TAIPEI — Taiwan’s government sounded a cultural emergency this summer. The native language of a village of aboriginal Rukai people is in danger of dying out. So the cabinet has begun collecting records that could save that dialect and eight others from being overtaken by the dominant Mandarin Chinese.
Long history
Aborigines were dominant in Taiwan for some 8,000 years. Then four centuries ago migrants began to arrive by sea from nearby China, and Chinese now make up 98 percent of the population. In the 1960s, former Taiwan leader Chiang Kai-shek ordered an assimilation of the aboriginals, requiring that they use Mandarin Chinese.
Of Taiwan’s 42 indigenous languages, nine are considered endangered. One of them is used by just 10 people. Almost all aborigines but the oldest speak Mandarin, Taiwan’s official language.
One language in danger is that spoken by the Sakizaya aborigine tribe, which has some 659 members.
The government says most indigenous people have little incentive to use or remember their native tongues as they marry ethnic Chinese or work away from tribal homelands. It fears that the most endangered languages will die out within 20 years.