In the evenings from September 28 to October 2, Sinorama conducted a phone survey of households in Taipei, Kaohsiung, Taichung and Ilan, asking such questions as "Who in the family speaks Taiwanese?" "Where and to whom do they speak it?" and "What are reasons for not speaking Taiwanese?" as well as questions about the usefulness of Taiwanese and whether fluency in Taiwanese or English would be more desirable. About 200 households were queried at random from the four city phone books, for a total sample of 801 respondents.

In now-democratic Taiwan, there are virtually no linguistic taboos. Yet in light of Taiwanese being suppressed for so long during the Japanese era and then again for decades of ROC rule, and in view of the tension between people of different ethnic groups and provincial backgrounds, language is a very sensitive issue in Taiwan. Often, after just touching on the issue of language, surveyors received such contentious responses as "There's no need to ask any more questions, just fill in all the blanks with 'Taiwanese'!" "Mandarin was brought over by the mainlanders; we ought to be using Taiwanese, which is the local language!" or "Taiwanese is a dialect; if we all speak in dialect, won't it cause communication problems?" Sometimes those being polled would even correct their questioner's Taiwanese pronunciation or offer tips on some of the finer points of Taiwanese usage. In contrast to these respondents with raised consciousness about these issues, youths tended to be more apathetic. "We mostly use body language," said one youth who was unwilling to answer the questions.

Do you speak Taiwanese with your father?

Using Mama's Taiwanese

72% of respondents use Taiwanese at least some of the time to communicate with their parents, and 47% speak only Taiwanese with their parents. There was some variation among the regions. For instance, in Taipei 63% of respondents spoke Taiwanese with their fathers, whereas the figure stood at 74% in Kaohsiung, 70% in Taichung and as high as 82% in Ilan. This is possibly because Ilan has traditionally been a Taiwanese-speaking area, and also perhaps because in 1990 Ilan started teaching Taiwanese in schools, which may have strengthened Ilan's residents' Taiwanese abilities even further.

It is worth noting the connection between provincial origin and language. 3% of "mainlanders" (people whose fathers are of mainland ancestry) and 40% of native Taiwanese Hakkas use Taiwanese to speak with their fathers (33% of mainlanders speak Taiwanese to their mothers, and 42% of Hakkas do). Yet among these Taiwanese speakers, it was determined that 57% of those with official mainland provincial origins have mothers who are Taiwanese of southern Fujian ancestry, as do 30% of the Taiwanese-using Hakkas. These households are what linguists refer to as "households of mixed-language marriages."

According to research conducted by Huang Hsuan-fan in 1987, when mixed families chose a common family language, it was usually Mandarin (for instance, when a mainlander married a Taiwanese, the children would use Mandarin to speak to the parents). Yet the Sinorama survey discovered that about 30% of mainlanders with Taiwanese mothers and 40% of Hakkas with Taiwanese mothers sometimes use Taiwanese to speak to their fathers. In comparison to what Huang found eight years ago, these results show that the use of Taiwanese is on the rise. Chiang Wen-yu, an associate professor in the Department of Foreign Languages and Literature at National Taiwan University, believes that this is probably related to the weakening of the conception that Taiwanese is a "low-class" language. What's more, there are many more Taiwanese programs on radio and television, and many jobs require Taiwanese. As a result more non-Taiwanese are speaking Taiwanese at home to their parents.

Do you speak Taiwanese with your Mother?

Young parents speak Mandarin to kids

Compared to the 72% of the population that uses Taiwanese to speak with the older generation, only 50% of respondents speak Taiwanese to their own children. Educational level has an inverse relationship with people's likelihood to speak Taiwanese with their children: 75% of respondents with only primary-school education speak to their children in Taiwanese, as opposed to only 30% of college graduates and 25% of post-graduate degree holders.

56% of Taiwanese, 42% of Hakkas and 20% of mainlanders use Taiwanese as one of the languages they speak to their children. Only 51% of Taiwanese speak Mandarin to their children.

The younger parents are, the more likely they are to speak Mandarin with their children. Among people from 30-39, 71% speak Mandarin with their children, whereas only 56% speak Taiwanese. Among people in their 40s, 68% speak Taiwanese to their children and 80% speak Mandarin; yet among people in their 50s, 76% speak Taiwanese and the number who speak Mandarin drops to 65%.

What language or languages do you speak to your children?

