wfn.org | Promoting Mother Tongues to Aboriginal Students in Taiwan

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Taiwan Church News 2717, 22 through 28 March 2004
Reported by: Chen Yu-shiuan.  Translated and Rewritten by David Alexander

Many of Taiwan's Aborignal youths born in the 1980's and 90's are amazingly
unable to understand or speak their mother tongues.  Evangelist Tanapima, who
directs the Kaohsiung Aboriginal Student Center of the Presbyterian Church in
Taiwan, increasingly encounters his Bunun tribe sisters and brothers who,
though they lack linguistic skill in the Bunun tongue, still respond to other
aspects of their native culture.

In response to their requests the center opened a weekly Bunun language class
last term.  Tanapima wants to offer young people a chance to recover their
identity.  The first step is through language. Those cut off from their
mother
tongues have lost their ancestral anchors.  They have no way to transmit the
culture on to the next generations.

Tanapima relates how in the wake of his meeting with some Bunun college
students they began to consider re-engaging their roots. That progressed into
the development of curricula on basic Bunun phonology.	He hopes that the
lesson development process can go beyond words and into Bunun history as
well.

"Although the class is small and our methods are somewhat coarse, we have
made
a start on what it means to be Bunun. After we learn an existing system that
uses Latin letters to depict Bunun pronunciation, we move to reading the
Bunun
Bible which uses that system."

Tanapima encourages students who have developed a basic level of skill to
take
the government sponsored "mother tongue exam" which qualifies them to become
teachers. He himself has already passed "level 1" of the examination program.

Regarding the break in transmission of Aboriginal mother tongues, he says
that
it comes from the strong cultural pressure from the government during these
students' early years.	Their parents were encouraged to give up Aboriginal
ways and become like Chinese people.  Parents also wanted their children to
do
well in school, where mother tongues were discouraged if not prohibited, so
even at home they tended to speak only in Chinese.  And when children left
the
mountain villages for life on the plains they totally stopped hearing their
languages in use.

He believes that there is hope for a revival of Aboriginal languages and
cultures if the upcoming generation, when they themselves become parents,
will
maintain a tribal identity and pass that, along with their language, to their
own children.

For More Information: Tanapima 6ununlian@yahoo.com.tw
Taiwan Church News is published weekly in Taiwan's local languages.
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