Since 2000, Feb. 21 has been observed as International Mother Language Day as proclaimed by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO). On this day every year, UNESCO announces the current status of mother tongues worldwide and makes an urgent call to all countries to preserve language assets.
The 2001 UNESCO report on mother languages around the world noted that languages in Taiwan, except for Mandarin, are dying. Although these languages, including Hoklo (commonly known as Taiwanese), Hakka and the many indigenous languages, continue to be widely spoken in some cases, they are all in need of preservation efforts.
They are languages of Taiwan, but are also a common asset shared by all people. We do not have the right to harm or destroy them.
It is a great shame that this year, Taiwan has witnessed the oppression of Hoklo on the eve of International Mother Language Day.
We all thought that Taiwan had become a democratic state full of cultural diversity and multilingualism. The savage neglect of language and oppression of mother tongues should have passed into history.
Who would have thought that several days before Lunar New Year, Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Legislator Hung Hsiu-chu (洪秀柱) would propose scrapping the entire budget of NT$40 million (US$1.2 million) allotted to the Ministry of Education’s National Languages Committee for developing a Hoklo language proficiency certification system.
Did the NT$40 million make up a substantial part of the national budget of NT$1.8 trillion or the budget of NT$60 billion allocated to the ministry?
The committee asked the legislature not to cancel its budget or at least not entirely because the proficiency test has been in preparation for a year, and said the government should leave some money for completing the project.
But in the end, the entire budget was cut.
What does this mean for the Hoklo-speaking population? It means that although they are the largest group in the country, they are now in a most disadvantageous situation and exert no influence.
Taiwan has a proficiency certification system for every language, including Mandarin, Hakka and indigenous languages, but not Hoklo. What message does this send? That Taiwan has a barbarous government that is trying to eliminate Hoklo.
The government has the obligation to protect humanity’s linguistic assets. Previously, the KMT government failed to complete its mission of annihilating Taiwan’s mother tongues. Now that it is back in power, it intends to finish the job.
Hasn’t the government bullied the public enough?
We must take action on International Mother Language Day.
Li Khin-huann is chair of the Graduate Institute of Taiwan Culture, Language and Literature at National Taiwan Normal University and chair of the World Coalition for Taiwan Languages.
TRANSLATED BY TED YANG
Concerns that the US might abandon Taiwan are often overstated. While US President Donald Trump’s handling of Ukraine raised unease in Taiwan, it is crucial to recognize that Taiwan is not Ukraine. Under Trump, the US views Ukraine largely as a European problem, whereas the Indo-Pacific region remains its primary geopolitical focus. Taipei holds immense strategic value for Washington and is unlikely to be treated as a bargaining chip in US-China relations. Trump’s vision of “making America great again” would be directly undermined by any move to abandon Taiwan. Despite the rhetoric of “America First,” the Trump administration understands the necessity of
US President Donald Trump’s challenge to domestic American economic-political priorities, and abroad to the global balance of power, are not a threat to the security of Taiwan. Trump’s success can go far to contain the real threat — the Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) surge to hegemony — while offering expanded defensive opportunities for Taiwan. In a stunning affirmation of the CCP policy of “forceful reunification,” an obscene euphemism for the invasion of Taiwan and the destruction of its democracy, on March 13, 2024, the People’s Liberation Army’s (PLA) used Chinese social media platforms to show the first-time linkage of three new
If you had a vision of the future where China did not dominate the global car industry, you can kiss those dreams goodbye. That is because US President Donald Trump’s promised 25 percent tariff on auto imports takes an ax to the only bits of the emerging electric vehicle (EV) supply chain that are not already dominated by Beijing. The biggest losers when the levies take effect this week would be Japan and South Korea. They account for one-third of the cars imported into the US, and as much as two-thirds of those imported from outside North America. (Mexico and Canada, while
I have heard people equate the government’s stance on resisting forced unification with China or the conditional reinstatement of the military court system with the rise of the Nazis before World War II. The comparison is absurd. There is no meaningful parallel between the government and Nazi Germany, nor does such a mindset exist within the general public in Taiwan. It is important to remember that the German public bore some responsibility for the horrors of the Holocaust. Post-World War II Germany’s transitional justice efforts were rooted in a national reckoning and introspection. Many Jews were sent to concentration camps not