Fourth Conference of the European Association of Taiwan Studies Stockholm 2007 Lian Heng as a linguist: a critical assessment Henning Klöter Leiden University [email protected] work in progress – do not quote 1. Introduction Lian Heng 連橫 (1878-1936; also known as Lian Yatang 連雅堂) is without doubt one the most important Taiwanese intellectuals of the Japanese colonial period. In recent years, academic interest in Lian and other well-known intellectuals of his time, such as Cai Peihuo 蔡培火, Jiang Weishui 蔣渭水, and Lin Xiantang 林獻堂, has grown considerably. As shown in previous biographical research on Lian Heng, his contributions are manifold and span diverse fields such as history, poetry, linguistics and journalism. It is in the nature of biographical studies to provide an all-encompassing account of historical personalities. However, such an endeavour for completeness runs the risk of neglecting, overstating or blurring particular aspects of a person’s accomplishments. This is certainly true of previous scholarship on Lian Heng’s linguistic studies. Referring to his Dictionary of Taiwanese (臺灣語典), scholars seem to agree that Lian was among Taiwan’s first linguists, or, in more elevated terms, the first rescuer of the Taiwanese language. As I will argue in this paper, however, the nature of Lian’s linguistic research has thus far not been adequately assessed and the general picture of the linguist Lian Heng remains vague. This paper will sharpen the picture by assessing the quantitative, qualitative, and ideological dimensions of Lian’s language studies. - 2 - 2. Lian Heng’s language research: historical background Lian Heng’s interest in language research came in the later years of his life. According to Li Tengyue, it was aroused in 1929, at a late phase of his intellectual development (Li 1951: 16). In the preceding decades, Lian had earned recognition as a many-sided scholar, poet and journalist. His extensive research in China and Taiwan resulted in his major work, the monumental three-volume General History of Taiwan (台灣通史). His linguistic interest was focused on the Taiwanese Southern Min language which, then as now, was spoken by 75 percent of the Taiwanese population. Lian’s interest in the Taiwanese language was by no means an individual hobby of an aging scholar. His first newspaper article on Taiwanese (see next paragraph) appeared in 1929, at a time when intellectuals of various ideologies had become engaged in debates on the choice of a language for literary composition and the social status of Taiwanese. It was in the following years, between 1930 and 1933, that the debate on written Taiwanese would reach its peak (cf. Wu Shouli 1955: 52ff.). Specifically, most of Lian’s articles on Taiwanese were published at a time when a group of young intellectuals around Guo Qiusheng 郭秋生 and Huang Shihui 黃石輝 published articles in the Taiwan Xin Minbao 臺灣新民報, Taiwan Xinwen 臺灣新聞 and Nanyin 南音 (‘Southern Sounds’). In these articles, they made first detailed proposals for an orthographic standard of Taiwanese. Ideologically, these proposals were a response against the Japanese policy of cultural and linguistic Japanization of the Taiwanese people (for details, see Klöter 2005: 155-164). In principle, Lian Heng shared the young intellectuals’ resentment against the increasing linguistic assimilation and the gradual extinction of Taiwanese. During the early phase of his linguistic research Lian wrote (1929a, my translation): Today’s children start their education at the age of seven when they are still naïve […] and the sounds of their speech resemble a baby’s babble. But the local schools strictly prohibit the use of Taiwanese. Today’s youngsters shoulder their satchel and go to Japan to get a degree. When they return after ten years of hard work, they have already forgotten their Taiwanese! From today’s high gentry and the noble gentlemen to the ordinary clerk in the village, - 3 - […] they all regard themselves as men of ability and integrity. But when they are engaged in a conversation, they do not care to answer in Taiwanese anymore. […] When I witnessed the imminent extinction of Taiwanese, I had to start trying to put Taiwanese in order, on the one hand to preserve it, on the other hand to develop it. The question whether or not Lian Heng needs to be distinguished from the group around Huang Shihui and Guo Qiusheng has been neglected in previous research. For example, Shu-hui Wu writes (2005: 260): Lian Heng’s attention to Taiwan’s popular culture and his efforts to present it through literary writings crystallized the meaning of Taiwan’s Homeland Culture movement. These writings were well received in the 1930s by young writers who published on similar subjects in literary journals, such as Southern Sounds [Nanyin – HK] and Taiwan Literature and Arts. Similarly, Gunn writes that “Lian’s lexicon addressed a debate among young writers of Taiwan concerned with how to represent their local