Introduction to Taiwanese Vocabulary
Taiwanese has been passed on for generations without a standardized writing system. Considered a variety of Hokkien, it is spoken natively by about 70% of the population of Taiwan, brought by immigrants from southern Fujian, mainly during the Qing dynasty. Taiwanese also contains loanwords from Japanese and the native Formosan languages, plus some Spanish, Dutch, and English.
A writing system using Latin characters, Peh-oe-ji, was developed by Western missionaries in the 19th century. The Presbyterian Church has been active in promoting Taiwanese and POJ since the late 19th century. In 1943, Liim Keahioong and classmates started work on a spelling system that evolved into Modern Literal Taiwanese (MLT), which is used by the Washington DC Taiwanese School and the system we use below.
Common Phrases
Main article: Common Taiwanese phrases
- Lie hør
- Hello!
- Ciaqpar`bøe?
- Hello. (Literally, "have you eaten your fill?")
- Bøexbae!
- Not bad.
- Kafmsia!
- Thank you.
- Mxbiern-khehkhix!
- You're welcome. / That's OK.
Lexicon
Main reference: Taiwanese Hokkien#Lexicon
Hokkien
As a variety of Hokkien, Taiwanese has many words with cognates in other Chinese varieties. False friends do exist; for example, zao (走) means "to run" in Taiwanese, whereas the Mandarin cognate, zǒu, means "to walk". Moreover, cognates may have different lexical categories; for example, the morpheme phvi (鼻) means not only "nose" (a noun, as in Mandarin bí) but also "to smell" (a verb, unlike Mandarin).
| Harnji | Reading(s) | English |
|---|---|---|
| 一 | id | one (1) |
| 是 | si | to be |
| 人 | jiin | person |
| 我 | goar, gvor | me, I |
| 大 | toa, tai | big |
| 來 | laai | to come |
| 國 | kog | kingdom, country, nation |
| 你 | lie | you, your (汝) |
| 地 | tøe | ground, earth |
| 年 | nii, lieen | year |
In Taiwanese, Harnji often have differing literary and colloquial readings (pronunciations). See Literary and colloquial readings of Chinese characters.
Some words just have no standard Harnji, and are variously considered colloquial, intimate, vulgar, uncultured, or more concrete in meaning than the pan-Chinese synonym. Some examples: laang (person, concrete) vs. jiin (人, person, abstract); zabor (woman) vs. lwjiin (女人, woman, literary); baq (meat). See Taiguo Siong'iong 460-ji and 臺灣閩南語推薦用字.
Austronesian
Main article: Taiwanese words from Austronesian
Some Taiwanese terms originate from the Austronesian Formosan Aboriginal Languages. For example, asef, meaning "silly goose", is from Sirayan. Many Taiwan placenames came from these languages, including Taioaan, Alysafn, Køelaang, etc. It is said that 70 to 80% of Taiwan placenames are from the Formosan Austronesian languages.
Japanese
Main article: Taiwanese words from Japanese
The Empire of Japan ruled Taiwan from 1895 to 1945. Extensive contact with the Japanese language has left a legacy of Japanese loanwords. Examples are: piexntofng, iafkiuu, piexnsor, huilengky, bixsox.
- otofbae (from オートバイ ootobai "autobike", an "Engrish" word)
- pharng (from パン pan "bread", which is itself a loanword from Portuguese).
- Grammatical particles borrowed from Japanese, notably tek (from teki 的) and kaf (from か), show up in the Taiwanese of older speakers.
Western Languages
See Also: 台灣閩南語用詞#西洋語言
Taiwanese has words that come from Dutch, Portuguese, and Spanish via its history (see Hølaan ee Formosa). Aside from placenames (like Samtiaw Kag and Huokuix Kag), most western words might be from English via Japanese (see Taiwanese words from English).
| MTL | Notes |
|---|---|
| bihluq | from Dutch bier via Japanese |
| kaq | from Dutch akker (acre): 2934 pvii |
| pak | from Dutch pachten (to lease) |
| phorngphuq | from Dutch pomp (pump) |
| angmngthoo | they called the Dutch "angmo" savages (紅毛番 or 紅毛)。 |
| sapbuun | soap, from Portuguese: sabão |
Getting started
Words you may recognize
| MTL | Tai. Hanji | English Meaning |
|---|---|---|
| tee | 茶 | tea (from Amoy) |
| khaothaau | 叩頭 | kowtow (to kneel and touch the forehead to the ground in token of homage, worship, or deep respect) |
| kafmsia | 感謝 | cumshaw (grateful thanks, from Amoy) |
| sampafn'ar | 舢舨仔 | sampan (a flat-bottomed skiff used in eastern Asia and usually propelled by two short oars) |
| Jidpurn | 日本 | Japan/Nippon |
| Sekkhiaf | 釋迦 | sweetsop (sugar-apple), resembles top part of Gautama Buddha's (Sakyamuni) head |
How to Count
There are two sets of numbers in Taiwanese, colloquial and literary. The colloquial style is used for counting. See Hokkien numerals.