臺灣閩南語韻文材料非常豐富,但當我們用臺灣閩南語朗誦韻文時,即會遇到三種問題:古今韻部不同、漳泉腔讀音不相同,以及文白異讀韻母類型相異。雖然臺語學術界有學者以不同方式來針對個別體裁之用韻做過處理,但其不是無法處理問題,就是侷限在個别體裁上而缺乏通用性。易而言之,臺灣閩南語没有一個完整的韻部系統可以貫串而互相勾連諸多韻文體的用韻情況。廈門大學中國語言文學系周長楫教授於其著作《詩詞閩南話讀音與押韻》裡初次論述之「廿二韻」爲閩南語詞典索引編排而發明,期為閩南語建立一個韻部系統。然而此系統無論在中國或臺灣的學術界並未受到相應之重視。實際上若應用於臺灣閩南語韻文上,即可發現「廿二韻」具有高度的跨越與包容能力,可解決或至少化解韻文的韻部問題,顯然有潛力作為臺灣閩南語的韻部系統,而藉此有助於臺灣閩南語及其文學之推廣。
Taiwanese Southern Min is very rich in verse, but when we use Taiwanese for its recitation, we encounter three problems: old and modern rhymes are different, the pronunciation of the Zhangzhou and Quanzhou subdialects are diverse and the types of syllable finals between literal and colloquial readings differ. Although there are scholars among Taiwanese experts who dealt with the rhyming in single genres in different ways, they either could not solve the problems or are limited to a single genre and thus lacked universality. In other words, Taiwanese does not have a complete rhyme system which is able to cover the rhyming in all verse. Professor Zhou Changji of the Chinese Department of Xiamen University presented in his work "Southern Min pronunciation and rhyming in shi and ci" for the first time "22 Rhymes". He invented it for arranging the index of Southern Min dictionaries and expected it to become the rhyme system of Southern Min. But neither in China nor Taiwan did it receive relevant attention. In fact, when used on Taiwanese verse, we can see that "22 Rhymes" possesses a high ability of comprehensiveness and tolerance with which it can solve or at least dissolve those rhyme problems in verse. It is evident that it has the potential to become the rhyme system of Taiwanese Southern Min and thus helping propagate its language and literature.