Taiwanese Mandarin, natively referred to as Guoyu () or Huayu (), is the variety of Standard Chinese spoken in Taiwan. A large majority of the Taiwanese population is fluent in Mandarin, though many can also speak Taiwanese Hokkien, which has had a significant influence on Taiwanese Mandarin.
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 Formosan languages. Japan annexed Taiwan in 1895 and governed the island as a colony for the next 50 years, introducing the Japanese language in education, government, and public life. With the defeat of Imperial Japan in World War II, Taiwan was transferred to the Republic of China, ruled by the Kuomintang (KMT), which by 1950 had been expelled from the mainland by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). The KMT promulgated Guoyu while suppressing non-Mandarin languages in the public sphere. At the same time, the People's Republic of China promoted the same national language as Putonghua () on the mainland.
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 and the grammar of written vernacular Mandarin in the early 20th century. 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 Hokkien and Japanese. Some grammatical differences also exist, often due to Hokkien influence. The two varieties of Mandarin have diverged in the decades since the political separation of Taiwan and the mainland. Written Mandarin in Taiwan generally uses traditional characters, in contrast to the simplified characters used in mainland China.
Guoyu spoken in Taiwan exists on a spectrum, from the most formal, standardized variety to the least formal, with the heaviest Hokkien influence. On one end of the spectrum, there is Standard Guoyu (), an official national language of 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" (). 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 Hokkien, 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.
Terms and definition Chinese is not a single language but a group of languages in the Sinitic branch of the Sino-Tibetan family, which includes varieties such as Mandarin, Cantonese, and Hakka. They share a common ancestry and, in most cases, the use of Chinese characters in writing; among Chinese speakers, they are popularly considered dialects ( fāngyán) of the same, overarching language. These dialects are often extremely divergent in the spoken form, however, and not mutually intelligible. Accordingly, Western and Taiwanese linguists tend to treat them as separate languages rather than dialects of the same language;See Mair for an overview of the terminology and debate: citing Yuen Ren Chao, John DeFrancis likened the differences among some dialects as like those between English and Dutch, for example.
Mandarin Chinese is a grouping of Chinese languages that includes at least eight subgroups, often also called dialects. In English, "Mandarin" can refer to any of these Mandarin dialects, which are not necessarily mutually intelligible. However, the term is most commonly used to refer to Standard Chinese, the prestige dialect.
Standard Chinese in the People's Republic of China (mainland China) is called Putonghua () and in the Republic of China (Taiwan) Guoyu (). Both of these are based on the Beijing dialect of Mandarin and are mutually intelligible, but also feature various lexical, phonological, and grammatical differences. There exists significant variation within Putonghua and Guoyu as well. Some scholars have argued that Putonghua and Guoyu are artificial standards that, strictly speaking, do not represent the natively spoken language of a significant number of, or even any, people.
Guoyu exists on a continuum from the most standard, formal version of the language to the form most heavily influenced by Hokkien. The former variety can be called Standard Guoyu (; Biāozhǔn Guóyǔ) in contrast to the less standard Taiwan Guoyu (; Táiwān Guóyǔ). More formal settings—such as television news broadcasts—tend to feature speakers using Standard Guoyu, which closely resembles mainland Putonghua, but is not generally used as a day-to-day language. Language falling on the less standard side of the Guoyu spectrum may be stigmatized as uneducated.
This article focuses on the features of both Standard Guoyu, particularly its relationship to Putonghua, as well as non-standard but widespread features of Mandarin in Taiwan, grouped under Taiwan Guoyu.
History and usage Large-scale Han Chinese settlement of Taiwan began in the 17th century by Hoklo immigrants from Fujian province who spoke Southern Min languages (predominantly Hokkien), and to a lesser extent, Hakka immigrants who spoke their respective language. Taiwanese indigenous peoples already inhabited the island, speaking a variety of Austronesian languages unrelated to Chinese, mostly under the Formosan language grouping. In the centuries following Chinese settlement, the number of indigenous languages dropped significantly, with several going extinct, in part due to the process of sinicization.
Official communications among the Han were done in Mandarin (), but the primary languages of everyday life were Hokkien or Hakka. After its defeat in the First Sino-Japanese War, the Qing dynasty ceded Taiwan to the Empire of Japan, which governed the island as an Imperial colony from 1895 to 1945. By the end of the colonial period, Japanese had become the high dialect of the island as the result of decades of Japanization policy.