Taiwanese in agriculture

74% of respondents said they speak Taiwanese to their brothers and sisters. And among those who are over 30, more than 80% said they do. Yet only 58% of people under 30 speak Taiwanese to their siblings. Among siblings, the trend that more highly educated people are more likely to use Mandarin holds. The proportion of people in Ilan who speak Taiwanese to their brothers and sisters is particularly high, over 86%, much higher than Taipei's 64%, Kaohsiung's 77%, and Taichung's 69%.

With their friends, 49% of people speak Taiwanese, and a similar 44% speak Mandarin. To the question, "Apart from speaking Mandarin, do you speak any dialects with your friends, and if so, which dialects?" Taiwanese was the overwhelming favorite dialect, regardless of place, age, educational level, provincial origin or occupation. Yet it is worth noting that while 65% of Hakkas and 71% of mainlanders sometimes speak Taiwanese to friends, Taiwanese still falls clearly in second place to Mandarin.

28% of people use Taiwanese at the workplace, 31% use Mandarin and 36% use a mix of the two. Thus, the use of Taiwanese is lower than in the home.

Those who use Taiwanese most on the job are people involved in agriculture, forestry and fishing, followed by construction, private industry, service fields (such as taxi drivers, plumbers and electricians), owner-manned shops, and least of all the military and government.

At work and in formal settings, which language do you speak?

Everyone can speak Taiwanese

The vast majority of people (90%) at some times use Taiwanese when speaking to non-family, and among those who don't speak Taiwanese in such situations, most (64%) said it was because they were unaccustomed to speaking it. Only two people felt that "Taiwanese is low class."

But the perception that Taiwanese is a language for informal settings has not changed. When asked "Which language do you feel is most appropriate for use in formal settings, such as in school and in legislative meetings?" 68% of respondents chose Mandarin, whereas only 11% thought that Taiwanese should be used. Furthermore, the younger people were and the higher the level of their education, the more likely they were to think that Mandarin should be used. This is perhaps the main reason why Mandarin is currently the most effective language for communicating in formal settings.

What's more, 13% of Taiwanese (of Southern Fujianese descent) hold that Taiwanese is also suitable for formal situations, which is much higher than the 4% of Hakkas or 2% of mainlanders who feel likewise. This displays the natural bias for one's mother tongue. People in Ilan were more likely than people in other cities to feel that Taiwanese could be used in formal settings.

When asked about the level of their Taiwanese, 59% of people held that they were "fluent" in it, 26% said they "are able to communicate," and only 2% said they absolutely can't speak it at all. Furthermore, 21% of mainlanders said they could speak Taiwanese fluently and 28% said they can "communicate" with it, which means that nearly one-half of mainlanders hold that their own Taiwanese isn't bad. Among Hakkas, 40% believe that their Taiwanese is fluent, and 33% hold that they can use it to communicate, which shows that even with Mandarin-instruction education, everyone can learn Taiwanese just through natural contact with people.

The use of Taiwanese in different workplaces.

Mother tongue vs. global language

The survey showed that Taiwanese is in decline among the younger generation. Among those under 30, only 34% thought that they speak Taiwanese fluently, much less than the 62% of people in their 30s, 77% of people in their 40s, and 76% of people in their 50s who described themselves as fluent speakers. People of higher educational levels speak Taiwanese less well. Only a little over half of high school graduates thought their Taiwanese is fluent, whereas among those who only graduated from elementary school 70% did. Chiang Wen-yu holds that this is a result of people with higher levels of education having to speak Mandarin at school for all those years and then in the jobs they are likely to get thereafter. This has naturally hurt their Taiwanese.

The question "Which language would you like your children to speak best?" revealed some interesting results: 24% of people selected Mandarin, and Taiwanese and English both got the nod of 16%. It's apparent that the choice between the mother tongue and the international language is a tough one. 29% of people argued it would be better "not to ask about one language in particular-the more, the better!"

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Taiwanese classes have come into vogue in the 1990s. Yet among them, there are distinctly different approaches. Some focus on using Taiwanese to read classical Chinese; others aim at creating a whole new literature. The Kaohsiung Taiwanese Reading Group starts with classical Chinese literature. Its members (who include teachers, tea house owners and computer workers) study Taiwanese to gain a deeper understanding of native Taiwan culture. (photo by Hsueh Chi-kuang)

The use of Taiwanese in different workplaces.

What do you hope will be the best language of your children?