Language policy in Taiwan during martial law

Part of a series on
White Terror in Taiwan
Background Chinese Civil War February 28 incident Great Retreat Martial law
Policies Anti-communism Anti-PRC Anti-Taiwan independence Chiangism Chinese nationalism Cultural policy Language policy Dang Guo
Incident 1987 Lieyu massacre July 13 Penghu incident Kaohsiung Incident May 24 incident
Individual victims Chen Chih-hsiung Lei Chen Lin Yi-hsiung Mao Renfeng Sun Li-jen Ting Yao-tiao Uyongʉ Yata'uyungana
Memorials 228 Peace Memorial Park Green Island Human Rights Culture Park Jing-Mei White Terror Memorial Park National Human Rights Museum Tianma Tea House
Related topics Anti-communist mass killings Chinese imperialism "Communist bandit" Cultural genocide History of Taiwan (1945–present) Political cleansing of population Right-wing dictatorship
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During the martial law period in Taiwan, a Mandarin monolingual policy was implemented in Taiwan by the Kuomintang.^[1] The policy was formulated as a political goal to unite the island.^[2] However, the demotion of prior local languages into "dialects" across cultural and educational landscapes resulted in a pushback of the policy and eventually rescinded as Taiwan democratized.^[3]