In 1945 when the island of Taiwan came under the control of the Kuomintang's Republic of China, Mandarin was introduced as the official language and made compulsory in schools. (Before 1945, Japanese was the official language and taught in schools.) Since then, Mandarin has been established as a lingua franca among the various groups in Taiwan: the majority Taiwanese-speaking Hoklo (Hokkien), the Hakka who have their own spoken language, Mainlanders whose native tongue may be any Chinese variant in mainland China, and the Indigenous Taiwanese who speak Indigenous languages.
Until the 1980s the Kuomintang administration heavily promoted the use of Standard Mandarin and discouraged the use of Taiwanese and other vernaculars, even portraying them as inferior. Mandarin was the only sanctioned language for use in the media. This produced a backlash in the 1990s. Although some more extreme supporters of Taiwan independence tend to be opposed to standard Mandarin in favor of Taiwanese, efforts to replace standard Mandarin either with Taiwanese or with a multi-lingual standard have remained stalled. Today, Mandarin is taught by immersion starting in elementary school. After the second grade, the entire educational system is in Mandarin, except for local language classes that have been taught for a few hours each week starting in the mid-1990s.
Taiwanese Mandarin (as with Singlish and many other situations of a creole speech community) is spoken at different levels according to the social class and situation of the speakers. Formal occasions call for the acrolectal level of Guoyu, which in practice differs little from Putonghua. Less formal situations often result in the basilect form, which has more uniquely Taiwanese features. Bilingual Taiwanese speakers often code-switch between Mandarin and Taiwanese, sometimes in the same sentence.
Mandarin is spoken fluently by almost the entire Taiwanese population, except for some elderly people who were educated under Japanese rule. In the capital Taipei, where there is a high concentration of Mainlanders whose native language is not Taiwanese, Mandarin is used in greater frequency than in southern and rural Taiwan.
There are two categories of pronunciation differences. The first is of characters that have an official pronunciation that differs from Putonghua (this mainly means a difference in tone rather than vowels or consonants). The second is more general, with differences being unofficial and arising through the influence of Taiwanese on Guoyu.
Variant official pronunciations
There are a few differences in official pronunciations, mainly in tone, between Guoyu and Putonghua. A full list is available at http://www.zhongwen.com/x/guopu.htm.
The following is a partial list of such differences:
the retroflex sounds (ch, zh, sh, r) from Putonghua are softened considerably
the Beijing retroflex "r" (兒) ending is very rarely heard
the pinyin feng is pronounced as fong
In basilectal Taiwanese Mandarin, sounds that do not occur in Taiwanese are replaced by sounds from that language. These variations from Standard Mandarin are similar to the variations of Mandarin spoken in southern China. Using the Hanyu Pinyin system, the following sound changes take place (going from Putonghua to Taiwanese Mandarin followed with an example):
The Putonghua construct 有…沒有 (have or not have) is not used in Taiwanese Mandarin.
For example: 你有汽車沒有? (lit. "you have a car or not have?") is not often found in Taiwanese Mandarin, where the preferred usage would be the alternative Putonghua construction 你有没有汽车？ (lit. "you have or not have a car?"). Both phrases have the same meaning of "Do you have a car?"
In some contexts, the construction involving 有 is often used where the sentence final particle 了 would normally be used to denote perfect aspect. For instance, a Taiwanese person would say "你有吃飯嗎？" to mean "Have you eaten?" whereas the preferred Putonghua is "你吃饭了吗？". This is due to the influence of Taiwanese grammar which uses 有 in a similar fashion.
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Vocabulary
Vocabulary differences can be divided into four categories – different usage of the same term, loan words, technological words, idioms, and words specific to living in Taiwan. Because of the limited transfer of information between mainland China and Taiwan after the Chinese civil war, many things that were invented after this split have different names in Guoyu and Putonghua. Additionally, many terms were adopted from Japanese both as a result of its close proximity as well as Taiwan's status as a Japanese colony in the first half of the 20th century.
Same words, different meaning
Some terms have different meanings in Taiwan and mainland China, which can sometimes lead to misunderstandings between speakers of both territories. Often there are alternative unambiguous terms which can be understood by both sides.
Term
Meaning in Taiwan
Meaning in mainland China
Remarks
[土豆] Error: {{Lang}}: unrecognized language tag: zh-t (help) tǔ dòu
peanut
potato
Unambiguous terms:
花生 (peanut)
[馬鈴薯] Error: {{Lang}}: unrecognized language tag: zh-t (help)/[马铃薯] Error: {{Lang}}: unrecognized language tag: zh-s (help) (potato).