Under KMT rule After the Republic of China under the Kuomintang (KMT) gained control of Taiwan in 1945, Mandarin was introduced as the official language and made compulsory in schools, although the local population rarely spoke it at the time. Many who had fled the mainland after the defeat of the KMT by the Communists also spoke non-standard varieties of Mandarin, which may have influenced later colloquial pronunciations. Wu Chinese dialects were also influential due to the relative power of KMT refugees from Wu-speaking Zhejiang, Chiang Kai-shek's home province.
The Mandarin Promotion Council (now called National Languages Committee) was established in 1946 by Chief Executive Chen Yi to standardize and popularize the usage of Mandarin in Taiwan. The Kuomintang heavily discouraged the use of Southern Min and other non-Mandarin languages, portraying them as inferior, and school children were punished for speaking their non-Mandarin native languages. Guoyu was thus established as a lingua franca among the various groups in Taiwan at the expense of existing languages.
Post-martial law Following the end of martial law in 1987, language policy in the country underwent liberalization, but Mandarin remained the dominant language. Local languages were no longer proscribed in public discourse, mass media, and schools. English and "mother tongue education" (; mǔyǔ jiàoyù) — Hokkien and Hakka — were introduced as elective subjects in primary school in 2001. Greater time and resources are devoted to both Mandarin and English, which are compulsory subjects, compared to mother tongue instruction.
Government statistics from 2020 found that 66.3% of Taiwanese residents use Mandarin as their primary language, and another 30.4% use it as a secondary language (31.7% used Hokkien as their primary language, and 54.3% used it as a secondary language). Guoyu is the primary language for over 80% of people in the northern areas of Taipei, Taoyuan, and Hsinchu. Youth is correlated with use of Guoyu: in 2020, over two-thirds of Taiwanese over 65 used Hokkien or Hakka as their primary language, compared with just 11% of 15–24-year-olds.
A 2004 study found that Mandarin was spoken more fluently by Hakka and Taiwanese indigenous peoples than their respective mother tongues; Hoklo groups, on average, spoke better Hokkien, but Hoklo under 50 years old still spoke significantly better Mandarin (with comparable levels of fluency to their usage of Hokkien) than the elderly. Overall, while both national and local levels of government have taken some measures to promote the use of non-Mandarin Chinese languages, younger generations generally prefer using Mandarin.
Script Guoyu employs traditional Chinese characters (which are also used in the two special administrative regions of China, Hong Kong and Macau), rather than the simplified Chinese characters used in mainland China. Literate Taiwanese can generally understand a text in simplified characters.
Shorthand characters
In practice, Taiwanese Mandarin users may write informal, shorthand characters (; also sútǐzì) in place of the full traditional forms. These variant Chinese characters are generally easier to write by hand and consist of fewer strokes. Shorthand characters are often identical to their simplified counterparts, but they may also take after Japanese kanji, or differ from both, as shown in the table below. A few shorthand characters are used as frequently as standard traditional characters, even in formal contexts, such as the tai in Taiwan, which is often written as , as opposed to the standard traditional form, .
Shorthand Traditional Notes Identical to simplified (huì) Identical to simplified (jī) Identical to Japanese, cf. simplified (fā) Differs from both simplified Chinese and Japanese , although is also a Japanese ryakuji shorthand variant (diǎn) Identical to Japanese, cf. simplified (zhuàn, zhuǎn) Differs from both simplified Chinese (gè) and Japanese or katakana Identical to Japanese, cf. simplified (duì) is standard simplified as well. is formally a variant of the unrelated dǎi but is identical to the short-lived second-round simplification version of . (cān) Unlike simplified , retains the radical for 'ear' () (tīng).
In informal writing, Guoyu speakers may replace possessive particles de or zhī with the Japanese particle no in hiragana (usually read as de), which serves a nearly identical grammatical role. No is often used in advertising, where it evokes a sense of playfulness and fashionability, and handwriting, as it is easier to write.
Braille Taiwanese Braille is similar to Mainland Chinese Braille, though several sounds are represented by different patterns. Both systems represent the sounds of the language (as do Pinyin and Zhuyin), not Chinese characters themselves.
Transliteration
Zhuyin Fuhao