mutually intelligible, but also feature various lexical, phonological, and grammatical differences. There exists significant variation within Putonghua and Guoyu as well. Some scholars have argued that Putonghua and Guoyu are artificial standards that, strictly speaking, do not represent the native spoken language of a significant number of, or even any, people. Guoyu exists on a continuum from the most standard, formal version of the language to the form most heavily influenced by Taiwanese Minnanyu. The former variety can be called Standard Guoyu (; Biāozhǔn Guóyǔ) in contrast to the less standard Taiwan Guoyu (; Táiwān Guóyǔ). More formal settings—such as television news broadcasts—tend to feature speakers using Standard Guoyu, which closely resembles mainland Putonghua, but is not generally used as a day-to-day language. Language falling on the less standard side of the Guoyu spectrum may be stigmatized as uneducated. This article focuses on the features of both Standard Guoyu, particularly its relationship to Putonghua, as well as non-standard but widespread features of Mandarin in Taiwan, grouped under Taiwan Guoyu. History and usage Large-scale Han Chinese settlement of Taiwan began in the 17th century by Hoklo immigrants from Fujian province who spoke Southern Min languages (predominantly Hokkien), and, to a lesser extent, Hakka immigrants who spoke their respective language. Taiwanese indigenous peoples already inhabited the island, speaking a variety of Austronesian languages unrelated to Chinese. In the centuries following Chinese settlement, the number of indigenous languages dropped significantly, with several going extinct, in part due to the process of sinicization. Official communications among the Han were done in Mandarin (), but the primary languages of everyday life were Minnanyu or Hakka. After its defeat in the First Sino-Japanese War, the Qing dynasty ceded Taiwan to the Empire of Japan, which governed the island as an Imperial colony from 1895 to 1945. By the end of the colonial period, Japanese had become the high dialect of the island as the result of decades of Japanization policy. Under KMT rule After the Republic of China under the Kuomintang (KMT) gained control of Taiwan in 1945, Mandarin was introduced as the official language and made compulsory in schools, although it was rarely spoken by the local population at they time. Many who had fled the mainland after the defeat of the KMT by the Communists also spoke non-standard varieties of Mandarin, which may have influenced later colloquial pronunciations. Wu Chinese dialects were also influential