Conference dates: October 28-29, 2006
Deadline for abstracts: May 31, 2006
Deadline for full papers: August 31, 2006
Location: Tainan
For more information, see 2006 Conference on Taiwanese Literature.
via Lomaji
Conference dates: September 9-10, 2006
location: Taipei
Deadline for proposals: May 31
Deadline for full papers: July 31
For more information, see 2006(???)??????????????.
via Lomaji
No-Sword brings up Karl Richard Lepsius’s early, IPA-like system, with Matt linking to Google Print’s online edition of Standard Alphabet for Reducing Unwritten Languages and Foreign Graphic Systems to a Uniform Orthography in European Letters.
The book groups Taiwanese, Hakka, and Mandarin — or Hok-lo, Hak-ka, and Mandarinic (my favorite), as it refers to them — under “monosyllabic languages” (grr). OTOH, Tibetan is given as an “isolated language.” Interestingly, Mandarin pronunciation is given following the practice of Nanjing, not Beijing; a similar choice made a couple of hundred years ealier is also part of what’s behind the “Peking” spelling for what is now referred to as Beijing (1 MB PDF).
I’d been working on a post about the cards and miniature magnets given away at Family Mart (Quánjiā / 全家) convenience stores with purchases of at least NT$75 (about US$2). But Jason at Wandering to Tamshui beat me to it yesterday with a post showing all of the cards, so I’ll keep this short.
These are particularly interesting because of the use of Taiwanese as well as several other languages, though everything here is labeled “Yingwen” (English). As Jason wrote, “That faint sound you hear is a thousand foreign English teachers slapping their foreheads in despair.”
The series, labeled Quánmín pīn Yīngwén (全民拼英文), is probably meant to counter rival 7-Eleven’s popular Hello Kitty button series. Although few take on Hello Kitty and live to tell the tale, I think the alphabet cards are doing fairly well.
Below is an example. On the left is the wrapper (pun not intended). Top right shows the front and back of the magnet that comes with this particular card. And at bottom right is the card itself. (I say card; but it’s really just glossy paper.)
Here MG is meant to stand for mai3 ke2 sian1 (as always, help with my spelling would be appreciated), which, despite the use of Chinese characters (嘜假仙), is Taiwanese, not Mandarin. Reading 嘜假仙 as Mandarin yields only nonsense. (So much for the “universality” and “ideographic” myths of Chinese characters.)
resources:
“Mother-tongue language education” is a phrase used to mean the languages of Taiwan’s tribes and the Sinitic languages of Taiwan other than Mandarin.
The Ministry of Education is now offering subsidies for kindergartens to promote mother-tongue language education nationwide. The ministry is now accepting applications from up to 50 kindergartens for subsidies worth NT$70,000 (US$2,188) each. Ministry officials said they hoped that mother-tongue language learning would start at a younger age so that kids in kindergarten could learn to listen to and speak native languages through stories, songs and other activities. They would also learn to appreciate Taiwanese culture at a younger age, officials said. The ministry will offer subsidies for Hoklo (commonly known as Taiwanese) and Aboriginal languages, while Hakka subsidies will be given according to Council of Hakka Affairs rules. The plan is expected to be carried out starting in the fall semester of this year, officials said.
source: Language funds offered, Taipei Times, April 11, 2006
According to one of the stories on this, the Taipei City Government’s Department of Education did a study comparing the amount of time sixth-graders spent on Mandarin classes in several countries. In Taiwan the figure is between 80 and 133 hours. In China the figure is 172 hours. And in Singapore the number is between 80 and 200 hours. As a percentage of the population, however, I would expect Taiwan to have the highest number of fluent or native speakers of Mandarin. On the other hand, Chinese characters are difficult for everyone.
Ma’s call is probably aimed not just at boosting Mandarin but at edging out the teaching of Taiwanese and Hakka (which may not be able to be reduced without eliminating their teaching altogether). This also sounds like another move to increase the amount of Literary Sinitic (Classical Chinese) in the classroom, which would certainly be a move in the wrong direction.
I suspect, though, that calls from parents, who often place more value on English than on other courses, will put an end to this. And anyway, in Taiwan it’s the central government that sets educational policy.
sources:
Speaking yesterday on topics related to signage and romanization, Taipei County Magistrate Zhou Xi-wei said that Taipei County should have its systems match those of Taipei City:
Táiběi Xiànzhǎng Zhōu Xīwěi xīwàng yǐ shēnghuóquān wéi kǎoliáng, yào hé Táiběi Shì zhěnghé yīzhì.
One of the implications of this is that for Taipei County, Taiwan’s most populous area, Tongyong Pinyin is out and Hanyu Pinyin is in.
This is no surprise, given that Zhou
As an advocate of Hanyu Pinyin and resident of Taipei County, I’m pleased by the change. But as someone who has lived in Taiwan for ten years, I know all too well how likely it is that the new signage will be botched. Taiwan has a poor record of correct implementation of romanization — in any system. Moreover, there are aspects of Taipei City’s signage that Taipei County should certainly not copy, namely InTerCaPiTaLiZaTion (unnecessary and counterproductive) and “nicknumbering” (putting a number on a street does nothing to aid communication if nobody knows what the number refers to). So if this doesn’t end up another SNAFU, I’ll be pleasantly surprised. (Does anyone have any good contacts within the Taipei County government? I’d like to be able to talk with some people in charge well before this gets beyond the planning stage.)
