Taiwan is an island country that, given its small size, is home to not only a variety of languages, but various dialects of Chinese.  Even though Mandarin Chinese is the dominant language in Taiwan today (along with being the official one) the other dialects have had a large role in how the linguistic landscape of Taiwan has been formed.

If you wish to learn more about the specifics of the dialects, check out the pages below:

Hakka – Southern Min

As for the history of dialect usage in Taiwan, it was during the Japanese colonial period where there was the beginnings of policies made around the languages of Taiwan, in particular, the restrictions of all dialects and native languages into exclusive usage in the home.  Like many of Japan’s other colonies, there was a push to have the people replace their languages with Japanese as a way of maintaining cultural dominance over the colonized people.

With the ousting of Japan and the entrance of the KMT into Taiwan, there was a brief time that there was a lift on these language bans and a mixture of local dialects with standard Mandarin within the school system.  However, in the 1950s, there was introduced a restriction on dialect usage in media, as well as a ban on the usage of dialects and native languages in school.  This ban grew over its timespan lasting until the late 1980s to include punishments for children who used their local dialects and native languages in schools.

It is said that these restrictions on dialects were even more harsh than that of Mainland China during this time of standardizing Mandarin Chinese into the official language.  So much so that by the early 1990s, the percent of Mandarin Chinese speakers in Mainland China was only 51%, while Taiwan remarkably indicated a 95% of Mandarin Chinese speakers.  These numbers don’t differentiate between mono- and bilingual speakers, yet wither way, it is an impressive number that is solely due to the Mandarin only policies in the education system.

Yet, the restrictions on non-Mandarin dialects and native languages were something that lasted.  During the rising influence of the DDP (Democratic Progressive Party) in Taiwan, there a lift on the punishments related to speaking other languages or dialects in school as part of the beginnings of reforms.

These reforms went into full swing as soon as the DDP gained political control in the 1990s and placed an effort into creating bilingual education as a way of attempting to preserve dialects and languages that had once been banned from usage.  These programs began slowly and were regional focused and choose the second language or dialect based on what the majority of the region’s population spoke.  They became widespread across Taiwan by 2001 and is still in place today, although there has been a push starting in 2011 for English to be the secondary language of education alongside Mandarin Chinese versus other Chinese dialects and native languages.