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As of February 2000, the Republic of China's population was 22
million. The people of Taiwan come from many different backgrounds.
The approximately 350,000 aborigines descend from Malay-Polynesian
groups that had migrated to Taiwan hundreds of years ago. Today, most
live in the inland mountain region, though many have moved to the
cities and have been assimilated into Han society. About 85% of the
population descend from Han Chinese who came between the 1600s and
World War II, and are known as native Taiwanese. They speak a dialect
known as
Taiwanese, which is similar to the dialect spoken in Fujian. When the
Nationalist government relocated to Taiwan in 1949, two million
soldiers
and civilians came to Taiwan from all parts of mainland China. They
brought their native dialects to the island, though most now speak
Mandarin or Taiwanese as their mother tongue. These "mainlanders" and
their descendents make up about 14% of the population. The official language is Mandarin Chinese, known as Kuo-yu (National Language), which is the same standard as Putonghua (Common Language), the official language of the People's Republic of China. Unlike the mainland, Taiwan continues to use traditional Chinese characters. Although Taiwan has used the Wade-Giles romanization (such as Taipei, Lee Teng-hui, kungfu), the government recently adopted the Pinyin romanization developed by the Communists in the 1950's. |