% of the Taiwanese) and Formosan languages, additionally English, and Japanese from the prior Japanese period.
In 1945 when the Republic of China took over Taiwan and surrounding islands from Japan, Mandarin was introduced as the official language and made compulsory in schools. A Mandarin Promotion Council (now called National Languages Committee) was established in 1946 by Taiwan Chief Executive Chen Yi to standardize and popularize the usage of Standard Mandarin in Taiwan. The Council was led by 21 Chinese Scholars such as Wei Jiangong (魏建功), He Rong (何容), Qi Tiehen (齊鐵恨), Wang Yuchuan (王玉川), Fang Shiduo (方師鐸), Zhu Zhaoxiang, Wu Shouli (吳守禮) etc. (From 1895 to 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 Han ethnic Hoklo, the Hakka who have their own spoken variant, Mainlanders whose native tongue may be any Chinese variant from mainland China, and the Taiwanese aborigines who speak Formosan languages.
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