Protestors decry discrimination against Taiwanese language (fwd link)

[Chun Jimmy Huang]

Thank you Nahed and Bill, for your accurate summaries.

Yes indeed us Formosan indigenes aren't included in the discourses 
of the popularly known "Taiwanese Nationalism" and "(Taiwan's 
version) Chinese Nationalism." When we do get mentioned 
occasionally, I tend to see a red flag signaling some kind of 
co-optation.

Jimmy

On Tue Aug 11 23:05:13 EDT 2009, Nahed Johnspoon 
<sikozujohnson at GMAIL.COM> wrote:

> There's also a kind of irony in the complaint being made about 
> the  name of the Minnan language, because the term is the exact 
> Mandarin  cognate of B??n-l??m-g??, the indigenous name: 
> "Southern Fujian  Language". B??n-l??m is Minnanese for "Southern 
> Fujian Province", not  "snake". The alternative name is 
> T??i-o??n-o??, which has the Mandarin  equivalent "Taiwanhua", or 
> "the Taiwanese language". It's also  distinct from Hokkien and 
> Amoy, although still close, so neither of  those names are 
> appropriate either.
> 
> In short, it's a strange complaint, kind of like saying, "The 
> word  Zhongwen is racist because it contains the word 'middle', 
> and we are  not average!" when actually the name is from "The 
> Middle Kingdom" and  not some other meaning of "zhong".
> 
> There are very strong reasons for supporting B??n-l??m-g?? 
> speakers in  Taiwan - but that the name contains a word with the 
> radical for  "snake" in it doesn't appear to be a good one.
> 
> On 2009 33 - 11 Aug, at 21:55 EDT, William J Poser wrote: "Just 
> as a  clarification, the "Taiwanese" in question here is not one 
> of the  aboriginal languages of Taiwan. The true aboriginal 
> languages are the  various Austronesian languages. Then there is 
> a layer of varieties of  Chinese spoken by the earlier Chinese 
> colonists. The majority of the  early layer of Chinese colonists 
> spoke a Southern Min variety of  Chinese (Min Nan in Mandarin 
> Chinese). That is what is here referred  to as "Taiwanese". The 
> most recent layer in the Taiwanese cake is  Mandarin Chinese, 
> imposed as the official language by the losers of  the Chinese 
> Civil War who took control of Taiwan at the end of WWII.  Without 
> implying any value judgment, this is a conflict between  earlier 
> and later colonial languages, in some ways comparable to  
> conflicts between Spanish and English in the Southwestern US."
> 
>