A Japanese teacher working in a school in southern Taiwan has a passion for a vanishing language that few others in Taiwan or his own country share.
Yuji Kotaka, a language teacher at the Wenzao Ursaline College of Languages in Kaohsiung, said that he fell in love with the language of the Western Xia regime (1038-1227) in China when he first saw the beautiful shape of the characters in a high-school history textbook.
"I made up my mind to devote my life to the study of the beautiful language at that point," Kotaka said.
Kotaka, 35, who holds a Ph.D in literature, is one of less than 40 scholars in Japan devoted to the study of the Western Xia language.
He said he is not lonely pursuing the path less trodden, but instead "derives great joy from piecing together very limited information to gain a broader picture of the Western Xia regime."
Kotaka said that since he began studying at Hiroshima University, he has spent his leisure time dabbling with research into the Western Xia.
"In the beginning, I had only a few clues and had to rely on the encyclopedia for more information," he said, adding that he was eventually able to locate three Western Xia language dictionaries and teach himself about the ancient language.
Kotaka said that he has now established his own computer databank, which he uses to analyse the language in a scientific way.
He is also planning to study the languages of the Qidan and Nuchen -- ancient northern nomadic tribes of what is now China.
He noted that the Western Xia regime was roughly in the area of the present Chinese provinces of Ningxia and Gansu. However, because it was hemmed in between the Sung and Liao dynasties and faced repeated wars, it was eventually annihilated by Mongolia and its language vanished.
Kotaka said that few in the world are able to read the language now and those interested can only rely on a few surviving documents and its obscure language to try to get a more complete picture of the Western Xia, whose people excelled in printing, astronomy, construction and textiles.
In addition to Japanese, Mandarin, and Western Xia, Kotaka also reads Korean, German, French, Greek, Latin and Russian. After coming to Taiwan, he also began to learn to speak Taiwanese and Hakka.
An increase in Taiwanese boats using China-made automatic identification systems (AIS) could confuse coast guards patrolling waters off Taiwan’s southwest coast and become a loophole in the national security system, sources familiar with the matter said yesterday. Taiwan ADIZ, a Facebook page created by enthusiasts who monitor Chinese military activities in airspace and waters off Taiwan’s southwest coast, on Saturday identified what seemed to be a Chinese cargo container ship near Penghu County. The Coast Guard Administration went to the location after receiving the tip and found that it was a Taiwanese yacht, which had a Chinese AIS installed. Similar instances had also
GOOD DIPLOMACY: The KMT has maintained close contact with representative offices in Taiwan and had extended an invitation to Russia as well, the KMT said The Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) would “appropriately handle” the fallout from an invitation it had extended to Russia’s representative to Taipei to attend its international banquet last month, KMT Chairman Eric Chu (朱立倫) said yesterday. US and EU representatives in Taiwan boycotted the event, and only later agreed to attend after the KMT rescinded its invitation to the Russian representative. The KMT has maintained long-term close contact with all representative offices and embassies in Taiwan, and had extended the invitation as a practice of good diplomacy, Chu said. “Some EU countries have expressed their opinions of Russia, and the KMT respects that,” he
VIGILANCE: The military is paying close attention to actions that might damage peace and stability in the region, the deputy minister of national defense said The People’s Republic of China (PRC) might consider initiating a hack on Taiwanese networks on May 20, the day of the inauguration ceremony of president-elect William Lai (賴清德), sources familiar with cross-strait issues said. While US Secretary of State Anthony Blinken’s statement of the US expectation “that all sides will conduct themselves with restraint and prudence in the period ahead” would prevent military actions by China, Beijing could still try to sabotage Taiwan’s inauguration ceremony, the source said. China might gain access to the video screens outside of the Presidential Office Building and display embarrassing messages from Beijing, such as congratulating Lai
Four China Coast Guard ships briefly sailed through prohibited waters near Kinmen County, Taipei said, urging Beijing to stop actions that endanger navigation safety. The Chinese ships entered waters south of Kinmen, 5km from the Chinese city of Xiamen, at about 3:30pm on Monday, the Coast Guard Administration said in a statement later the same day. The ships “sailed out of our prohibited and restricted waters” about an hour later, the agency said, urging Beijing to immediately stop “behavior that endangers navigation safety.” Ministry of National Defense spokesman Sun Li-fang (孫立方) yesterday told reporters that Taiwan would boost support to the Coast Guard