language and was followed by a handful of stories written using Taiwanese Southern Min” (2006: 90). A similar stance can be found in Heylen who argues that Lian was writing “in support of the emerging cause on nativist literature” (2001: 272). To be sure, Lian Heng and the young writers contributing to Nanyin shared the same goal: preserving the Taiwanese language by establishing a written standard. However, a closer look at some of their contributions reveals that Lian’s attitude towards the young intellectuals was rather critical if not depreciative, and vice versa. Although he acknowledged that they shared the same goal, the writing of Taiwanese, the literati Lian Heng had little sympathy for the “unscholarly” approach of the young intellectuals. Even though he never directly criticized activists like Guo Qiusheng or Huang Shihui, he did formulate a veiled sideswipe. The following passage was written a few months before the orthographic debate in Nanyin unfolded. The key arguments of the proponents of local literature in the Taiwanese vernacular had already been formulated (e.g., in Huang Shihui 1931, Guo Qiusheng 1931a, b, c). Only one month before this passage was published, - 4 - Guo had openly questioned the viability of Lian’s findings. Guo literally argued that there was no need “to adhere to laws and letters of classical allusions and etymology, as Mr. Yatang” (Guo 1932: 14). Lian, on the other hand, argued (1932, part 1, my translation): In the last years, our Taiwanese personalities have often praised local literature, and they made the proposal to remodel the Taiwanese language. This is exactly what I have planned. Looking back, however, it is easier said than done. Why? The ones who talk about the plan are not necessarily able to carry it out, and the ones who are able to carry it out do not necessarily do so. That is why Taiwanese is becoming weaker with each passing day. Well, if you want to promote local literature, you first need to regulate the local language. But this regulating is a highly complicated business. You need to know how to start, how to collect, how to research, and how to decide. Only someone with erudition, a meticulous attitude, and determination will bring this to a good conclusion. Who are “the ones who talk about the plan” to create local literature criticized for being unable to carry it out? Given the date when and the historical context against which above quotation was published, it seems safe to assume that Lian was distancing himself from Quo Qiusheng and his group. The main reason for this distance lies in the fundamentally different answers to the question how the Taiwanese language should be written. These will be discussed presently in section 3.2. 3. Lian Yang’s Dictionary of the Taiwanese Language 3.1 Editorial history Lian Heng never saw the publication of his Dictionary of Taiwanese. Instead, in the early 1930s, Lian had only presented the sketchy outcomes of his first etymological investigations, which were never to be fully completed. These results were published in a column of the newspaper San liu jiu xiao bao 三六九 - 5 - 小報, lit. ‘The 3-6-9 Gazette’ (hereafter: SLJ).1 Lian’s column was titled Taiwan- yu jiangzuo 台灣語講座 ‘Lectures on the Taiwanese Language’ (hereafter: Lectures). Between January 1931 and January 1932, each issue of the paper contained one column in which he discussed the etymological origins of some Taiwanese expressions. Altogether, 324 expressions were treated in 108 SLJ issues. In January 1932, a new column with the title Yayan 雅言 ‘elegant language’ replaced the Lectures on Taiwanese.2 The new series contained short explanations and commentaries on Taiwan’s languages, culture, and history as well as elaborations on Lian’s etymological research. In 1957, both columns were posthumously published as parts of the Taiwan Yudian ‘Dictionary of Taiwanese’. The preface to the dictionary is a reprint of Lian’s articles previously published in the Taiwan Minbao 台灣民報 (1928, 1929). Its main body contains an expanded and revised version of the Lectures, followed by a complete reprint of Elegant language. Some obvious differences between this edition and the Lectures are noteworthy. First, in the book edition, almost four times the original number of Taiwanese expressions is treated. Whereas the sequence of entries in the Lectures is rather unsystematic, the main body of Dictionary of Taiwanese is arranged into four volumes: volume one covers monosyllabic expressions, volume two, three and four treat disyllabic expressions. The book edition also contains numerous instances of orthographic revisions based on new etymological explanations. The final version of Dictionary of Taiwanese is based on a rearrangement by Lian’s son Lian Zhendong 連振東 and revisions by Chen Hanguang 陳漢光 (Yao 1 The name of the journal, which was published nine times per month, derives from the fact that its day of publication always ended in 3, 6, or 9, viz.