Downloads and links

THE LANGUAGE
HISTORY | AUDIO FILES | TOOLS

THE CULTURE
PRESENTATIONS | LINKS

The language we call Taiwanese is also known as Fukienese or Minnan (the language of Southern Min). This language is one of the hundreds of dialects of spoken Chinese, and can be heard in many parts of the world, including areas in China, Taiwan, Malaysia, and Singapore. Hoklo (pronounced Holo) is the root of Taiwanese, and was not spoken by a people who were genetically Chinese. However, the people who spoke Hoklo, a language without writing, are believed to have, for the most part, come from what is today Fujian province in southeastern China. These people also migrated throughout Southeast Asia, thus leaving a linguistic trail that covers a vast area ranging from south of the Yangtze River (Chang Jiang) to Indonesia and islands of the South Pacific.

The Hoklo-speaking people became sinicized (indoctrinated by the Chinese) starting in 221 B.C. when Qin Shi-Huang of the Qin dynasty conquered lands south of the Yangtze River, going as far south as Vietnam. Despite over 2,000 years of Chinese influence, there still exists significant evidence of the Hoklo connection between languages of southern China and Southeast Asia through similarities in sounds and meanings of various words.

In fact, Hoklo served as the basis from which many languages developed. In addition to Taiwanese, evidence of Hoklo can be found in Malay, Indonesian, Thai, Vietnamese, Cantonese, Hakka, Tagalog, Hawaiian, and certain Indian, Polynesian, and even Formosan aborigine languages, just to mention a few.

This brief description of the history of Taiwanese has been compiled with the assistance of Ekki Lu. For additional in depth information, visit his website at http://ekki.simplenet.com.

These are the audio files (MP3 format) that go with the phonetics packet we use in class. They contain pronunciations of Taiwanese phonetic sounds and tones, as well as the vocabulary words listed in the packet. These sound files are the property of UC Berkeley Taiwanese De-Cal and are for personal use only!

Taiwanese Package - a useful tool for inputting Taiwanese phonetics on the computer. The site is in written in Chinese characters, so we have compiled instructions for downloading and usage if you cannot read the characters:

1. In the menu to the left, click on the second (graphical) link, which will say "Download" (you might have to wait awhile to see the English letters, since it's an animated gif that switches between Chinese characters and English).
2. On the Download page, click on the first link with a bullet. It should say "Taiwanese Package 1.41".
3. Install the package, then read the README file. Don't worry. It's all in English.
4. When you want to input Taiwanese phonetics, change the language setting of your computer from "English (United States)" to "English (New Zealand)". This can be done from Windows from your Start menu, under Settings > Control Panel > Regional Settings.

(Note: The Taiwanese Package is shareware, so technically, you can only use it free for 30 days.)

Here are some example written versions of cultural presentations that we have received in the past:

• Taiwan Flags
• Taiwanese "Little Foods"
• Colonial History of Taiwan
• Chinese Puppetry