While Ph-ōe-jī was originally a missionary tool for Christian missions, it also has the practical benefits of being easy to read, learn and write. According to Tiu Hk-khiam, Ph-ōe-jī even helps the learning of Chinese characters.
Books in Ph-ōe-jī
Due to its Christian origins, Christian works make up a significant proportion of all works in Ph-ōe-jī. The first New Testament in Ph-ōe-jī was published in 1873. The Old Testament was published later in 1884. The publication of these books was a driving force for the spread of the Church. The first of the Prefecture of Taiwan Church Newsletter, published 1885, was also written in Ph-ōe-jī.
Apart from Christianity, works in such areas as Literature, Mathematics, Medicine have also been published in Ph-ōe-jī. See Lai-goa-kho Khan-ho-hak.
Suppression under Japanese rule
The 1880s was the peak period of Ph-ōe-jī's development, with ten thousands of users. An important contributing factor was that the Qing Dynasty government did not suppress its usage. So great was its growth was that at the end of Qing rule, usage of Ph-ōe-jī was not limited to the Presbyterians only, but also attained much usage in the general population.
Nevertheless, as Taiwan became a Japanese colony, the use of Ph-ōe-jī was suppressed in preference to . In 1922, anti-Japanese movements led to the establishment of the Taiwanese Cultural Association. Following which, Chhoà Poê-hoé enthusiastically proposed to the association to designate promoting of Ph-ōe-jī as one of its main tasks, which it took up in 1924. The associate decided to publish books in Ph-ōe-jī. However, Chhoà met a setback when he went up to the Japanese colonial government to apply for a permit start study classes on Ph-ōe-jī. Not only was the proposal rejected by the Japanese, but the Japanese police undertook violent measures to silence and ban it.
From then on the Japanese attitude toward the Taiwanese tongue became all too obvious. The Taiwan Church Newsletter , written in Ph-ōe-jī, was banned during World War Two. This was because the spread of Japanese was hampered by the use of Ph-ōe-jī. When World War Two broke out, Japan finally took greater steps to suppress the use of even the Taiwanese tongue itself.
Suppression under Chinese rule
When the took over China, it took similar steps to enforce use of the national language, , while suppressing use of Ph-ōe-jī. Numerous examples illustrate the KMT's attack on the use of Ph-ōe-jī. In 1969, it forbade its use in the Church Newsletter. In 1973, copies of Embree's Taiwanese-English Dictionary were confiscated and banned. In 1975, new translations of the Bible into Ph-ōe-jī were also banned. In 1984 the Ministry of Education wrote a letter to Internal Affairs to prohibit its use when preaching. Other material in Ph-ōe-jī was soon outlawed too.
Development since the 1990s
After the lifting of martial law, Ph-ōe-jī began to experience a revival as a result of efforts made by supporters of the "Mother Tongue Movement." In 1990 a few counties governed by the Democratic Progressive Party began to use texts written in Ph-ōe-jī for teaching elementary school children Taiwanese. This represented the first official instance of Ph-ōe-jī entering the public schools. At this time, the KMT changed its strategy against Ph-ōe-jī, and the Kuomintang-supported Mandarin Promotion Council promoted an alternate romanization scheme, the Taiwanese Language Phonetic Alphabet in direct opposition to Ph-ōe-jī. The result was internal conflict among Taiwanese language supporters.
However, the mother tongue movement continued to experiment with Taiwanese writing utilizing different romanization schemes, including Ph-ōe-jī, printing various items including the news. Moreover, as digital text became more and more important, Taiwanese supporters began a push to modernize Taiwanese and make it more suitable for digital use. For instance, there are already a number of software packages related to Ph-ōe-jī, and additionally there is an online Ph-ōe-jī dictionary and encyclopedia. In June of 2004, the International Organization for Standardization inserted all of the symbols of Ph-ōe-jī into Unicode following an application by Tè Khái-sū, T?n Pek-tiong, and T?n-Tē H?ng-gi?u, with help from Michael Everson.
Further reading
*Chiung, W.-V. . ''Peh-oe-ji, a childish writing?'' Cambridge, Mass: North American Taiwan Studies Association.
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