Taiwanese and Hokkien

Considering these two terms can refer to the same language, which should be used when?

Both are ambiguous, as “Taiwanese” could also refer to other forms of Chinese spoken in Taiwan, like Taiwanese Hakka, Taiwanese Mandarin and indigenous Formosan languages. While “Hokkien” could also refer to forms of Hokkien spoken in mainland China and among the Chinese diaspora in other countries.

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Bethanny

Employee

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5.6K Messages

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58.9K Points

2 years ago

Hi @English_pedantic_grammarian -

We will ask this to our policy team, will get back to you when we have an answer.

Cheers!

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Michelle

Employee

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18.2K Messages

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321.3K Points

2 years ago

Hi @English_pedantic_grammarian -

To help clarify and answer your question, we currently only support Hokkien, as it is our policy to list languages as they are known in the English language.

I hope this helps!

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English_pedantic_grammarian

84 Messages

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1.6K Points

I don’t understand the explanation, as Hokkien is also known in English as “Taiwanese”, but I appreciate the clarification and think it’s the right decision.

As I wrote in the original post, “Taiwanese” could be confused with completely different forms of Chinese and even separate languages altogether. At least “Hokkien” can only refer to forms of Chinese that are relatively similar to each other.

2 years ago

jeorj_euler

10.7K Messages

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226.1K Points

2 years ago

There is more than one "Chinese" spoken language.

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English_pedantic_grammarian

Taiwanese and Hokkien

Bethanny

Michelle

English_pedantic_grammarian

jeorj_euler

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