Council says country to have no official language

"The gist of the law is that common languages cannot impede the development of other languages."

Wu Mi-cha, Council for Cultural Affairs vice chairman

The Council for Cultural Affairs Vice Chairman Wu Mi-cha (吳密察) yesterday said that the nation would have no specific official language once the National Languages Development Law (國家語言發展法) passes through the legislature.

The law would also allow district governments to decide their own common languages, Wu said.

After the Council for Cultural Affairs listed language as a preserved item in the Cultural Heritage Preservation Law (文化資產保存法) last year, the Executive Yuan ordered the council to take over the drafting of the language law from the Mandarin Promotion Council under the Ministry of Education.

Referring to the Language Fairness Law of the Cabinet's Hakka Affairs Commission (客家委員會) and the Indigenous Peoples Languages Development Law of the Cabinet's Council of Indigenous Peoples (原住民委員會), the new law aims to preserve and develop national tongues and help arrest the disappearance of minority languages, Wu said.

Wu said the law would designate "national languages" as languages that are used by different ethnic groups in Taiwan while "common languages" would be the languages regulated by local councils.

This means, Wu said, that "the term `official language' will no longer exist."

As for which language the central government will use in public speeches, Wu said the choice of language would be open to the speaker.

"For example, if the central government lists three languages as common languages, then the speaker has the freedom to use any of those three. But there won't be any law to limit people to a specific language," Wu said.

"The gist of the law is that common languages cannot impede the development of other languages," Wu said, adding that the written word is not covered in the draft law.

Although Mandarin has long been used as the nation's official language, Wu said that there was no law that mandated a particular language as an official language.

Wu said that because regional governments have the power to decide their common languages, there will be a stipulation that ensures each region has more than one.

"We hope that there will be no specific language that predominates the usage," Wu said. "And there should be no particular language that has superiority over other languages in use."

When asked if the new rules would divide the nation, Wu said the law was drafted based on the principles of equity and autonomy.

"I believe that only through the understanding of other languages can a nation encourage solidarity," Wu said.

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