Taiwan Warning: You are not logged in. Your IP address will be publicly visible if you make any edits. If you log in or create an account, your edits will be attributed to your username, along with other benefits.Anti-spam check. Do not fill this in! ===Languages=== {{Main|Languages of Taiwan}} [[File:Map of the most commonly used home language in Taiwan.svg|thumb|upright=1.25|Most commonly used home language in each area, darker in proportion to the lead over the next most common{{Legend|#000080|[[Mandarin Chinese]]}}{{Legend|#008000|[[Hokkien]] or Min Nan}}{{Legend|#FF0066|[[Hakka Chinese]]}}{{Legend|#800000|[[Austronesian languages]]}}]] The Republic of China does not have any legally designated [[official language]]. [[Taiwanese Mandarin|Mandarin]] is the primary language used in business and education, and is spoken by the vast majority of the population. [[Traditional Chinese]] is used as the writing system.<ref name="yb-languages">{{cite book |title=The Republic of China Yearbook 2011 |publisher=Government Information Office, Republic of China (Taiwan) |chapter=Chapter 2: People and Language |chapter-url=http://www.gio.gov.tw/taiwan-website/5-gp/yearbook/docs/ch02D.pdf |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120514004814/http://www.gio.gov.tw/taiwan-website/5-gp/yearbook/docs/ch02D.pdf |archive-date=14 May 2012}}</ref> Around 70% of Taiwan's population belong to the [[Hoklo]] ethnic group and are speakers of [[Taiwanese Hokkien]] as native language.<ref>{{cite web |url = http://www.ethnologue.com/show_country.asp?name=TW |title=Taiwan |website=[[Ethnologue]]|quote=Principal languages}}</ref> The [[Hakka]] group, comprising some 14β18 percent of the population, speak [[Hakka Chinese|Hakka]]. Although Mandarin is the language of instruction in schools and dominates television and radio, non-Mandarin [[varieties of Chinese|Chinese varieties]] have undergone a revival in public life in Taiwan, particularly since restrictions on their use were lifted in the 1990s.<ref name="yb-languages" /> [[Formosan languages]] are spoken primarily by the indigenous peoples of Taiwan. They do not belong to the Chinese or Sino-Tibetan language family, but to the [[Austronesian languages|Austronesian language family]], and are written in the [[Writing systems of Formosan languages|Latin alphabet]].<ref>{{cite news |title=Official documents issued in Aboriginal languages |newspaper=Taipei Times |url=http://www.taipeitimes.com/News/taiwan/archives/2017/07/20/2003674932 |access-date=20 July 2017}}</ref> Their use among aboriginal minority groups has been in decline as usage of Mandarin has risen.<ref name="yb-languages" /> Of the 14 extant languages, five are considered [[moribund language|moribund]].<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Zeitoun |first1=Elizabeth |last2=Yu |first2=Ching-Hua |title=The Formosan Language Archive: Linguistic Analysis and Language Processing |url=http://aclclp.org.tw/clclp/v10n2/v10n2a2.pdf |journal=Computational Linguistics and Chinese Language Processing |volume=10 |issue=2 |page=168 |access-date=4 August 2012 |archive-date=20 July 2011 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110720000756/http://aclclp.org.tw/clclp/v10n2/v10n2a2.pdf |url-status=dead }}</ref> Since the [[May Fourth Movement]], [[written vernacular Chinese]] had replaced [[Classical Chinese]] and emerged as the mainstream [[Written vernacular Chinese|written Chinese]] in the Republic of China. Classical Chinese continued to be widely used in government documents until reforms in the 1970s to shift the written style to a more integrated vernacular Chinese and Classical Chinese style ({{lang|zh-hant|ζη½εδΈθ‘ζ}}).<ref>{{cite book|first=Feng-fu|last=Tsao|chapter=The language planning situation in Taiwan|pages=60β106|editor1-last=Baldauf|editor1-first=Richard B.|editor2-first=Robert B.|editor2-last=Kaplan|title=Language planning in Nepal, Taiwan, and Sweden|publisher=Multilingual Matters|year=2000|volume=115|isbn=978-1-85359-483-0}} pages 75β76.</ref><ref>{{cite book|last=Cheong|first=Ching|title=Will Taiwan break away: the rise of Taiwanese nationalism|publisher=World Scientific|year=2001|page=187|isbn=978-981-02-4486-6}}</ref> On 1 January 2005, the [[Executive Yuan]] also changed its long-standing convention on the [[Horizontal and vertical writing in East Asian scripts|direction of writing]] in official documents from vertical to horizontal. Standalone Classical Chinese is occasionally used in formal or ceremonial occasions, such as religious or cultural rites. The ''[[National Anthem of the Republic of China]]'' ({{lang|zh-Hant-TW|δΈθ―ζ°εεζ}}), for example, is in Classical Chinese. Most official [[Government of the Republic of China|government]], [[Law of Taiwan|legal]], and [[Ministry of Justice (Taiwan)|judiciary]] documents, as well as [[Supreme Court of the Republic of China|courts rulings]] use a combined vernacular Chinese and Classical Chinese style.<ref>{{cite web|title=ζ³εΎη΅±δΈη¨θͺ葨-εΈΈθ¦ε ¬ζη¨θͺθͺͺζ|url=http://oga.ncu.edu.tw/ncuoga/dispatch/doc/%E5%B8%B8%E8%A6%8B%E5%85%AC%E6%96%87%E7%94%A8%E8%AA%9E%E8%AA%AA%E6%98%8E1050106.pdf|access-date=2 June 2021|language=Chinese|archive-date=2 June 2021|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210602215646/http://oga.ncu.edu.tw/ncuoga/dispatch/doc/%E5%B8%B8%E8%A6%8B%E5%85%AC%E6%96%87%E7%94%A8%E8%AA%9E%E8%AA%AA%E6%98%8E1050106.pdf}}</ref> As many legal documents are still written in Classical Chinese, which is not easily understood by the general public, a group of Taiwanese have launched the Legal Vernacular Movement, hoping to bring more vernacular Chinese into the legal writings of the [[Republic of China]].<ref>{{cite web |title=γζ³εΎη½θ©±ζιεγζθ΅·δΈε ΄ζ³εΎι©ε½ |date=4 February 2018 |url=https://vita.tw/%E6%B3%95%E5%BE%8B%E7%99%BD%E8%A9%B1%E6%96%87%E9%81%8B%E5%8B%95-%E6%8E%80%E8%B5%B7%E4%B8%80%E5%A0%B4%E6%B3%95%E5%BE%8B%E9%9D%A9%E5%91%BD-1fa53d10d9da |access-date=9 July 2021 |language=Chinese }}{{Dead link|date=August 2023 |bot=InternetArchiveBot |fix-attempted=yes }}</ref> Taiwan is officially multilingual. A national language in Taiwan is legally defined as "a natural language used by an original people group of Taiwan and the [[Taiwan Sign Language]]".<ref name="natLangAct"/> As of 2019, policies on national languages are in early stages of implementation, with Hakka and indigenous languages designated as such. Summary: Please note that all contributions to Christianpedia may be edited, altered, or removed by other contributors. If you do not want your writing to be edited mercilessly, then do not submit it here. You are also promising us that you wrote this yourself, or copied it from a public domain or similar free resource (see Christianpedia:Copyrights for details). Do not submit copyrighted work without permission! Cancel Editing help (opens in new window) Discuss this page