The Global Coalition for Taiwanese Languages yesterday held a press conference to protest recent remarks by Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Legislator Hung Hsiu-chu (洪秀柱) that using a Romanized phonetic system to teach native languages would constitute a betrayal of Chinese culture.
Hung made the remark at a press conference last Thursday in response to rumors that incoming Minister of Education Tu Cheng-sheng (杜正勝) was pushing for the use of a Romanized phonetic system to teach Hoklo (commonly known as Taiwanese) in elementary schools. Currently, elementary school students are required to take at least one course on a local language, such as Hoklo, Hakka or an Aboriginal tongue.
The coalition, previously named the Global Taiwanese Movement Federation, supports the use of a Romanized phonetic system. It countered Hung's claims, saying the current system is no more loyal to Hoklo than a Romanized system.
"Han characters and the current phonetic system cannot capture the true sound and essence of Hoklo; Hoklo cannot be represented accurately with the Mandarin Chinese system," said Lee Chin-an (李勤岸), a spokesman for the group.
Currently, the Hoklo language in Taiwan is represented by Han characters, with adapted charac-ters representing words unique to Hoklo. The coalition said that such a system was inefficient due to the sheer number of words that would have to be created to represent all the words in Hoklo. The added burden of learning these characters makes Hoklo difficult to learn for non-native speakers, the coalition added.
"A Romanized phonetic system is very easy to learn and facilitates widespread native-language education. If you learn the 18 sounds of the system, then you can speak Hoklo, Hakka, or indigenous languages without any barriers," Lee said.
"Using a Romanized system would make Hoklo a more international language that can be easily learned by all people," Lee added.
The Taipei Department of Health’s latest inspection of fresh fruit and vegetables sold in local markets revealed a 25 percent failure rate, with most contraventions involving excessive pesticide residues, while two durians were also found to contain heavy metal cadmium at levels exceeding safety limits. Health Food and Drug Division Director Lin Kuan-chen (林冠蓁) yesterday said the agency routinely conducts inspections of fresh produce sold at traditional markets, supermarkets, hypermarkets, retail outlets and restaurants, testing for pesticide residues and other harmful substances. In its most recent inspection, conducted in May, the department randomly collected 52 samples from various locations, with testing showing
The government should improve children’s outdoor spaces and accelerate carbon reduction programs, as the risk of heat-related injury due to high summer temperatures rises each year, Greenpeace told a news conference yesterday. Greenpeace examined summer temperatures in Taipei, New Taipei City, Taoyuan, Hsinchu City, Taichung, Tainan and Kaohsiung to determine the effects of high temperatures and climate change on children’s outdoor activities, citing data garnered by China Medical University, which defines a wet-bulb globe temperature (WBGT) of 29°C or higher as posing the risk of heat-related injury. According to the Central Weather Administration, WBGT, commonly referred to as the heat index, estimates
Taipei and other northern cities are to host air-raid drills from 1:30pm to 2pm tomorrow as part of urban resilience drills held alongside the Han Kuang exercises, Taiwan’s largest annual military exercises. Taipei, New Taipei City, Keelung, Taoyuan, Yilan County, Hsinchu City and Hsinchu County are to hold the annual Wanan air defense exercise tomorrow, following similar drills held in central and southern Taiwan yesterday and today respectively. The Taipei Mass Rapid Transit (MRT) and Maokong Gondola are to run as usual, although stations and passenger parking lots would have an “entry only, no exit” policy once air raid sirens sound, Taipei
Taipei placed 14th in the Quacquarelli Symonds (QS) Best Student Cities 2026 list, its highest ever, according to results released yesterday. With an overall score of 89.1, the city climbed 12 places from the previous year, surpassing its previous best ranking of 17th in 2019. Taipei is “one of Asia’s leading higher-education hubs,” with strong employer activity scores and students “enjoying their experience of the city and often keen to stay after graduation,” a QS staff writer said. In addition to Taipei, Hsinchu (71st), Tainan (92nd), Taichung (113th) and Taoyuan (130th) also made QS’ list of the top 150 student cities. Hsinchu showed the
RSS