Or pek yee eh tao. Sorry, just cannot stand tw
hokkien. Thanks for reply. Those are what we will say.
Bangu, did you see a thread here that says "Free Taiwanese
Hokkien Lessons"?
Ya I saw it at Chit Chat.
Nothing to discuss there about it because he is offering
Taiwanese Hokkien Lessons and he did not lie that he is going to
offer Local Hokkien Lessons what. so whoever is interested can
attend mah.
My dear sis, for every Singaporean who says that they dislike Tw
Hokkien will equally in numbers meet with a Taiwanese who will say
they dislike Sg Hokkien because to them Sg Hokkien contains a
handful amount of Cantonese, Teochew, Peranakan Malay, English,
Hainanese loanwords and sentence patterns.
Also the history of formation of Hokkiens is different in Taiwan
and Singapore, therefore of course there will be tonal patterns
which are different.
Let me give a short glimpse:
China Hokkien had been moving to Taiwan even since the Ming
Dynasty in huge numbers and the mass migration started from Ch'ing
Dynasty. However in SE.Asia it was small numbers in Ming and Ch'ing
and only gained significant momentum after Ch'ing collapsed. Our
history of Hokkien in Sg is definitely shorter than that of Taiwan.
And furthermore those small numbers that came here in the Ming
period has already been acculturated into the Straits/Peranakan
ethnic group already and cannot be counted as true Hokkien
speakers.
After the 1949 takeover of Communist in China, China launched
various campaigns to destroy local languages. Before Communist
takeover of China, there was already an exodus of Hokkien literati
(that time called 書塾) to Taiwan due to the turmoil in China between
the Kuomintang and the Communist struggle for power. This resulted
that education level in China were not high during the takeover
period and later the banishment of intellectuals across China
during Cultural revolution, the uneducated masses has been misled
into thinking speaking local languages is a sign of
"backward" behaviour due to government brainwashing.
Those Kuomintang who crossed to Taiwan at 1945 did not
immediately stop Hokkien language, it was due to a gradual process
because the people who held power in Kuomintang were northerners
(incld. Wu speaking areas). They actively propagated Mandarin so
that they "feel" they stay in power. These populations who crossed
over to Taiwan from 1945 can be identified roughly 15% of current
Taiwanese population, however they did a lot to stop Hokkien from
being propagated in education and later on in gradual steps in the
media. However as the standards of education in Taiwan is quite
high all along (because when the Ch'ing dynasty collapse and after
that, lots of literati left Hokkien province for Taiwan and bought
the traditional Hokkien education to Taiwan and saved the
destruction of Hokkien education from the Communist China), the
awareness of Hokkien is much higher in Taiwan than in China or in
Singapore.
In Singapore, much more similar to China, most Hokkien people
who arrived here in Ch'ing period are non-educated and mostly
villagers and fishermans and coolies, therefore they were not aware
of the precious mother tongue being forcefully shamed by the
government after the new independent government took over. To them,
learning the language of the "officials" were more important than
preserving one's own "mother tongue" as it brings "food" onto the
table.
This is how the government in 3 different countries took away
the rights of the mother tongue.
What is different is the Hokkien literati who arrived in Taiwan
after fleeing the political turmoil in China had taken root in
Taiwan and helped survived the traditional 書塾 Hokkien education which has been destroyed
in China.
The traditional 書塾 Hokkien education had not had enough time to take root to
mature in Singapore, Malaysia and Indonesia Hokkien communities
before
I) the Singapore government
took steps to eradicate dialects
II) Malaysian government took steps to play political disharmony
between different dialect groups in malaysia such that the chinese
community were forced to unite themselves by setting up mandarin
schools, and
III) Indonesian government took steps to eradicate all forms of
Chinese indication in the society under Soeharto.
