Hi Casey,
Thanks for the information. I guess other readers on the Forum will also be happy to hear that Hokkien is not dying out, not even in Amoy.
One interesting thing I've noticed is that when Taiwanese academics meet, they only ever speak Mandarin to one another (or English in the presence of Western academics/sinologists) – never Taiwanese, even if both Taiwanese academics speak Taiwanese.
As a non-Mandarin speaker, I try to "justify" my presence among them by explaining my interest in Hokkien. There is always a flurry of surprised interest when they learn of my ability to speak (some) Hokkien - they have never come across someone who speaks Hokkien but not Mandarin (well, perhaps their grandparents, but that's different I guess – they don't know any "modern", "educated" people who speak Hokkien but not Mandarin).
In any case, they are always intrigued by me and my Hokkien, and then we exchange a few lines in Hokkien/Taiwanese, and then it seems (to them) 'sociolinguistically' so weird that we switch very quickly back to English again.
This used to surprise (and disappoint) me a lot, until I realised that I myself was subject to a very similar sociolinguistic convention. In my case it was English, rather than Mandarin, which played that role. In fact, when I thought back to my youth, even among my close schoolmates (let alone strangers met as adults), we would speak English to one another, and not Hokkien, even if both parties spoke Hokkien quite regularly at home. In fact, many of my school friends were even surprised when (after I have first met them for a few months) it became known that I did speak Hokkien.
So, yes, it looks like Hokkien is (in some Taiwanese circles) used only as the "home language", and for talking to strangers or people one has just met, the "official language" is used, even if both parties are aware that the other speaks Hokkien quite well.
Indeed, I saw an amusing illustration of this at the reception of the hotel I was staying at when I was in Taiwan in 1992. I was waiting at the counter for something, and another family (a young man and woman and their young children) came up to the counter. I had nothing to do while waiting, so I watched the entire interaction. The father and receptionist spoke Mandarin to one another. In this conversation, a question arose which was not immediately solvable (I've no idea what it was). The father decided he needed to consult his wife and children. The man turned around to the wife and children and spoke to them in Taiwanese. In the meanwhile, the receptionist decided she'd better check some details related to the problem with her colleague. So *she* turned around to her colleague and consulted her, also in Taiwanese. After considerable Taiwanese conversation on the part of both groups (with both groups clearly being able to hear that everybody could and did speak Taiwanese), the man turned back to the (first) receptionist, and they then continued their conversation in Mandarin!
This was yet another illustration of how Taiwanese/Hokkien is restricted to the family or friendship circle, and interactions with strangers take place in Mandarin.
Sim
Hokkien Jokes
>> Even the tour guide in Gulangyu (KO2-1 Long7-3 Su7,
>> the island beside Xiamen) could not speak Hokkien at all.
For years, I knew that my grandmother (my mother's mother) came from "e-mng kO-long-su", but had no idea where that was. My mother and I both assumed it was some small village near Amoy (or perhaps a 'suburb' of Amoy itself). Then, one day in March 2007 I was browsing through my newly acquired Douglas/Barclay, and I found a phrase listed in the dictionary: "<something>, <something>, e-mng kau(?) kO-long-su". It briefly flashed through my sub-consciousness: "Hey - my grandmother's home town!", and then I continued browsing through the dictionary.
Later that day, I thought I should tell my mother that I'd found a reference to her mother's birthplace in an old Hokkien dictionary. At this point, I *still* thought that kO-long-su was some insignificant little village (as I'd forgotten by then what the expression I'd seen in the dictionary meant). So, I looked through the dictionary, trying to find the entry again.
Of course, I had no luck! I tried looking all over the place, but just couldn't find it. [And to this day, I have never found the phrase again.] However, I *did* manage to find kO-long-su listed in the dictionary, and from there, managed to get the hanzi for it. Once I had the hanzi, I could work out the pinyin for the place, and to my amazement, it *wasn't* some obscure little village, but quite a special *car-less* holiday island, just off the coast of Xia-men!
- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gulangyu_Island
Indeed, there are 50,000+ hits on Google for "gulangyu"; 950,000+ hits for "鼓浪屿"; and even a Wikipedia page in Bân-lâm-gú for the island!
Somehow, it gave me a small warm glow inside, to know that this special place (unfortunately, now a "tourist resort") was where my grandmother grew up.
Sim.
>> the island beside Xiamen) could not speak Hokkien at all.
For years, I knew that my grandmother (my mother's mother) came from "e-mng kO-long-su", but had no idea where that was. My mother and I both assumed it was some small village near Amoy (or perhaps a 'suburb' of Amoy itself). Then, one day in March 2007 I was browsing through my newly acquired Douglas/Barclay, and I found a phrase listed in the dictionary: "<something>, <something>, e-mng kau(?) kO-long-su". It briefly flashed through my sub-consciousness: "Hey - my grandmother's home town!", and then I continued browsing through the dictionary.
Later that day, I thought I should tell my mother that I'd found a reference to her mother's birthplace in an old Hokkien dictionary. At this point, I *still* thought that kO-long-su was some insignificant little village (as I'd forgotten by then what the expression I'd seen in the dictionary meant). So, I looked through the dictionary, trying to find the entry again.
Of course, I had no luck! I tried looking all over the place, but just couldn't find it. [And to this day, I have never found the phrase again.] However, I *did* manage to find kO-long-su listed in the dictionary, and from there, managed to get the hanzi for it. Once I had the hanzi, I could work out the pinyin for the place, and to my amazement, it *wasn't* some obscure little village, but quite a special *car-less* holiday island, just off the coast of Xia-men!
- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gulangyu_Island
Indeed, there are 50,000+ hits on Google for "gulangyu"; 950,000+ hits for "鼓浪屿"; and even a Wikipedia page in Bân-lâm-gú for the island!
Somehow, it gave me a small warm glow inside, to know that this special place (unfortunately, now a "tourist resort") was where my grandmother grew up.
Sim.
Trying not to simply pick on your choice of words, I got the impression that by 'not even in Amoy' you meant that Amoy was a likely place for Hokkien to start dying out as opposed to other places. Was this intended because if so could you please explain? I would have thought that since Amoy is the 'standard' Hokkien it would be the second least likely place for Hokkien to die out, Taiwan being the first.Thanks for the information. I guess other readers on the Forum will also be happy to hear that Hokkien is not dying out, not even in Amoy.
Despite all this it is good to hear Hokkien is still spoken, even in shops!
>> >> Hokkien is not dying out, not even in Amoy
>>
>> Trying not to simply pick on your choice of words
No, perfectly reasonable for you to query this.
Even when writing it, I was a bit worried about putting it in that way, for exactly the reasons you gave.
I meant "even" in the light of my earlier posting, where the "Hokkien film guy" (who is a white, Australian sinologist, btw) said that Hokkien had totally died out on the streets of Amoy, and also Casey's experience on one of his earlier trips that few people were speaking it on the streets, primarily (presumably) because of the massive influx of non-Hokkien speakers from other parts of China.
Plus, the major cities are usually the areas where a dying language starts dying first, because the upwardly mobile, hip, etc people are switching to the new prestige language. For example, in Taiwan, you'll find many more people who don't speak Hokkien in Taipei than you will in Tainan.
So that's why I said "even".
Regards,
Sim.
>>
>> Trying not to simply pick on your choice of words
No, perfectly reasonable for you to query this.
Even when writing it, I was a bit worried about putting it in that way, for exactly the reasons you gave.
I meant "even" in the light of my earlier posting, where the "Hokkien film guy" (who is a white, Australian sinologist, btw) said that Hokkien had totally died out on the streets of Amoy, and also Casey's experience on one of his earlier trips that few people were speaking it on the streets, primarily (presumably) because of the massive influx of non-Hokkien speakers from other parts of China.
Plus, the major cities are usually the areas where a dying language starts dying first, because the upwardly mobile, hip, etc people are switching to the new prestige language. For example, in Taiwan, you'll find many more people who don't speak Hokkien in Taipei than you will in Tainan.
So that's why I said "even".
Regards,
Sim.
That's a relief, I try not to sound impolite.>> Hokkien is not dying out, not even in Amoy
>>
>> Trying not to simply pick on your choice of words
No, perfectly reasonable for you to query this.
Thanks for explaining. It had never occured to me that Amoy would be a likely place for Hokkien to die out in.
Was this a local tour guide?Even the tour guide in Gulangyu (KO2-1 Long7-3 Su7,
By "local" I meant inhabitants from Gulangyu or Xiamen or places in the vicinity of Xiamen where Minnan Language/Dialect was spoken. Those tour guides I met were from other provinces. They did not speak Hokkien nor understood Hokkien at all. Relatively, they were "foreign", so to speak.
Tai Ke Lai O Ban Lam Oe