Japanese Influence on Taiwanese Language

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Lead Section

In nowadays Taiwan the official language practiced is Mandarin. However, the Taiwanese language is influenced significantly by Japan, and the reason can be traced back to World War II. Back in World War II, when Taiwan was under the control of imperial Japan, Japanese was the formal language used. By setting up Japanese schools and different policies, Japanese at the end of the colonization was the second language for most of the Taiwanese population and even first language for some people. Different from the local dialects and the later Mandarin, this practice of Japanese language for fifty years had a huge impact on Taiwan which still lasts today. Unlike most colonies, Taiwanese people had a relatively positive attitude towards these fifty years of colonization and were well adapted to the Japanese culture since both Japan and Taiwan shared a common cultural origin, China. Moreover, these influences Japanese had on Taiwanese language caused further problems related to national identity. After the colonization of Japan, Taiwan was again under the control of Chinese nationalists. Mandarin was practiced as the official language instead of Japanese which as a result causes confusion for Taiwanese people. The different political and language systems of these two countries lead to a confusion of national identity for Taiwanese people which is a hot-debated issue nowadays.

History

See also: First Sino-Japanese War

Scene of signing the Treaty of Shimonoseki in 1895 in Japan at Shimonoseki between the Japanese Empire and Qing Dynasty (Wikimedia Commons,2019)

During World War II, Taiwan was handed over to Japan for 50 years in 1895 in the Treaty of Shimonoseki when Qing dynasty was defeated by Japan in the First Sino-Japanese War. Under the control of imperial Japan, and as the first and last colony Japan occupied, Taiwan’s culture was influenced largely by it and this influence lasts even till today. One of the aspects that was most impacted was Taiwanese Language. During the 50 years of colonization, one of the central policy practiced by the Japanese government was the assimilation policy which states that Taiwan should be seen as part of Japan and therefore should use the same language. During that period of time, Japan was trying to make its language the common language used in Asia including its colonies. In order to do so in Taiwan, a Civil Administration Bureau for Education was first established and Japanese was spread via education at schools. Moreover, educational centers were established to teach Japanese and they were named as “Kokugo denshūjo” which means National Language Training Centers and from this it was obvious that Japanese was trying to make its language the official and formal language practiced in Taiwan. The teachers at these training centers were trained in training programs and these programs were held seven times during the Japanese colonization. This spread and influence of Japanese was later practiced at private Chinese schools, which were reduced in number by the governments, and at the same time, all the textbook used needed to be recognized and checked by the government before been used in classes. In 1920, all students were only allowed to speak Japanese in class and at school and the parents were “encouraged” to send their children to Japanese schools. As a result, in 1943 almost two-thirds of the Taiwanese population can speak Japanese to some extent.

Lasting Impact

During the fifty years’ colonization of the Japanese empire, language was used as a method for assimilation of Taiwan. However, as Japan lost World War II in 1945, it withdrew from Taiwan and Taiwan was then under the rule of the retreated Chinese nationalist Kuo Min Tang (KMT). KMT entered Taiwan because it was defeated by the communist party in mainland China and Taiwan was its “main base of operations” in 1950. At that time, due to the prior Japanese colonization, Japanese language was infused into Taiwanese culture especially for the younger generation since the older population tried to resist the colonization in the earlier stage and still practiced their original language while the younger generation was educated by the compulsory Japanese education and was thus well adapted. As a result, at the end of the colonization, most Taiwanese were bilinguals, which means that they practice Taiwanese dialects (including Hokkien and Hakka) as their first language and Japanese as their second language. In the northern urban areas, there was a high proportion of Japanese speaking population and some of this population can only speak Japanese especially in government housing areas which made the KMT uncomfortable and it was difficult for them to rule since the communication was unavailable. What made the situation harder for the KMT was that Japanese was used in almost every writing when they arrived in Taiwan except in Bibles and religious texts. Consequently, the nationalists felt an urge to promote Mandarin and they enforced their policies of spreading Mandarin such as banning of any other languages. One of the important factors that increased the rate of spreading was that a huge Mandarin-speaking population, although usually with a heavy accent, moved to Taiwan even before the Japanese evacuated and settled down. This population then had children and most of their marriages happened between individuals from the same Mandarin-speaking communities which as a result their children used Mandarin as their first language with a more uniformed accent. For these children who only spoke Mandarin, it was hard for them to become a bilingual speaker since there was no way for them to study Taiwanese or Hakka and at school these two languages were strictly prohibited and at that time any attempts of studying these would be seen as anti-nationalists. Therefore with the combination of abandonment of Japanese language and the huge amount of marriages between mainlanders and the local population, the usage of Mandarin was spread widely as well as the disappearance of Japanese.

