For decades, the Republic of China (ROC) government in Taiwan did its best to suppress Hoklo, otherwise known as Taiwanese. The language had been here for hundreds of years, ever since Chinese immigrants started arriving from Fujian Province. The means of suppression were absolute — no television broadcasts in Hoklo, Mandarin was to be spoken in the workplace, government officials spoke in the accepted language and children would be fined if they were caught speaking a local dialect at school.
Things have changed.
Taiwan has had two presidents who speak Mandarin as a second language — one of whom has a thick Hoklo accent. Numerous television programs are broadcast in Hoklo, schools teach the language to children who only speak Mandarin and it is no longer considered shameful to speak the language in the workplace.
However, in China today, things are going in the opposite direction. The government there is stepping up efforts to suppress Cantonese, much like the ROC did to Hoklo. A political advisory group in Guangdong Province recently suggested that local TV stations broadcast their prime-time programs in Mandarin instead of Cantonese ahead of the Asian Games — to be held in November — as a way to promote unity, create a good language environment and help non-Cantonese speakers.
However, this “suggestion” has been interpreted by many as an attempt to relegate the language of an entire population to second-class status, causing dissent.
It might seem like a good idea for the entire population of a country to speak the same language — it’s easier to communicate, education costs less and it is harder for ethnic divisions to form — but the fact is that in most countries, different communities speak different languages and therefore learn to become bilingual to communicate with their neighbors.
If language is nothing but a tool for communication, doesn’t it follow that having more than one tool is better than having just one? Being multilingual is a strength that should be promoted for the good of a nation.
Giving a language spoken by so many a secondary status only serves to weaken a nation because it pushes the people who speak that language to the bottom of the social hierarchy, causing them to resist the very government that is trying to promote unity.
Instead of heavy-handedly stepping on a language that more than an estimated 70 million Chinese citizens speak, Beijing should seek to promote multiculturalism inside its borders. This could be done by not simply pushing the official language over all others in education, government and mass media. People should be given the choice to express themselves in the language that they prefer, not the language that the state prefers. The alternative is to turn native Cantonese speakers into second-class citizens, in much the way Spanish-speaking people in the US have been marginalized for years because the language they speak at home is not the officially promoted language of the country. In an even more extreme case, the Kurds of Turkey were denied a popular outlet for their language for many decades, which in no small part has led to a violent campaign for their own independent homeland.
In the end, the result of attempting to squash a language is the same — marginalization, alienation and dissent. Recognizing the value of a language, promoting its use and giving its native speakers respect gains their trust and loyalty.
Banning Hoklo in Taiwan made people feel less loyalty toward the ROC, because its official language was alien. Giving Hoklo the respect it deserves went a long way toward healing the rift between the older generations of Taiwanese and the newer Chinese arrivals. China could learn much by studying the Taiwanese experience with the politics of language.
To The Honorable Legislative Speaker Han Kuo-yu (韓國瑜): We would like to extend our sincerest regards to you for representing Taiwan at the inauguration of US President Donald Trump on Monday. The Taiwanese-American community was delighted to see that Taiwan’s Legislative Yuan speaker not only received an invitation to attend the event, but successfully made the trip to the US. We sincerely hope that you took this rare opportunity to share Taiwan’s achievements in freedom, democracy and economic development with delegations from other countries. In recent years, Taiwan’s economic growth and world-leading technology industry have been a source of pride for Taiwanese-Americans.
Next week, the nation is to celebrate the Lunar New Year break. Unfortunately, cold winds are a-blowing, literally and figuratively. The Central Weather Administration has warned of an approaching cold air mass, while obstinate winds of chaos eddy around the Legislative Yuan. English theologian Thomas Fuller optimistically pointed out in 1650 that “it’s always darkest before the dawn.” We could paraphrase by saying the coldest days are just before the renewed hope of spring. However, one must temper any optimism about the damage being done in the legislature by the opposition Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) and Taiwan People’s Party (TPP), under
To our readers: Due to the Lunar New Year holiday, from Sunday, Jan. 26, through Sunday, Feb. 2, the Taipei Times will have a reduced format without our regular editorials and opinion pieces. From Tuesday to Saturday the paper will not be delivered to subscribers, but will be available for purchase at convenience stores. Subscribers will receive the editions they missed once normal distribution resumes on Sunday, Feb. 2. The paper returns to its usual format on Monday, Feb. 3, when our regular editorials and opinion pieces will also be resumed.
Young Taiwanese are consuming an increasing amount of Chinese content on TikTok, causing them to have more favorable views of China, a Financial Times report cited Taiwanese social scientists and politicians as saying. Taiwanese are being exposed to disinformation of a political nature from China, even when using TikTok to view entertainment-related content, the article published on Friday last week said. Fewer young people identify as “Taiwanese” (as opposed to “Chinese”) compared with past years, it wrote, citing the results of a survey last year by the Taiwan Public Opinion Foundation. Nevertheless, the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) would be hard-pressed