[搞] Error: {{Lang}}: unrecognized language tag: zh-t (help) gǎo
to carry out something insidious
to do, to perform a task
As such, it is a verb that is rarely seen in any official or formal setting in Taiwan, where as it is widely used in China even by its top officials in official settings.
[窩心] Error: {{Lang}}: unrecognized language tag: zh-t (help) (T) [窝心] Error: {{Lang}}: unrecognized language tag: zh-s (help) (S) wō xīn
a kind of warm feeling
having an uneased mind
[出租車] Error: {{Lang}}: unrecognized language tag: zh-t (help) (T) [出租车] Error: {{Lang}}: unrecognized language tag: zh-s (help) (S) chū zū chē
rental car
taxi
In Taiwan, taxis are called [計程車] Error: {{Lang}}: unrecognized language tag: zh-t (help) (jì chéng chē), which is used less frequently in the mainland.
[計算機] Error: {{Lang}}: unrecognized language tag: zh-t (help) (T) [计算机] Error: {{Lang}}: unrecognized language tag: zh-s (help) (S) jì suàn jī
calculator
computer
Unambiguous terms:
[計算器] Error: {{Lang}}: unrecognized language tag: zh-t (help)/[计算器] Error: {{Lang}}: unrecognized language tag: zh-s (help) (calculator)
[電腦] Error: {{Lang}}: unrecognized language tag: zh-t (help)/[电脑] Error: {{Lang}}: unrecognized language tag: zh-s (help) (computer).
The term "machi" ([[wiktionary:麻吉|麻吉]] Pinyin: májí) is a transliteration of the English term "match", and is used to describe items or people which complement each other.
Note: [[wiktionary:麻吉|麻吉]] has become popular in the PRC as well.
The English term "hamburger" has been adopted in many Chinese speaking communities. In Taiwan, the preferred transliteration is [[wiktionary:漢堡|漢堡]] (Pinyin: hànbǎo) rather than [[wiktionary:漢堡包|漢堡包]] (Pinyin: hànbǎobāo).
The term "Fensi 粉絲" is a transliteration of the English term "fans", and is used to describe fans or people who idolize a superstar.
The terms "阿公agōng" and "阿嬤amà" are more commonly heard than the standard Mandarin 爺爺yéye (paternal grandfather), 外公wàigōng (maternal grandfather), 奶奶nǎinai (paternal grandmother) and 外婆wàipó (maternal grandmother).
Some local foods usually are referred to using their Taiwanese names. These include:
EasyCard (can be used to pay for buses, MRT, and some public parking)
Notes
^This applies to native Hoklo speakers - Hakka speakers maintain precisely the opposite: (e.g. hua - fa花→發)
^Often written using the Mandarin equivalent 刨冰, but pronounced using the Taiwanese word.
^Google hits from the China Times (中時電子報) and Liberty Times (自由時報) are included.
^This can be a tricky one, because 見笑 means "to be laughed at" in Standard Mandarin. Context will tell you which meaning should be inferred.
^Many people in Taiwan will use the Mandarin pronunciation (guīmáo).
^the writing 凍蒜 probably originated in 1997, when the price of the garlics was overly raised, and people called for the government to gain control of the price.
^Derived from Taiwanese pronunciation (POJ: kî-bông-jí, IPA:[ki˧˧bɔŋ˧˧ʑi˥˧])
^Most people in Taiwan will use the Taiwanese pronunciation (POJ: o·-bá-sáng, IPA:[ɔ˧˧ba˥˥sang˥˧])
^Derived from Taiwanese pronunciation (烏鰱, POJ: o·-liân, IPA:[ɔ˧˧liɛn˧˥])
^Most people in Taiwan will use the Taiwanese pronunciation (POJ: o·-jí-sáng, IPA:[ɔ˧˧ʑi˥˥sang˥˧])
^The first character 閣 is usually omitted when placed behind the surname. For example, the current premier is Su Tseng-chang (蘇貞昌). Since his surname is 蘇, he may be referred to in press as 蘇揆.
^The numbers are a bit misleading in this case because in the PRC, 公车 also refers to government owned vehicles.
^Young people in Taiwan also use this word to refer to someone or something extremely damnable.
Tseng, Hsin-I. (2003). The syntax structures of contemporary Taiwanese Mandarin [當代台灣國語的句法結構]. Unpublished master's thesis, National Taiwan Normal University, Taipei.
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