All students to learn new Hoklo romanization

It is mandatory now that schoolchildren have to learn how to write Hoklo in Chinese logograms. Hoklo is a Min dialect of Chinese which used to be called Amoy.

All first through ninth graders would be compelled to learn how to Romanize the Taiwan Minnan language, if a new MOE program were implemented as from 2011.

The education ministry called a meeting to finalize the program yesterday.

Min is a nationally accepted moniker for Fujian, a province in southern China. Nan means “south.” The new term the education ministry has coined means literally the South Fujian language in use in Taiwan.

Amoy, the old name of Xiamen today, used to be the name given the Hoklo dialect.

But the new syllabus for the teaching of the Taiwan Minnan language requires the use of a romanization invented in Taiwan, which differs from the Church Romanization in use around the world for more than a century.

As a matter of fact, the Tai-Lo pinyin or Taiwan’s Romanization spelling the education ministry mandates is more complicated than the Church Romanization and a little more difficult to learn.

According to the syllabus, a third grader will be able to write e-mail with the new spelling method. Fifth graders have to be able to converse via MSN (Microsoft Network). Junior high students should acquire ability to blog by romanizing Hoklo words.

All this is highly unlikely to come true, however.

For one thing, parents are up in arms against the new method of writing.

Professors of linguistics taking part in yesterday’s meeting opposed the new teaching on grounds that students would be “much overburdened.”

No parents want their offspring to suffer, if required to learn the difficult Taiwan-Romanization spelling.

People on Quemoy or Kinmen consider the MOE decision a demonstration of Taiwan’s Hoklo chauvinism. They speak the Zhangzhou version of Hoklo, sometimes quite different from the Zhuanzhou version which is popular in Taiwan.

In fact, the Taiwan Minnan language is a mixture of the two versions.

Moreover, the new government, which will be installed on May 20, is unlikely to enforce the controversial eleventh hour program MOE Tu Cheng-sheng approved.

Tu has to resign before the Kuomintang takes over the government.

He has made another much ado about nothing to demonstrate his now incorrect political correctness.

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