Fu'lang language

The Fu'lang language (語ᑐ福蘭; apasa ke Fu'lang), or Fu'langese, is an Austronesian language spoken mainly in eastern Tseng, in the states of Meihua and Qishan, by the Fu'lang indigenous group. It is the most widely spoken language of indigenous groups in Tseng, with around 260,000 L1 speakers and 560,000 L2 speakers, with 820,000 speakers in total.

There are as much as 20 dialects of Fu'langese, although it is generally accepted that the Lizhong dialect is the standard.

Today, most Fu'lang youth speak Mandarin, with only the elderly fluently knowing the language, although some middle-aged Fu'lang can understand it. Since the Reforms of 90 though, there has been a re-vitalization effort going on with Fu'langese, and the number of L1 and L2 speakers has been steadily rising.

Pre-colonization
Fu'langese is one of the Fulangic languages, which are a group of Austronesian languages spoken in Tseng. They were brought over by Austronesians from Formosa (Taiwan) via Taiguaye.

Originally, Fu'langese had no writing system and was only spoken, with Chinese characters (hanzi) introduced in around 400 BC. An alphabet for Fu'langese was created in the 11th century, modeled on the Devanagari and Hiragana scripts. However, as Chinese characters had been used for over a millennium, the Fu'langese alphabet existed alongside the hanzi.

Colonization
Fu'langese, along with several other indigenous languages, managed to survive colonization of Tseng by the Europeans as indigenous peoples were gathered to the mountainous eastern regions of Tseng. Indigenous who "passed" as Tsengian continued living their normal lives and were the first to be assimilated into Tsengian society.

Post-independence
After Tseng became independent in 1946, all indigenous peoples were able to move out of eastern Tseng. However, a steady decrease in indigenous languages was seen, including Fu'langese, as Mandarin, Hokkien, and Hakka became more dominant. This was increased by the 1948 Education Law, which banned the teachings of "savage languages" in school.

By the 1950s and 60s, a language shift had begun, and Fu'langese speakers were dying out or losing their original language in favour of speaking the majority language. In 1963, Frederik Bao banned the speaking of Fu'langese and other languages in public. However, Fu'langese experienced a surge in population with Chen Rui's 1976 album Just a Game to You. However, it was unable to make further inroads due to the marginalization of indigenous languages at the time, and Just a Game to You was only considered to be a fad.

When the Reforms of 90 began, there was serious greater attention brought to native languages, and especially Fu'langese. Fu'langese language courses began offered in eastern Tseng universities in 1994, which later spread to the entire country, and special language schools were also founded.