ASIA 152
Basic Taiwanese/Southern Min
Last Offered Spring 2023
Division I
Cross-listed CHIN 152
This course is not offered in the current catalog

This course constitutes an introduction to Taiwanese, the majority language of Taiwan, which is essentially the same as the native language of Xiamen, China and environs. Different varieties of this language, which is also known as Amoy, Hokkien, Fukienese, and Southern Min are spoken by about 50 million people in Taiwan, southern Fujian, the Philippines, Indonesia, Malaysia, and Singapore. Suppressed in Taiwan by the Japanese from 1895-1945 and by the KMT Chinese government from 1945 through the 1970s, Taiwanese–in both its spoken and written forms–has been experiencing a fascinating revival in recent decades. The most divergent of all the Sinitic languages, this language is of special linguistic interest because it has preserved a number of features of Old Chinese. Our focus will be on developing basic listening and speaking skills, though we will also study some of the special characters used to write Taiwanese. The relationship between language and culture and the sociolinguistically appropriate use of language will be stressed throughout. Since students in the course will ordinarily possess prior proficiency in Mandarin, a related language, we should be able to cover in one semester about as much as is covered in the first two semesters of Mandarin. Classes will include dialog performance, drills, communicative exercises, and oral reading and discussion of written Taiwanese.