It's about time!

Taiwan's ministry of education finally announced the publication of the second round of Holo Taiwanese characters that may form the basis of a standard Holo orthography (I say 'may' because I'm not sure how the new government will treat this effort).

The first round of characters, released last year, totaled 300 characters.

The second round of characters, originally slated to be be 1,200 characters long. It can be viewed here (pdf).

Despite the list totally only 400 characters now, instead of the originally intended 1,500, most of the most contentious issues have been resolved. Perhaps 1,100 more was deemed unnecessary. A third list of at least another 300 characters is planned for release by year's end, at which point a dictionary will be compiled.

Another document (pdf) shows the difference in karaoke lyrics using the new standard versus the song's original subtitles. This is probably a great way to introduce the new characters to people who might otherwise be turned off to learning about Taiwanese orthography (widely considered useless).

Update: A number of articles in the local press about the character choices. The commentary is largely negative, even hostile, thoughtless and full of outright errors. No surprise there. Here we go:

統一教材家長批大人都看不懂 (蘋果日報)
愈改愈亂教部公布台語字 (蘋果日報)
鄉土語言教材也要統一用字 (中國時報)
教部閩南語正字鎖定KTV歌詞 (中國時報)
乎乾啦→予焦啦唱卡拉OK會卡到 (聯合報)
台語推薦用字有看沒有懂 (華視新聞)
閩南語這樣說：無較縒你會念嗎？ (聯合報)
愛情限時批請你跟我這樣唱 (聯合報)
教育部公布台語卡拉OK推薦用字 (中廣新聞網)
海浪↓海湧教部推薦100個閩南語用字 (軍事新聞網)
教部閩南語推薦用字推出五十首歌曲歌詞 (Sina)
閩南語推荐用字增至400個 (國語日報)
尪婿變翁婿？台語文學者這樣用 (聯合報)