A major dialect of the Chinese language originating from southern China - Fujian province
Widely used among the Chinese population in Singapore, Malaysia and Taiwan, in addition to Mandarin which is the common-tounge "dialect" for all Chinese over the world.
Hokkien is often associated with the working classes but is also the language of choice for many politicians from Taiwan - like the current president of ROC, Chen Shui Bian.
Hokkien is a very colourful and impactful dialect when used in the hands of the highly-skilled exponents of the dialect. A lot of swear words only attain their full impact when delivered in Hokkien.
Teocheow is considered the more-refined and scholarly cousin dialect - mainly in use by older Chinese in Thailand.
Widely used among the Chinese population in Singapore, Malaysia and Taiwan, in addition to Mandarin which is the common-tounge "dialect" for all Chinese over the world.
Hokkien is often associated with the working classes but is also the language of choice for many politicians from Taiwan - like the current president of ROC, Chen Shui Bian.
Hokkien is a very colourful and impactful dialect when used in the hands of the highly-skilled exponents of the dialect. A lot of swear words only attain their full impact when delivered in Hokkien.
Teocheow is considered the more-refined and scholarly cousin dialect - mainly in use by older Chinese in Thailand.
by ahbang November 2, 2005
A widespread language in South China, Taiwan, and Singapore that Min speakers use to interact with each other. Hokkien is also known in Malaysia, the Philippines, and Indonesia to some extent. Originally, Hokkien is an Austronesian language that descended from the Min Yue Kingdom. When the Han dynasty annexed the Min Yue Kingdom, the Hans slaughtered a bunch of Min Yue natives to enforce the Han (Mandarin) language to displace the Min Yue language and forced them to write in Hanzi characters, but the Hokkien language still preserves its Austronesian phrases and accent way more than Mandarin overall, so it is not considered to be a Han or Sino-Tibetan language. Compellingly, Hokkien's closest relative, Teochew, shares a very common ancestral Min language with Hokkien too and Teochew is spoken in South China, Hong Kong, Cambodia, Thailand, and France.
Similar to Hong Kong people's conservation of Cantonese, if it hadn't for Taiwan's courage, under the DPP, to permit Hokkien from being overshadowed by Mandarin, then we will say goodbye to the lifestyle of future generations speaking their own mother tongues. If people discard their mother tongues, due to being fearful of Beijing massacring them or being greedy about China's growing economy in the South China newspaper, then they approve of being craven servants to imperialism. However, Taiwan is doing a good job to listen to the people rather than some corrupted government officials in the minority group and most Hokkien people in Taiwan are probably the only ones who care about people, unlike many of their Mainland counterpart and many of their Overseas counterpart.
by TheUnknown21 February 16, 2020