01-11-2020, 08:44 PM
(01-11-2020, 10:44 AM)John J. Xenakis Wrote: I note that both of these comments agree that most Taiwanese do NOT
speak Cantonese, which I had assumed would follow from Taiwan's
heritage in people fleeing the communists through Hong Kong in 1949.
However, I also take note of the fact that these two comments appear
to disagree on whether the most commonly spoken language is Mandarin
or Taiwanese.
The Chiang Kai Shek's nationalists were from primarily from "southern" China - that is, from the Yangtze River basin rather than from the Yellow River basin - but not so far south as to be Cantonese, which is perhaps best associated with the Pearl River basin. The Yangtze River basin area is still Mandarin speaking, as opposed to the Pearl River basin. When the Nationalists were driven out by the Communists, they did retreat south, but took their Mandarin speaking nationalist government with them to Taiwan.
Plenty of Cantonese fled the Communists, too - my mother was one of them - but they mostly either stayed in Hong Kong or emigrated to the US rather than going to Taiwan.
I think Taiwanese was the most commonly spoken dialect of Chinese in Taiwan in 1986. However, Mandarin was becoming more common as a result of all official schooling being done in Mandarin from 1945-1990 or so. Wikipedia says Mandarin is now the most commonly used language at home in Taiwan at 83.5%, but bilingualism is much more common than I realized, with Taiwanese at 81.9% using it at home.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Languages_of_Taiwan