Until late last year Taipei County was under a DPP administration, so its romanization policy, such as it was, was to use Tongyong Pinyin. But implementation has been spotty and often sloppy. Most street signs in Taipei County remain in MPS2. Banqiao has seen more signs in Tongyong Pinyin; but most of those have the romanization in such relatively tiny letters that it’s nearly useless for drivers.
Turning back for a moment to the news reports that prompted this post, an additional item of interest is the headline of one of the stories: Pīnyīn fāngshì「qiao」bùdìng Yīngwén dìmíng busasa (拼音方式「喬」不定 英文地名霧煞煞). Here, both qiao and busasa are Taiwanese, not Mandarin. (A-giâu or somebody else, help me out on the spelling here!)
Here’s one of the stories:
Táiběi jiéyùn Bǎnqiáo-Tǔchéng xiàn jiāng yú wǔ yuèfèn tōngchē zhì Tǔchéng yǒng nìng zhàn, yīnyīng zhuǎnchéng lǚkè xūyào, Tái-Tiě Bǎnqiáo chēzhàn jiāng shèzhì línshíxìng zhǐshì pái. Bùguò, Yīngyǔ yìyīn hùnluàn, xiànzhǎng Zhōu Xī-wěi biǎoshì, gāi cǎiyòng Tōngyòng Pīnyīn huòshì Hànyǔ Pīnyīn, jiāng huì yǐ shēnghuóquān de gàiniàn wèi qiántí, yǔ Táiběi Shì zhěnghé.
So the additional MRT stations are opening in May after all. As a Banqiao resident who has waited long for that day, I’m happy to hear it. But since the stations are opening so soon, I’d be willing to bet that they’ll reproduce the mistakes already in the system instead of correcting them.
Zhōu Xī-wěi biǎoshì, wèilái yě jiāng tuīdòng yī piào fúwù dàodǐ wèi mùbiāo, rú mínzhòng chíyǒu yōu yóu kǎ huò qítā piàozhèng, jíkě zhuǎnchéng jiéyùn, gāo tiě huò Tái-Tiě, dāchéng dàzhòng yùnshū gōngjù jiāng gèng biànlì.
Zhōu Xī-wěi jīntiān xiàwǔ xúnshì Bǎnqiáo huǒchēzhàn rénxíng tōngdào, duìyú Tái-Tiě, gāo tiě jí jiéyùn sān tiě gòng gòu, zhàn pái, lù míng Yīngwén biāoshì què wǔhuābāmén, yǒude yòng Táiwān Tōngyòng Pīnyīn, yǒude yǐ Zhōngguó dàlù Hànyǔ Pīnyīn, érqiě biāoshì shífēn bù míngxiǎn, dēngguāng bùgòu míngliàng, Zhōu Xī-wěi xīwàng gè dānwèi xiétiáo gǎishàn.
Zhōu Xī-wěi rènwéi, Bǎnqiáo chēzhàn jiānglái shì quánguó zuìdà de jiāotōng zhuǎnyùnzhàn, měirì fúwù wúshù mínzhòng, biāoshì yīng yǐ jiǎndān fāngshì, qīngchu gàosu shǐyòng rénshēn yú héchù, gāi wǎng héchù qù.
sources:
A university in France has begun to offer courses in Taiwanese (a.k.a. Hoklo, Hokkien, Minnan, etc.). This is the first school in Europe to offer for-credit courses in the language. Some universities in the United States and Japan have already been teaching the language.
Li Chin-an, a professor of Taiwanese culture and language studies at Taipei Teachers College, says that the University of Hawaii’s East Asian Studies institute set up Minnan courses in 1990. It was not until six years ago that Chenli University set up the first Minnan language department in Taiwan, marking the first formal Minnan language courses at the university level. In just a few short years, there has been great development in Taiwan studies, and today Taiwan can point to more than 20 such programs….
(emphasis added) Can that be true? Universities didn’t offer courses in the mother tongue of most of Taiwan’s inhabitants until a mere six years ago? I’m certainly glad of the progress that has been made recently, though.
Li taught Minnan for four years at Harvard’s Department of East Asian Languages and Cultures, and says that he taught all levels of the language during that time. Each semester, the course attracted over 30 students. By the fourth year, Li had taught over 100 students, of which more than 90 percent were of Taiwanese descent. Only a small number of Ph.D. candidates in Linguistics or Chinese students chose to take the classes, but quite a few researchers chose to audit.
Harvard began offering Minnan classes in 2001. Li was the first scholar hired to teach there, but later, because of the establishment of a Department of Taiwanese at Taipei Teachers College, he returned to Taiwan. But Harvard’s Minnan classes are still going strong today. Li says that Harvard’s classes are primarily taken by students of Taiwanese descent, who request them. He believes that those of Americans of Taiwanese descent in the U.S. who only speak English and know no Minnan may experience an identity crises.
According to the Liberty Times/Taiwan Headlines article, most overseas classes in Taiwanese use Church romanization.
See the Taipei Times article (link below) for a list of the schools, provided by professors Li KhinhoaN (李勤岸, the same person identified above as Li Chin-an) and Liu Kuang-neng. Li KhinhoaN’s Web site offers a large selection of writings in and about Taiwanese, as well as useful links. (The site also has some technical problems that sometimes result in Chinese characters being scrambled. But it’s possible to navigate the site despite this.)
sources: