Hanji pronunciations in Taiwanese

[FutureSpy]

I am not sure how much Japanese you can read, but I am assuming you are familiar with a decent number of 漢字 Kanji. I own a copy of Nelson’s Japanese Character Dictionary, and regularly amuse myself by flipping through the pages and discovering words that are so close in definition to Chinese.

I myself don't have that book, but I've seen that it at the library and I should say it's pretty interesting. Specially 'cos it goes beyond 常用漢字 jouyou kanji and 人名用漢字 jinmeiyou kanji, which I find far from enough to read effectively anything in Modern Japanese. I also have at home a 漢和辞典 kanwa jiten, but since I never bothered to learn radicals, as I mentioned on Sim's post on radical names, I never really used it (shame on me!). Anyway, I'm still nowhere close to knowing all 常用漢字 jouyou kanji. I learned about half of them at school, and well... I learned some passively as well while reading, so I often know what some of them mean and their 訓読み kun'yomi, but I'm probably missing their 音読み on'yomi. But since most books I'm interested in are 小3 or 4 (grade) level, I just don't care. My Japanese, as I said before, is very limited. I don't do very well at speaking, but I can understand conversations and TV shows fairly well (thanks to my voluntary intensive self-exposition to lots of Japanese entertainment back in high school) as long as there's little or no specialized vocabs. Reading articles is also not a huge hurdle, as in context you can guess or skip some of the words you don't know, but when it comes to literature, even children books are enough to puzzle me... While I think it'd be great if I learned Japanese properly, I'm not really interested right now. I've been trying to pick up my grandparents' "dialect", but I can't say I'm doing much progress... Anyway, Hokkien is helping me to refresh some 音読み on'yomi, as they're often close to literary readings in Hokkien (compared to those in Mandarin).

This gap between the written and spoken word is not unique to Chinese. Even in English, there are differences between the way we write and the way we speak - sentence structure, choice of words.

...and my mother tongue Brazilian Portuguese. Spoken Brazilian Portuguese (often referred as "vernacular" by scholars) and Standard Brazilian Portuguese (a variant of Standard Portuguese) are kinda diverging (perhaps similar to what happens to French in Québec) I remember back in high school, how pedantic it sounded to me whenever I heard educated people in their 20's or 30's speaking in a very formal Standard Portuguese. Frankly, I always thought they were merely trying to showing off. But once I got to university, I simply started speaking like that too most of the time 'cos pretty much everyone around me speaks like that. Besides, in Brazil, it's very widespread the view that spoken forms not accepted in Standard are wrong, so many informal constructions often carry a stigma. But guess what. I study Computer Science, and it's astonishing how bad some of my colleagues (and teachers) write in Portuguese (not that I do that well either, I'm just pointing it out.. of course, in Humanities people are more likely to write better). And yet, some still dare to correct people speaking in a more relaxed Portuguese. It drives me nuts, really! I mean, one thing is written language and another is spoken language, you just need to know when to use what. Not that the average Brazilian really care about how good or bad their Portuguese is, but I've noticed Spoken Portuguese to gradually converge (but very timidly) to Standard Portuguese as average schooling raises in Brazil (Well, you're taught at school that what you speak is wrong or it's broken Portuguese, so no wonder!). However, there seem to be more and more teachers who defend "vernacular", and seems like things are starting to change a little. I had a teacher like that at 6th grade, but he got fired very quickly (that was 12 years ago tho!). Of course, these are just my biased views on Brazilian sociolinguistics, and since I know nothing about it nor have I studied it to any extend, please don't take that as facts, but rather as mere impressions of a local. (And also excuse my broken English... I picked it up mostly through passive learning and exposition when I was younger, as I always refused to take English classes. Studying English has been part of my New Year Resolution for years, and yet I'm still putting it off)

Oh, no, keep talking. That’s what we are all here for, to share our thoughts and insights.

Sorry for all my chitchat on this forum... Sometimes I feel bad for asking so many questions here and not having anything to share (I mean, it's one-way). I had another few things to ask, but since I forgot to write them down, I need to organize my thoughts again to recall. And of course, that goes to another thread, as I don't want to lead more threads off-topic like I did in the past weeks... So thanks, really!

We only have one (1) unspoken rule in this Forum:
“Do not rudely make assertions (to others’ discredit) as if they are gospel truth, especially if they can clearly be proven to be nonsense.”

I've been reading some older posts and that reminds me someone who has passed through this forum and.. Well, nevermind, but I get what you mean by "gospel truth" and "rudely making assertions" ; )

PS: All my post was off-topic again. Not even a word related to Hokkien! T_T

[FutureSpy]

By the way, is 𨑨迌 for chhit-thô attested at all?

臺灣閩南語把「玩耍」、「遊玩」、「遊蕩」說成 tshit-thô 或 thit-thô，本部的推薦用字是「𨑨迌」，用法如「這个所在真好𨑨迌」Tsit ê sóo-tsāi tsin hó tshit-thô.（這個地方很好玩）；「阮歇熱欲出國𨑨迌」Guán hioh-juah beh tshut-kok tshit-thô. ̍ （暑假我們要出國旅遊）；「𨑨迌人定定攏無好尾」Tshit-thô-lâng tiānn-tiānn lóng bô hó-bué.（混幫派的人往往沒有好下場）等。
「𨑨迌」是民間習用的字，《台日大辭典》、《閩南方言大辭典》裡 tshit-thô 的用字都是「𨑨迌」。這兩個字不見於《廣韻》。《玉篇》裡，「𨑨」的意思是「近也」；「迌」的意思是「詆䛢貌」。根據《康熙字典》，「詆䛢」就是狡猾的意思。如此看來，臺灣閩南語中的 tshit-thô 寫成「𨑨迌」，用的不是這兩個漢字的本義。
「𨑨迌」這兩個字的部首都是「辵」部。《說文解字》說「辵」的意思是「乍行乍止」，也就是「走走停停」的意思。「𨑨迌」從「辵」，從「日」，從「月」，表示白天、晚上四處走走停停，符合 tshit-thô「玩耍」、「遊玩」、「遊蕩」的含意，所以民間一直採用這兩個漢字來做為 tshit-thô 的用字。本部依從俗原則，也推薦使用「𨑨迌」。
Source: http://140.111.56.95/hanji/annesia/pdf/ ... 372pdf.pdf

This PDF seems to explain why Taiwanese Government chose it for those provisional lists with recommended hanji for Taiwanese, but I can't follow much of it (maybe for that sake I should try to learn how to read some Mandarin). It seems to mention some dictionaries, but other than that I'm totally clueless... My textbook also uses it, but when rewriting its lessons, I used "chhit-thô" in POJ.

[amhoanna]

Since I can't speak/read/write in Mandarin at all, this 漢字 "game" is a little bit more complicated to me.

Only in the sense that a lion's share of tools and resources are written in "Modern Std Chinese", a.k.a. Literary Mandarin. Otherwise, U might as well have said, "Since I don't know Ishigaki Ryukyuan or Hainamese, this 漢字 game is a little bit more complicated for me."

Just how useful learning Classical Chinese would be for someone trying to pick up Chinese languages (or "dialects")? As useful as learning Latin to a Romance language student?

Interesting thought experiment. My tentative conclusion: not very helpful, esp. considering how much time someone would have to invest to learn Classical Chinese. Classical Chinese is a "silent", "soundless" language -- unlike Latin! -- while the Chinese languages, in general, are the most intensely non-literary, unwritten languages spoken in civilization.

How useful would learning Classical Literary Chinese be for someone trying to pick up Japanese? Then ask, what if Japanese was a language that had never, even been written in a consistent way? What if there were no kana, no standardization of kanji, no books and newspapers and publishing industry in Japanese, no Japanese on the web except a few hundred half-assed Wiki articles, etc.?

I bet Classical Literary Chinese would be helpful for learning a Sinitic language, but the degree of helpfulness (slight) would not be worth the time investment. On the other hand, Vietnamese people can hack any Sino language at the drop of a hat, despite not knowing kanji. A kanji-less Vietnamese manual laborer could become fluent in Hoklo, Cantonese and Mandarin in the time that it would take a Mandarin-monolingual professor of Literary Chinese to even learn how to

I remember having read PRC students aren't learning (much or at all) Classical Chinese. I wonder if PRC Chinese people can still read it...

I've heard or read that they learn it less than people in TW. I would come to the same conclusion just looking at the way they write. Conversely, HK students seem to load up on Classical Chinese. However, educated PRC folk still have what I'd call "considerable" proficiency in Lit. Chinese.

There's an on-and-off controversy nowadays in TW where ironically the Greens (nativist, Hoklo-ist, etc.) try to cut down the ratio of Literary Chinese in the high school curriculum. Cutting down on Lit. Chinese means increasing Mando-content even more, which should be, but isn't, anathema to the nativists. The reasons for this are complex and socio-historical.

My personal experience has been that Taiwanese tend to write in a much more literary style than their PRC counterparts.

I think so, but only above a certain level of education. To over-simplify, the masses in both TW and the PRC as well as PRC intellectuals write very light, Mandarinate prose, while TW and HK intellectuals wield a dense, literary style.

There are MANY factors at play here. The Mandarin language is Altaicized, esp. the Beijing-Manchurian dialects. I remember writing Chinese/Mandarin lyrics for a friend of a native Changchunite friend of mine. The song called for a dense, brief style, even more than most songs. After I was done, my Changchunite friend's Changchunite wife said, amazed: "Southern people have the classic language in their bones!" In my case, taking up Hoklo and Cantonese in my teens probably helped me develop a more mono-syllabic (i.e. less poly-syllabic) instinct for Written Chinese 漢文.

Personally, if I were to write in Hokkien, I guess I'd rather write etymologically, and use romanization where no correct character has been assigned yet (or words from a non-Sinitic substratum).

I wrote this way for a few years. Eventually, the script seemed to force me to adopt more fake kanji, to improve the aesthetics and to increase readability for Chinese-educated readers. When I write in kanji-hangul, which is still experimental, I kick all the fake kanji out replace them with hangul. I do use some 訓用 kanji, though. I think there's a place for that in any kanji-based writing system.

Anyway, if scholars in Taiwan or elsewhere in the Hoklosphere ever establish a real standard rather than provisional recommendations, I'd try to follow it as much as possible and just accept it even if it doesn't look right.

The Ministry of Educ. recommendations are damn close to being a standard -- a de facto standard in a de facto country. I wouldn't bet on there ever being a de jure kanji usage standard in TW during our lifetimes, and if not in TW, then where?

I have to say those people are doing a really good job. They're skilled historical and comparative linguists with strong reasoning skills. There are two types of kanji where I don't tend to follow their recommendations. First is where they've chosen a kanji based on it having a related meaning and coincidentally similar sound to the word. Second is where they've recommended 訓用字 based not on Lit. Chinese, but on Mandarin... No. The MOE linguists are picking these kanji eyes wide open, b/c they know this is how the public thinks. In fact, they've done a good job so far of shearing away most of the idiocy of the public...

I mean, as an example, the 粿 in 粿條 kôey-tiáu is actually not a common character in 普通話 Putonghua, but is recognised and widely seen throughout Malaysia and Singapore.

Once we took an acquaintance from HK on a food tour of 台南 Tailam (is there any other kind?). When we got to the uáⁿkué 碗粿, she said, "What it is?" and we said, "Uáⁿkué." She was confused, but I knew she had consulted a guidebook extensively, so I sounded out the kanji in Cantonese -- wun2 kwo2 -- and right away she was like, "Oh, okay, wunkwo, wunkwo." Which was funny b/c, I mean, nobody would ever call it wunkwo. No one even says 碗粿 using Mando pronunciation.

By the way, is 𨑨迌 for chhit-thô attested at all?

What do U mean "attested"?

Personally, I like this usage. This usage was coined for Hoklo very cleanly, using the age-old principles of kanji, w/o abusing the 形聲 facilities of kanji, and w/o kowtowing to Mandarin.

Sometimes I feel bad for asking so many questions here and not having anything to share (I mean, it's one-way).

No worries.

Personally, I'm interested in everything U hv to say about South America. I would like to spend some time there soon.

The issue U bring up about Brazilian sociolinguistics hits close to home for me, too. The vernacular seems to have some African-reinforced features, just like the vernacular in Caribbean Spanish, and Black English in the U.S. These Africated vernaculars have a rhythm which is just not there in the "genteel", "straight-out-of-Europe" versions. I'd like to learn vernacular Br. Portuguese soon as well, since I'll be needing it if I go to Rio or Recife.

the much more knowledgeable Forum members (Ah-bin and amhoanna can probably help) on details.

Sī Bûnsan hiaⁿ m̄ kam khìhiâm ·lah.

[amhoanna]

A kanji-less Vietnamese manual laborer could become fluent in Hoklo, Cantonese and Mandarin in the time that it would take a Mandarin-monolingual professor of Literary Chinese to even learn how to

how to pronounce the voiced stops in Hoklo, or differentiate between a high-rising and low-rising tone as in Canto.

[SimL]

Oh, no, keep talking. That’s what we are all here for, to share our thoughts and insights.

Sorry for all my chitchat on this forum... Sometimes I feel bad for asking so many questions here and not having anything to share (I mean, it's one-way). I had another few things to ask, but since I forgot to write them down, I need to organize my thoughts again to recall. And of course, that goes to another thread, as I don't want to lead more threads off-topic like I did in the past weeks... So thanks, really!

Hi FutureSpy,

I agree totally with Mark.

Please do NOT apologize for the things you write! Your input and questions are very much valued! The stuff you say about Brazilian Portuguese show that you have an underlying awareness of the sociolinguistic issues involved, even if (as you say) you don't know this stuff in detail, from a formal point of view. And many issues that you bring up (and the discussion that arises because of that) are relevant to Hokkien - whether it's about sociolinguistics, culture / anthropology / history, ethnic identity, etc. (Another side benefit is that it gives some of us oldies the chance to re-hash our old war- and hobby-horses .)

So, keep posting!

PS. It's also re-assuring to hear of someone who "apologizes" for the state of his Japanese in the same way as I "apologize" for the state of my Hokkien. I think there are some parallels there.

[FutureSpy]

Since I can't speak/read/write in Mandarin at all, this 漢字 "game" is a little bit more complicated to me.

Only in the sense that a lion's share of tools and resources are written in "Modern Std Chinese", a.k.a. Literary Mandarin. Otherwise, U might as well have said, "Since I don't know Ishigaki Ryukyuan or Hainamese, this 漢字 game is a little bit more complicated for me."

Well, I know Mandarin isn't all that written etymologically, but I guess it'd be of some help at identifying the right hanji in Hokkien. Anyway, I found amusing your comparison with Uchinaaguchi from Ishigaki-jima... I'm going off-topic again, but 6 years ago two friends of mine went to 沖縄県立芸術大学 in Naha, and they told me even at 芸大 most youngsters there couldn't speak Uchinaaguchi. It's astornishing, as you'd expect people studying about Ryukyuan arts (music, dances, etc.) to speak the language. But most didn't know even simple things. I remember they told me Uchinaaguchi was rather a group of related dialects, but there's one main dialect that used to be understood in most parts of 琉球 Ryuukyuu and another one in the rest, but I know nothing about that. All I can tell is that even up to my parents' generation (they're now at their 50's) there was a strong prejudice towards Uchinaanchu (Ryukyuan people) in the local Japanese communities, but the opposite (probably a reaction) is also true. Anyway, a friend of mine told me there are now three Uchinaaguchi courses at my hometown, and I hope to be able to take any of them once I graduate from college and go back to my parents'.

My tentative conclusion: not very helpful, esp. considering how much time someone would have to invest to learn Classical Chinese.

How hard is it to understand 三字經? Now if one of my goals was get at least a gist of 布袋戲, would Classical Chinese be of any help? What kind of language they use? Is it an earlier stage of Hokkien, or Classical Chinese read aloud with Hokkien pronunciations?

I wrote this way for a few years. Eventually, the script seemed to force me to adopt more fake kanji, to improve the aesthetics and to increase readability for Chinese-educated readers.

I thought about that after showing "The Little Prince" in a hàn-lô 漢羅 Taiwanese edition to some Taiwanese and seeing a confused expression in their faces whenever a romanized word appeared, even if in that case it was Tongyong 通用 without tone marks.

I wrote this way for a few years. Eventually, the script seemed to force me to adopt more fake kanji, to improve the aesthetics and to increase readability for Chinese-educated readers.

The Ministry of Educ. recommendations are damn close to being a standard [...] I have to say those people are doing a really good job.

BTW, I once did an attempt to replace romanization in hàn-lô 漢羅 for Zhuyin 注音, and I experienced no blank faces from Taiwanese. I wonder if using Pinyin adapted to Hokkien wouldn't be as effective for Chinese-educated readers other than Taiwanese. Anyway, you're right. I'd have to write in an all hanji system if I wanted Hokkien speakers to understand it. Since you say that about MOE lists, I guess I'll try to look at them too. Thanks.

When I write in kanji-hangul, which is still experimental, I kick all the fake kanji out replace them with hangul. I do use some 訓用 kanji, though. I think there's a place for that in any kanji-based writing system.

Hm... I always thought Korean mixed script was very accurate at assigning hanja. If I ever learn Korean, it'd be interesting to learn hanja from the very beginning, as it would work great as a memorization-aid.

By the way, is 𨑨迌 for chhit-thô attested at all?

What do U mean "attested"?

I mean, were these hanji coined in the modern days for that word? Or do they have any literary tradition?

I'd like to learn vernacular Br. Portuguese soon as well, since I'll be needing it if I go to Rio or Recife.

Ehr... Rio has rhotic R (the upside-down R in IPA?) similar to French and ʃ for -s endings. Other than that, it's closer to what we speak in São Paulo. As for Recife, I had a friend from there and I couldn't understand her at all when she spoke at normal speed (which is a lot faster than we do down here in São Paulo). Most Northeastern dialects share some features with European Portuguese and also have more open vowels than Portuguese as spoken in the south, southeast and central-west.

If you're interested, there are many native languages still alive. I'm particularly interested on Ticuna, a tonal language also spoken in Peru and Colombia. And I heard Mbyá Guarani is also very alive in small villages in São Paulo (though I don't think they're natives to the region), some Southern states, Argentina and Paraguay (it's very different from Paraguayan Guarani). Other than that, many communities in Southern Brazil still speak Venetian (locally called "Talian"), Hunrückisch and East Pomeranian (the Germanic one that used to be spoken in a region that nowadays is part of Polonia).

PS. It's also re-assuring to hear of someone who "apologizes" for the state of his Japanese in the same way as I "apologize" for the state of my Hokkien. I think there are some parallels there.

Nah, I'm pretty sure your Hokkien is much better than my Japanese, Sim

[SimL]

Only in the sense that a lion's share of tools and resources are written in "Modern Std Chinese", a.k.a. Literary Mandarin.

Yes. Longer-term members of this Forum may recall that one of my motivations for learning Mandarin was that I hoped eventually to be able to read the (presumably) huge amount of material which is written in "Modern Std Chinese" on Hokkien. Unfortunately, learning Mandarin proved to be far more difficult than I ever imagined when I got started. Obviously, I knew it was going to be hard, but it turned out to be perhaps a factor of 5-10 harder than I may have originally thought.

The Minnan Forum is a good spot for people who principally know English to get information from people who know both English and "Modern Std Chinese". The latter group of people can find and read the stuff (or stumble across it), and then tell the former group about the important points learnt.

[amhoanna]

one of my motivations for learning Mandarin was that I hoped eventually to be able to read the (presumably) huge amount of material which is written in "Modern Std Chinese" on Hokkien.

Yet, unlike the average 8-year-old in Hong Kong, U've also been trying to learn spoken Modern Std Chinese, and maybe some colloq. forms too. That must've made things a lot harder.

I'm under the impression that in the Philippines, at least into the 80s, people were learning written Modern Std Chinese w/o learning the rest of Mandarin. The Phils is "the Hong Kong of Hokkien", or s'thing like that. Hopefully some of the Phils crew will pass by and let us know the real deal.

if one of my goals was get at least a gist of 布袋戲, would Classical Chinese be of any help? What kind of language they use? Is it an earlier stage of Hokkien, or Classical Chinese read aloud with Hokkien pronunciations?

Not sure, but I think they're in this kind of "literarized colloquial Hoklo". Song lyrics are generally also written in "literarized colloquial Hoklo", although nowadays a lot of songs seem to be shading over toward "Hoklicized high-register Modern Std Chinese". Hopefully the next guy can offer a better answer.

a confused expression in their faces whenever a romanized word appeared

Well, right, but in your case U're talking about people who've never learned romanized Hoklo. What I found was more extreme, that ROC education seems to cripple an individual for life when it comes to reading romanized Hoklo at any kind of speed.

Around the middle of the last decade, people on the Tâigúbāng 台語网 listserve started switching over from pure romaji to kanji-romaji blends, mostly heavily skewed toward kanji. Some guys, mostly rah-rah old-school Presbyterian guys from down-island, were kind of against this. In a fiery email, a young academic accused the pro-romaji guys of not reading his all-romaji letters b/c they themselves couldn't rd romaji fast enough to suit their own lack of patience.

Then I looked back and realized, "Oh, so that's why no one's been responding to any of my posts." B/c I'd been a pure romaji guy on there till then too.

I wonder if using Pinyin adapted to Hokkien wouldn't be as effective for Chinese-educated readers other than Taiwanese.

These kind of technical questions, in the end, are nowhere as key, nor as upstream, as "ideological" questions like "Should we be writing in this language? Across all situations and purposes? Or only for art, 'cultural preservation', etc.?" And the adoption of Pinyin for Hokkien has the flavor of surrendering to Mandarin as a master language. Esp. when Pinyin isn't even used to WRITE Mandarin.

On one trip to Amoy, an acquaintance of my father offered to put me in touch with a (local) person who knew Peh'oeji. Unfort., I turned down the offer, and who knows why.

I mean, were these hanji coined in the modern days for that word? Or do they have any literary tradition?

This one, maybe only Ah-bin would know, as in ... whether 𨑨迌 was used in 荔鏡記, etc.

I would guess that 𨑨迌 has at least a century under its belt, since it's elegant, and thus beyond the capacities of modern Hoklophones, whose kanji sense has gone to shit after yrs of Manducation.

there's one main dialect that used to be understood in most parts of 琉球 Ryuukyuu and another one in the rest

I've heard something like this too, that an Uchinaa koine was good throughout the northern chain, but that the southern group of islands were a society unto themselves, and actually not very tight-knit amongst themselves either.

Uchinaaguchi from Ishigaki-jima

Was Ishigaki considered part of "Uchinaa" before the JPese occupation?

there was a strong prejudice towards Uchinaanchu (Ryukyuan people) in the local Japanese communities

Interesting. I'd like to hear more about this.

In my mind, it's one of the "tragedies of Taiwanese geopolitics" that the TWese don't have close ties to the people of Luchu, esp. the southern group. I sound like an Israeli now.

If you're interested, there are many native languages still alive.

I wish there was a native American language anywhere that was currency in the coastal zones and port cities. I just rd that Tupi was such a language in Brasil through the 18th cen.? I was doing Brasil research for the first time in a long time, and rd that slavery was abolished on 1888 May 13 -- 124 yrs ago to the day. (Well, not anymore.) Happy Abolition Day!

[FutureSpy]

one of my motivations for learning Mandarin was that I hoped eventually to be able to read the (presumably) huge amount of material which is written in "Modern Std Chinese" on Hokkien.

Yet, unlike the average 8-year-old in Hong Kong, U've also been trying to learn spoken Modern Std Chinese, and maybe some colloq. forms too. That must've made things a lot harder.

Sim, that's precisely the reason why I think it'd be worth learning how to read some Mandarin. Perhaps getting a reader would be a faster way to achieve that? Even if Defrancis' readers aren't meant to be used standalone, they seemed to me pretty okay in their own. "Read Chinese" by Richard Chang also seemed pretty good. Or perhaps I'm forgetting to focus again...

if one of my goals was get at least a gist of 布袋戲, would Classical Chinese be of any help? What kind of language they use? Is it an earlier stage of Hokkien, or Classical Chinese read aloud with Hokkien pronunciations?

Not sure, but I think they're in this kind of "literarized colloquial Hoklo". Song lyrics are generally also written in "literarized colloquial Hoklo", although nowadays a lot of songs seem to be shading over toward "Hoklicized high-register Modern Std Chinese". Hopefully the next guy can offer a better answer.

I was thinking of going through 五月天's Hokkien songs this winter. But no idea about the quality of the language A-shin (vocalist and lyricist) uses.

And the adoption of Pinyin for Hokkien has the flavor of surrendering to Mandarin as a master language. Esp. when Pinyin isn't even used to WRITE Mandarin.

But I meant 漢羅 using a Pinyin-alike romanization instead of POJ. Mixing 漢字 and 注音 didn't seem hard for Taiwanese people to figure out. So since Chinese people are familiar to Pinyin, that perhaps would be easier to accept. Although that's very similar to Galician using a Spanish ortography instead of a Portuguese one, or perhaps its own ortography. But you hit the question: why write in Hokkien if they got Mandarin anyway? It's so hard anyway

Was Ishigaki considered part of "Uchinaa" before the JPese occupation?

No idea. But AFAIK 八重山 is culturally different from 琉球王国. No idea if when Japan and China referred to 琉球, they'd include 八重山 as well.

there was a strong prejudice towards Uchinaanchu (Ryukyuan people) in the local Japanese communities

Interesting. I'd like to hear more about this.

Well, that probably has to do with most Japanese immigrants having come to Brazil came from the 10's until up to the 30's, so they were still not fully assimilated and most probably still spoke うちなーぐち. I don't know much about things here, but I can of course ask my 沖縄出身日系人 friends. I remember when I was a kid, and my mother was talking about someone she called "おばさん from 沖縄". Then I asked her who was Okinawa thinking it was a name, and she told me "They aren't Japanese.. They're, ehr, different.". And I also heard my paternal grandparents referring to Okinawan people as if they weren't Japanese. I do agree with them in that they aren't (or at least weren't) Japanese, but perhaps for different reasons.

Bolivia also has a quite big number of Uchinaanchu descents. There are two big colonies there. If so search for "おきなわ村" perhaps you can find more about them. They're Japanese educated, but I have no idea if they still speak Uchinaaguchi. I'd risk they do. A friend of mine's dad came from Okinawa to Bolivia (not sure about the dates), and then from Bolivia to Brazil during the 60's. At home they speak a nice mix of Spanish, Uchinaaguchi, 標準語 and Portuguese

I just rd that Tupi was such a language in Brasil through the 18th cen.?

No idea. What I know is that São Paulo had a lingua franca very similar to Nheengatu, 'til up to 18th century, when it was banned in name of Portuguese. Even white people spoke it! Not sure how it could have influenced Portuguese as spoken here, but most toponymies I can name there are of Tupi origin. Nheengatu was widespread in Amazonia, but now is only spoken by a very small number of people.

[amhoanna]

I was thinking of going through 五月天's Hokkien songs this winter. But no idea about the quality of the language A-shin (vocalist and lyricist) uses.

Not sure. It may vary...

No idea. But AFAIK 八重山 is culturally different from 琉球王国. No idea if when Japan and China referred to 琉球, they'd include 八重山 as well.

But in any case, 沖𦃰 (Uchinaa) and 琉球 (Luchu) don't mean the same thing, right?

No idea. What I know is that São Paulo had a lingua franca very similar to Nheengatu, 'til up to 18th century, when it was banned in name of Portuguese.

I think that would be the one.

Seems like Guaraní still carries that torch down in P'guay?