Debate that I didn't mean to walk into:

We have to do a research paper on a language.

Just to be clear. Language not a dialect

So I picked Hokkien

Because of course I did

For the record, Hokkien is the language spoke in several parts of China, Taiwan, Singapore and even Indonesia

It has dialects!

Including but not limited to, Taiwanese, Amoy, Chuanchow, Changchow, Sabah Hokkien, Indonesian Hokkien, Singaporean Hokkien, etc.

Taiwanese and Chuanchow pass the mutual intelligibility "test" that prove they are dialects of one another

Taiwanese and Mandarin fail at mutual intelligibility

Anyways, so we were supposed to announce our topic in like a discussion thing

AND SOMEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEBODY

Has the audactiy

to say Hokkien is a Chinese dialect though, China said so

Biiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiihihiiiiiiiiihihihihiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiitch

For the time being I am not saying a wordddddddd

And I'll wait for the professor to comment since that was the point, to get the professor's approval

If the professor says "No, it's a dialect not a language" then honestly

I'll spend my whole essay going into TREMENDOUSLY ARTICULATE DETAIL about how that is dead wrong according to the given "mutual intelligibility" argument and keep Hokkien as my topic

Take away my points, I dare you. I have 98% for the whole class and I only need a D to get credit. The grade doesn't actually matter

I am kinda livid

BUT WE SHALL SEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE.

trusting China on what they say is Chinese lol

I'm sure they do say that. about Taiwan

Ugh gross

To be fair, Hokkien is an official language of Taiwan SOOOOOOOO

YEP CHECKS OUT

So my professor never responded to the explosion of .... whatever that was

And I've just gone ahead and written the whole damn thing with

My favorite quote in case anyone wants to fight me on the language vs. dialect debate

"In pushing for all ethnic Chinese to embrace Mandarin, Southern Chinese languages were labelled as "dialects" and considered inferior."

IT'S EVEN FROM A RESOURCE suuuuuuck iiiiiiiiiit

I will say, I never properly studied Hokkien because I was in Taiwan to study Mandarin (ashame) but I picked up some words none the less just for necessity

AND I thought I completely forgot all of them, but writing this and having to provide examples I was like OMG I REMEMBERRRRR

It's been like a decade so I will pat myself on the back for that

Nice