Talk:Taiwanese Hokkien

Taxonomy box

Can someone add one? -- Kaihsu 13:46, 2004 May 9 (UTC)

Shouldn't the box be at Min-nan? ran 17:23, May 14, 2004 (UTC)

It can be in both. Feel free to add one there.-- Kaihsu 18:22, 2004 May 15 (UTC)

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Other languages

I would like to see this article translated into other languages. -- Kaihsu 14:27, 2004 May 14 (UTC)

zhuyin

aren't taiwanese also written using zhuyin at times? i remember seeing a lot of taiwanese lyrics written using zhuyin (bopomofo).

Additionally, i would suggest replacement or removal of the example "vagina". it sounds a little unprofessional. -- 空向 07:00, Dec 6, 2004 (UTC)

Not to mention the 講啥X example... -- Cgkm (09:43:58, 18 May 2005)

Archived move discussion

Taiwanese (linguistics) → Taiwanese language

Title as is is suprememely unconform to existing conventions. Besides, Taiwanese language already redirects to it -- Circeus 18:41, Jan 9, 2005 (UTC)

Oppose. We do have a compromise convention for Sinitic languages / Chinese dialects. And we've applied it consistently:

• Mandarin (linguistics)
• Cantonese (linguistics)
• Wu (linguistics)
• Min (linguistics)
• Hakka (linguistics)
• Jin (linguistics)
• Hui (linguistics)

We arrived at this current compromise between using "language" and "dialect" after a lot of discussion and debate. Those discussions are scattered all over the place... I think Talk:Cantonese (linguistics) has one big chunk of it.

If you want to propose a change to all of the above, I suggest taking it up at Wikipedia talk:Naming conventions (Chinese).

Also, WikiProject Languages does mention that Arabic and Chinese require special naming conventions. -- ran (talk) 19:24, Jan 9, 2005 (UTC)

• Oppose. Move would assert unwanted POV re status as language/dialect. Ran outlined existing conventions very well. ADH (t&m) 21:57, Jan 9, 2005 (UTC)

• Retired I was unfortunately unaware of any existing convention. While the article, unlike the other concerned, discusses a fairly united language (rather than a possibly confusing group of languaes/dialects), the naming convention stands fairly well as is. --Circeus 05:35, Jan 10, 2005 (UTC)

Rendering Problem?

The Japanese character (as used in this article) バ renders as pa for me, the character パ. I don't know if this was a user error or on my end, however when I go to edit the page to fix the problem...the correct character displays.

Just to clarify, the character renders as pa in the article and ba in the edit.

— Preceding unsigned comment added by 74.192.56.164 (talk) 04:46:21, 13 August 2007 (UTC)

Official language

The official language in Republic of China (common known as Taiwan) is Mandarin, not Taiwanese Hokkien. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Wegettruth (talk • contribs) 16:29, 10 June 2023 (UTC)

Taiwanese is a national language under the National Languages Development Act. Kaihsu (talk) 13:36, 18 June 2024 (UTC)

Change name to just "Taiwanese" or "Taiwanese Language"

I've never heard someone in real life refer to Taiwanese as anything other than Taiwanese. Instead of writing "Taiwanese Hokkien (/ˈhɒkiɛn/ HOK-ee-en, US also /ˈhoʊkiɛn/ HOH-kee-en; Chinese: 臺灣話; Pe̍h-ōe-jī: Tâi-oân-ōe; Tâi-lô: Tâi-uân-uē), or simply Taiwanese", the title could just be Taiwanese Language for simplicity as most do not use Hokkien to describe the language. FantomDev (talk) 00:22, 17 November 2024 (UTC)

Many other languages' articles are also done this way, German's "Taiwanische Sprache" (Taiwanese language) for example. Even the Chinese articles say 臺灣話. I am Taiwanese and have also never heard "Taiwanese Hokkien" or anything equivalent before, English Wikipedia was when I first heard it. 31.94.63.60 (talk) 12:06, 21 July 2025 (UTC)

@FantomDev and 31.94.63.60: the name "Taiwanese Hokkien" is widely used in English, and so this follows WP:COMMONNAME policy (even if a corresponding term is rare in Taiwan). Nonetheless, the article could be improved by including a section discussing names for the language. Currently, the lead is awkward because it begins with a long list of names, and the only other discussion of names is the paragraph at the very end of the "History and formation" section. Freelance Intellectual (talk) 14:51, 25 July 2025 (UTC)

I would also add that Taiwanese is itself kind of a misnomer at this point as the majority of Taiwanese people no longer speak it as their primary language and the trend seems to be heading further in that direction. Within one to two generations, it's possible that less than 10% of Taiwanese people will be capable of speaking Taiwanese fluently due to the predominance of Mandarin. Regardless of common name, there are already several disambiguations such as Taiwanese Mandarin and Taiwanese Hakka to account for this reality. I've never heard of these two terms either. I'm Taiwanese Hakka and have never heard the language referred to as anything other than Hakka in Taiwan or Mandarin referred to as anything other than Guoyu. Even Hanyu is more common than Guanyu (Mandarin). These are all academic terms at best and hence not colloquial, the same as Taiwanese Hokkien. But it is still useful and more pragmatic for clarity. Frankly, it is weird and confusing that a language is named after a people that no longer primarily speak the language and significant portions of its populace never spoke it to begin with. Qiushufang (talk) 18:03, 25 July 2025 (UTC)