Why It’s Time to Call the Language What It Is—Taiwanese

When my grandparents greet neighbors in Sin-káng, Ka-gī, they do so in the lilting tones they have always called “Tâi-gí”—Taiwanese. The greeting is older than the Republic of China, older than Japan’s colonization, and certainly older than the bureaucratic term “Minnan,” a label imposed in the 1970s to bury a language’s name under layers of politics. Half a century later, it is time to exhume that name and restore it to public life.

A Name With a Longer Pedigree Than the State Itself

The word “Taiwanese” (臺語) first appeared in print in 1852, four decades before Japan seized Taiwan from a fading Qing empire. By 1895, Japanese officers, stunned that their Mandarin‐speaking interpreters were useless on the ground, rushed out phrasebooks such as Tâi-ôan Gí to talk with local Hoklo laborers. For the next half-century Tokyo’s colonial offices, Christian missionaries, and early Taiwanese writers—among them Liân-Ông and the radical newspaper Tâi-ôan Mín-Pó—used “Taiwanese” or “Taiwan Speech” with matter-of-fact ease.

Contrast that with “Minnan.” The term surfaces only in a 1935 Shanghai dispatch about pirates. It was never organic to Taiwan; it was a mainland classifier, as clinical as a specimen jar. Yet in 1973 the Kuomintang regime, brandishing its “National Language Promotion Act,” decreed that Tâi-gí be erased from official usage. Government circulars warned that calling the language Taiwanese was “factually incorrect” and might cause “undesirable consequences.” Schools punished children for speaking it; radio stations excised it from playlists. A living, breathing tongue was shoved behind the bland façade of a provincial adjective.

The Politics of Erasure

Why the obsession with renaming? Because naming is power. To the KMT, which had fled to Taiwan in 1949 insisting it still ruled all of China, “Taiwanese” sounded dangerously sovereign. Better to file it under the same drawer label as dialects in Xiamen or Quanzhou—anything to deny its speakers a distinct identity.

The consequences have been profound. A generation grew up thinking their mother tongue was somehow parochial, even shameful. The stigma lingers: many urban parents still default to Mandarin at home, convinced it offers their children social capital. Meanwhile, “Minnan” alienates others who actually do speak Minnan on the mainland or in Singapore. Paradoxically, by making the label pan-Chinese, Taipei stripped it of the very local specificity it sought to suppress.

Recognizing Diversity Without Self-Effacement

Critics worry that reinstating “Taiwanese” would eclipse Hakka, Indigenous languages, and the equally threatened Mikâda of new immigrants. But no serious advocate claims Taiwanese represents every group. The point is symmetry, not supremacy. Hakka is called Hakka, Amis is Amis, Bunun is Bunun—none are forced to answer to Fujianese sub-dialect codes. Taiwanese deserves the same dignity.

Indeed, rejecting the “Minnan” straightjacket can strengthen multicultural policy. When a state finally utters Tâi-gí aloud, it implicitly concedes that names matter and that each community may define itself. This logic underpins the 2019 National Languages Act, which elevated Taiwanese, Hakka, and Indigenous tongues to co-official status in public services. Yet ministries still toggle between “Taiwan Minnan” and “Southern Min,” perpetuating confusion. A clear-cut return to “Taiwanese” would send a cleaner signal: multilingualism thrives only when each language is called by the name its speakers choose.

Culture Needs a Tagline It Can Wear Proudly

Beneath the policy debate is a cultural one. Taiwanese carries the cadence of opera at Hōng-thian Temple, of street-market banter in Táu-la̍k, of indie bands on Káng-á-tāi’s riverbank stages. It shaped the comedy of Âng Ûi-jîn and the activism of the post-martial-law generation. A language so steeped in collective memory should not be pressed into the role of a regional curiosity.

Nor is restoration merely nostalgic. Netflix subtitles, podcast indices and Siri voice presets all require terminology. “Taiwanese” instantly orients global audiences; “Southern Min” invites a shrug. Marketing gurus know: brand clarity builds markets. Culture works the same way.

A Path Forward

The Ministry of Culture’s 2022 National Language Development Report already “suggests” using “Taiwanese.” Suggestions, however, do little against decades of muscle memory in textbooks and ID forms. The Executive Yuan should take three concrete steps:

1. Legislate the name. Amend administrative regulations to replace “Minnan” with “Taiwanese” across education, identity documents, and public broadcasting within two years.
2. Fund teacher retraining. Update certification programs so future educators introduce the tongue as “Taiwanese,” while also teaching its linguistic links to Amoy and Ē-lam dialects.
3. Launch a media incentive. Provide grants that reward film, music, and gaming content tagged “Taiwanese language” in metadata, boosting discoverability.

These moves cost less than a stretch of high-speed rail but would give 15 million speakers something priceless: official recognition of who they already are.

Speaking Ourselves Into the Future

Languages seldom die from lack of grammar; they die from the slow suffocation of a mis-assigned name. Taiwan today projects itself as a progressive democracy, a bulwark against authoritarian homogenization. We cannot credibly champion diversity abroad while filing our own mother tongue under a colonial index card. Call it Tâi-gí, Taiwanese, 台語—just not “Minnan.” The words we choose echo far beyond academia. They tell every child in Hûn-lîm or on Taipei’s MRT whether their voice sounds like home or like an error message.

Taiwanese is not a “dialect.” It is the music of a people who have weathered empires. Let us finally restore the label that history—and our own mouths—have affirmed for over 170 years.