Introduction to Taiwanese Vocabulary: Difference between revisions

The modern language that we call '''Taiwanese''' has been passed on for generations without a standardized writing system. Considered a branch of Hokkien, it is spoken natively by about 70% of the population of Taiwan, brought by immigrants from [[Banlaam|southern Fujian]], mainly during the [[Zhengkog|Qing dynasty]]. Taiwanese also contains loanwords from Japanese and the native [[Formosan languages]], plus some [[Sepangaa-gie|Spanish]], [[Kextexgie|Dutch]], and [[Enggie|English]].

Taiwanese has a literary layer that can be traced to the late [[Toong|Tang dynasty]] (ca. 618-907),  

and a colloquial layer believed to have branched off around the time of the Han dynasty ({{w|Old Chinese}} (ca. 0 BCE/CE). However, Taiwanese does not have a strong written tradition in [[Harnji|Han characters]] or any other script. Until the late 19th century, educated Taiwanese speakers wrote mostly in [[Bungieen-buun|Classical Chinese]]. Where Han characters have been used to record spoken Taiwanese, they are not always etymological or genetic; the borrowing of similar-sounding or similar-meaning characters is a common practice. The lack of a written standard and the difficulty in learning the relatively complicated characters posed a great barrier to written record of Taiwanese speech.

 

==Common Phrases==