Since the early 1930s, Taiwanese scholars have conducted research on the etymologies of native Taiwanese expressions. Their philological investigations have resulted in a number of dictionaries. A comparison of these dictionaries reveals a high degree of orthographic divergence. Section 1 of this article provides a short overview on the linguistic make-up of Taiwan, followed by an introduction on Taiwanese lexicography and orthography. In Section 2, the earliest proposals for an etymological Taiwanese orthography are introduced, and compared with solutions in dictionaries published since the late 1990s. The last section discusses the import of etymological considerations for the orthographic standardization of Taiwanese.
Session
Historical and Scholarly Lexicography - Etymology
Keywords
BibTex
@InProceedings{ELX02-062, author = {Henning Kloter}, title = {Etymology in Taiwanese }, pages = {581-588}, booktitle = {Proceedings of the 10th EURALEX International Congress}, year = {2002}, month = {aug}, date = {13-17}, address = {København, Denmark}, editor = {Anna Braasch and Claus Povlsen}, publisher = {Center for Sprogteknologi}, isbn = {87-90708-09-1}, }
