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Taiwanese Mandarin, frequently referred to as Guoyu ( Chinese: 國語; pinyin: Guóyǔ; lit. 'national language') or Huayu ( 華語; Huáyǔ; 'Chinese language'), is the variety of Mandarin Chinese spoken in Taiwan. A large majority of the Taiwanese population is fluent in Mandarin, though many also speak a variety of Min Chinese known as ...
These languages include Taiwanese Hokkien, Hakka, and Mandarin, which have become the major languages spoken in present-day Taiwan. Formosan languages were the dominant language of prehistorical Taiwan. Taiwan's long colonial and immigration history brought in several languages such as Dutch, Spanish, Hokkien, Hakka, Japanese, and Mandarin.
Mandarin ( / ˈmændərɪn / ⓘ MAN-dər-in; Chinese: 官话; pinyin: Guānhuà; lit. 'officials' speech') is a group of Chinese language dialects that are natively spoken across most of northern and southwestern China. The group includes the Beijing dialect, the basis of the phonology of Standard Chinese, the official language of China.
The Taiwanese government hopes to spread its version of Mandarin — along with its values of freedom and democracy — as China's threats against Taiwan become increasingly bellicose.
The varieties are typically classified into several groups: Mandarin, Wu, Min, Xiang, Gan, Jin, Hakka and Yue, though some varieties remain unclassified. These groups are neither clades nor individual languages defined by mutual intelligibility, but reflect common phonological developments from Middle Chinese .
Standard Chinese is the official language of Taiwan. Standard Chinese started being widely spoken in Taiwan following the end of the Chinese Civil War in 1949, with the relocation of the Kuomintang (KMT) to the island along with an influx of refugees from the mainland. The Standard Chinese used in Taiwan differs very little from that of ...
Today, Chinese has an official language status in three countries and two territories. In China, it is the sole official language as Standard Chinese; in Taiwan, it is the de facto official language; while in Singapore (as Mandarin) it is one of the four official languages. In Hong Kong and Macau it is co-official as Cantonese, alongside ...
The most widely spoken and de facto language in Taiwan is Mandarin Chinese which was introduced to Taiwan by people who emigrated from mainland China after 1949. Taiwanese Hokkien, or "Taiwanese" for short, is spoken by about 70% of the population. The Hakka, who make about 13% of the population, speak the distinct Hakka language.