Editing Taiwan (section)

===Languages===
{{Main|Languages of Taiwan}}
[[File:Map of the most commonly used home language in Taiwan.svg|thumb|upright=1.25|Most commonly used home language in each area, darker in proportion to the lead over the next most common:{{Legend|#000080|[[Mandarin Chinese]]}}{{Legend|#008000|[[Hokkien]] or Min Nan}}{{Legend|#FF0066|[[Hakka Chinese]]}}{{Legend|#800000|[[Austronesian languages]]}}]]

The Republic of China does not have any legally designated [[official language]]. [[Taiwanese Mandarin|Mandarin]] is the primary language used in business and education, and is spoken by the vast majority of the population. [[Traditional Chinese]] is used as the writing system.<ref name="yb-languages">{{cite book |title=The Republic of China Yearbook 2011 |publisher=Government Information Office, Republic of China (Taiwan) |chapter=Chapter 2: People and Language |chapter-url=http://www.gio.gov.tw/taiwan-website/5-gp/yearbook/docs/ch02D.pdf |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120514004814/http://www.gio.gov.tw/taiwan-website/5-gp/yearbook/docs/ch02D.pdf |archive-date=14 May 2012}}</ref>

Around 70% of Taiwan's population belong to the [[Hoklo]] ethnic group and are native speakers of [[Taiwanese Hokkien]].<ref>{{cite web |url =  http://www.ethnologue.com/show_country.asp?name=TW |title=Taiwan |website=[[Ethnologue]]|quote=Principal languages}}</ref> The [[Hakka]] group, comprising some 14–18 percent of the population, speak [[Hakka Chinese|Hakka]]. Although Mandarin is the language of instruction in schools and dominates television and radio, non-Mandarin [[varieties of Chinese|Chinese varieties]] have undergone a revival in public life in Taiwan, particularly since restrictions on their use were lifted in the 1990s.<ref name="yb-languages" />

[[Formosan languages]] are spoken primarily by the indigenous peoples of Taiwan. They do not belong to the Chinese or Sino-Tibetan language family, but to the [[Austronesian languages|Austronesian language family]], and are written in the [[Writing systems of Formosan languages|Latin alphabet]].<ref>{{cite news |title=Official documents issued in Aboriginal languages |newspaper=Taipei Times |url=http://www.taipeitimes.com/News/taiwan/archives/2017/07/20/2003674932 |access-date=20 July 2017}}</ref> Their use among aboriginal minority groups has been in decline as usage of Mandarin has risen.<ref name="yb-languages" /> Of the 14 extant languages, five are considered [[moribund language|moribund]].<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Zeitoun |first1=Elizabeth |last2=Yu |first2=Ching-Hua |title=The Formosan Language Archive: Linguistic Analysis and Language Processing |url=http://aclclp.org.tw/clclp/v10n2/v10n2a2.pdf |journal=Computational Linguistics and Chinese Language Processing |volume=10 |issue=2 |page=168 |access-date=4 August 2012 |archive-date=20 July 2011 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110720000756/http://aclclp.org.tw/clclp/v10n2/v10n2a2.pdf |url-status=dead }}</ref>

Since the [[May Fourth Movement]], [[written vernacular Chinese]] had replaced [[Classical Chinese]] and emerged as the mainstream [[Written vernacular Chinese|written Chinese]] in the Republic of China. Classical Chinese continued to be widely used in government documents until reforms in the 1970s to shift the written style to a more integrated vernacular Chinese and Classical Chinese style ({{lang|zh-hant|文白合一行文}}).<ref>{{cite book|first=Feng-fu|last=Tsao|chapter=The language planning situation in Taiwan|pages=60–106|editor1-last=Baldauf|editor1-first=Richard B.|editor2-first=Robert B.|editor2-last=Kaplan|title=Language planning in Nepal, Taiwan, and Sweden|publisher=Multilingual Matters|year=2000|volume=115|isbn=978-1-85359-483-0}} pages 75–76.</ref><ref>{{cite book|last=Cheong|first=Ching|title=Will Taiwan break away: the rise of Taiwanese nationalism|publisher=World Scientific|year=2001|page=187|isbn=978-981-02-4486-6}}</ref> On 1 January 2005, the [[Executive Yuan]] also changed its long-standing convention on the [[Horizontal and vertical writing in East Asian scripts|direction of writing]] in official documents from vertical to horizontal. Standalone Classical Chinese is occasionally used in formal or ceremonial occasions, such as religious or cultural rites. The ''[[National Anthem of the Republic of China]]'' ({{lang|zh-Hant-TW|中華民國國歌}}), for example, is in Classical Chinese. Most official [[Government of the Republic of China|government]], [[Law of Taiwan|legal]], and [[Ministry of Justice (Taiwan)|judiciary]] documents, as well as [[Supreme Court of the Republic of China|courts rulings]] use a combined vernacular Chinese and Classical Chinese style.<ref>{{cite web|title=法律統一用語表-常見公文用語說明|url=http://oga.ncu.edu.tw/ncuoga/dispatch/doc/%E5%B8%B8%E8%A6%8B%E5%85%AC%E6%96%87%E7%94%A8%E8%AA%9E%E8%AA%AA%E6%98%8E1050106.pdf|access-date=2 June 2021|language=Chinese|archive-date=2 June 2021|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210602215646/http://oga.ncu.edu.tw/ncuoga/dispatch/doc/%E5%B8%B8%E8%A6%8B%E5%85%AC%E6%96%87%E7%94%A8%E8%AA%9E%E8%AA%AA%E6%98%8E1050106.pdf}}</ref> As many legal documents are still written in Classical Chinese, which is not easily understood by the general public, a group of Taiwanese have launched the Legal Vernacular Movement, hoping to bring more vernacular Chinese into the legal writings of the [[Republic of China]].<ref>{{cite web |title=《法律白話文運動》掀起一場法律革命 |date=4 February 2018 |url=https://vita.tw/%E6%B3%95%E5%BE%8B%E7%99%BD%E8%A9%B1%E6%96%87%E9%81%8B%E5%8B%95-%E6%8E%80%E8%B5%B7%E4%B8%80%E5%A0%B4%E6%B3%95%E5%BE%8B%E9%9D%A9%E5%91%BD-1fa53d10d9da |access-date=9 July 2021 |language=Chinese }}{{Dead link|date=August 2023 |bot=InternetArchiveBot |fix-attempted=yes }}</ref>

Taiwan is officially multilingual. A national language in Taiwan is legally defined as "a natural language used by an original people group of Taiwan and the [[Taiwan Sign Language]]".<ref name="natLangAct"/>