The map above shows the percentages of mandarin use in Taiwan.

Mandarin Use in Taiwan

Since 1940s, Mandarin has been the most widely spoken language in Taiwan’s school.

Mandarin became the national language of China in 1911.

Mandarin was introduced to Taiwan’s school after the Republic of China took over Taiwan and its surrounding islands from Japan, and became the official language of Taiwan.

When the Chinese occupied the Kuomintang, they used standard Mandarin as the official language. Taiwanese are influenced by standard Mandarin, native dialects and other languages. Standard Mandarin is the language used in schools, which is mainly spoken by the Taiwanese under the age of 60. Standard Mandarin is the most commonly used language in Taipei. Most people are from the mainland of China and do not agree with Taiwan’s lineage.

The difference between the mandarin in Taiwan and the mandarin in China

—Taiwan uses traditional Chinese characters, but the mainland China uses simplified characters.

—The phonetic system used in Taiwan is called “Zhuyin Fuhao” or Bopomofo. The phonetic system used in mainland China is called “pinyin”.

—There are many phrases and words in Taiwan which are not used in mainland China, such as the word “bicycle” is called “脚踏车“ in Taiwan, but 自行车 in China.

—The grammar of Taiwan Mandarin is also different from the grammar in mainland of China.

Influences on Taiwan’s Mandarin

The diversity of Taiwan’s languages is due to the travelers, foreigners, and newcomers.  

Began in 17th century, people started to immigrate to Taiwan from the mainland China. Han Chinese made up the majority of Taiwan’s population.

The culture of Taiwan: Confucism and Taiwanese perceived in both traditional and modern understandings.

The Chinese nationalist party had the significant influence on Taiwan during the early period.

Under the KMT, Taiwanese developed their cultural scene by the influence of American activities KMT issued a series of ideological reforms aimed to retake China.  The KMT decided to teach the Taiwanese mandarin and nationalist ideology in school as their primary education.

Most people in Taiwan speak or at least understand the mandarin which they also called guoyu in Taiwan.

There is no doubt that some people, especially in the middle part of the Taiwan,  do not speak Mandarin at all.

The languages of Taiwan represent its identity, and this is the content of politics. Who is “Taiwanese”? It’s not completely clear. About half of the people living in Taiwan are pure Taiwanese but there are 40% others identify as both Chinese and Taiwanese. A small portion identified as only  Chinese. Taiwan also distinguish people from other provinces, who was born in mainland China, came to Taiwan with the KMT in 1949. There are  about 14% of the population, their ancestors mainly came from  the Qing Dynasty between late seventeenth and late nineteenth century.