Public's Reaction

When Taiwan was handed over to Japan, many Taiwanese intellectuals resisted this political and cultural reform which asked them to stop using Chinese. These individuals tried to retain Taiwan’s bond with China both culturally and economically. However, doing this under the control of Japanese empire creates a strong confusion and conflicts between “an imagery fatherland and a new colonial power” for the public. Despite the fact that Japan is a colonial power that ruled over Taiwan, these two cultures actually had the same origin. Both Japan and Taiwan had their culture originated and influenced by China which can trace back to even Tang Dynasty. Compared to other western colonization such as France in Indochina who treated the native people with cruelty and cause huge conflict between the locals and the colonizers, Japanese colonization allowed Taiwanese people to invoke and consider their same origin and thus had a better relationship with the colonizers. Moreover, prior to Japanese colonization, Taiwan was once under the control of Spain and Portugal in the 17th century which were expelled by the Qing government and these two colonizers with totally different culture also made Taiwanese people view the Japanese colonization as “better”. However, objections and refusals still existed when considering language reforms as the Japanese colonizer changed the official language to Japanese. To resist the Japanese government, Taiwanese intellectuals chose to do it in a non-violent way which is through cultural reforms such as the Taiwan Cultural Association founded by Jiang Weishui in the 1920s. These associations were founded to bring the idea of the May Fourth Movement which was carried out to against imperialism in China and the association tried to enlighten and awake the Taiwanese society. This cultural reform that was trying to liberate Taiwan from the imperial power by using literacy was called the Taiwan New Literature movement. One of the reforms under this movement was the romanization of Taiwanese which gained huge support and favor from the Taiwanese society. Another reform called the vernacular movement initiated by Hu Shih in China which suggested using spoken Chinese in the writing instead of the traditional form. It received a huge success and as a result, vernacular Chinese became the national language used in China. Nevertheless, in Taiwan, this movement raised a huge debate between the intellectuals over the use of vernacular Chinese but both sides of the controversy tried to weaken Japanese linguistic influences on Taiwan and tried to conserve the traditional culture. Moreover, although the Taiwanese population was recognized as official citizens of the Japanese empire, they held only a little power and did not have a voice in government or any high-status positions. Thus a new nativist literature movement was developed and it was called xiangtu wenxue which encouraged the local Taiwanese literature. Unfortunately, although Taiwanese intellectuals had put efforts on resisting the Japanese culture assimilation, Japanese government who aimed to assimilate the Taiwanese population was aware of these movements and as a response they enforced a series of policies such as banning of Chinese sections on newspaper. To intensify the use of Japanese language in education they also announced more educational policies such as abolishing of Chinese classes and teaching of Confucianism. On the other hand, many overseas students viewed the enforcing of Japanese language as a chance to improve the Taiwanese society since there were more information and skills about modernization accessible by learning and using Japanese language.

Further Problem

Language plays an important and defining role considering ethic belonging especially in Taiwan where it is also related to national identity. As mentioned, Taiwanese people experienced many different stages of language reforms and during the Japanese colonization Japanese became the official language practiced. During this period of colonization, although Taiwanese people were not allowed to hold high-status positions or jobs, the assimilation was quite successful considering the language aspect. At the end of the colonization, a huge portion of the Taiwanese population did become sufficient in Japanese and many were bilingual especially in urban areas since their first languages were banned in the official and public area and can only be used at home. This results in a missing connection between the Taiwanese population and Chinese culture since the language was not allowed to be practiced. Not been part of China anymore and been isolated from the Chinese culture leads to the results that the local communities and citizens began to be more connected to each other and to the motherland Taiwan especially under the control of a foreign colonizer. However, when the Japanese empire was defeated in 1945, Taiwan was turned over to KMT who enforced Mandarin as the official language. The KMT party not only stopped the public from using Japanese but also stopped them from using their mother tongue, Hokkien or Hakka, especially in public and enforced a Mandarin-only policy. When taken over by the KMT, a group of Chinese mainlanders who spoke Mandarin and different Chinese dialects arrived [Taiwan]] and settled down and their descendants often spoke Mandarin as their first language which is different from the locals who practice Hokkien as their first language. Under the rule of KMT, the Chinese identity was promoted and encouraged but it was not quite efficient and during the 1980s there was a strong demand for Taiwanese identity and independence. As a result, it was not surprised that after experiencing a series of language reforms for political purposes, Taiwanese people found it difficult to identify their national identity. Among the Taiwanese population, a new idea of common identity was given arise that they were all connected and belong to the same territory which was far apart from mainland China. This idea was recognized as the first time Taiwanese people tried to build a new national identity which was being Taiwanese other than being a Chinese or Japanese.

References

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