What can be accomplished in a 10-year period?
Two women, one with Han and one with Yami heritage, completed a book entitled Yami Texts with Reference Grammar and Dictionary (
At a seminar on Austronesian native languages in 1994, Maa-Neu Dong (董瑪女) from Orchid Island met with Victoria Rau (何德華), a professor in the English department at Providence University in Taichung, who holds a doctorate in linguistics from Cornell University in the US.
Rau, who had directed her energies toward Austronesian languages after receiving a scholarship to study Indonesian during her studies at Cornell, immediately agreed when Dong asked if she would compile teaching materials for Yami.
Rau said most Yami students can't speak Yami, a Philippine-Batanic tongue that is part of the Austronesian language family.
The speed at which the language is disappearing is worrying, Rau said, especially since the language lacks a script, which makes it a huge challenge to record and compile it into a dictionary.
Dong said that she and Rau also gained access to the Institute of Ethnology at the Academia Sinica, where they helped professor Liu Pin-hsiung (劉斌雄) with the collection and translation of the oral tradition of the Yami tribe.
The two completed the first Yami teaching materials in 2000. By 2003, Rau had completed her studies of Yami grammar and finished the first draft of their book, which was published by Academia Sinica earlier this year.
In order to bring the study of Taiwan's Aboriginal languages to the attention of the international community, the two also applied for a grant from the School of Oriental and African Studies' Endangered Language Documentation Program to prepare digital archive materials for the Yami language.
Anyone interested in the digital archives can visit their site at yamiproject.cs.pu.edu.tw/yami.
The bilingual Chinese and English site can be searched in both languages, as well as in romanized Yami.
A strong continental cold air mass is to bring pollutants to Taiwan from tomorrow, the Ministry of Environment said today, as it issued an “orange” air quality alert for most of the country. All of Taiwan except for Hualien and Taitung counties is to be under an “orange” air quality alert tomorrow, indicating air quality that is unhealthy for sensitive groups. In China, areas from Shandong to Shanghai have been enveloped in haze since Saturday, the ministry said in a news release. Yesterday, hourly concentrations of PM2.5 in these areas ranged from 65 to 160 micrograms per cubic meter (mg/m³), and pollutants were
Taiwan’s armed forces have established response protocols for a wide range of sudden contingencies, including the “Wan Chun Plan” to protect the head of state, the Ministry of Defense (MND) said today. After US President Donald Trump on Saturday launched a series of airstrikes in Venezuela and kidnapped Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro, concerns have been raised as to whether China would launch a similar “decapitation strike” on Taiwan. The armed forces regularly coordinate with relevant agencies and practice drills to ensure preparedness for a wide range of scenarios, Vice Minister of National Defense Hsu Szu-chien (徐斯儉) told reporters before a
EVA Airways on Saturday said that it had suspended a pilot and opened an investigation after he allegedly lost his temper and punched the first officer several times as their plane was taxiing before takeoff at Los Angeles International Airport. According to a report published on Thursday by The Reporter, the incident occurred after the flight’s Malaysian first officer tried to warn the Taiwanese pilot, surnamed Wen (文), that he was taxiing faster than the speed limit of 30 knots (55.6kph). After alerting the pilot several times without response, the first officer manually applied the brakes in accordance with standard operating
Japanese Councilor Hei Seki (石平) on Wednesday said that he plans to visit Taiwan, saying that would “prove that Taiwan is an independent country and does not belong to China.” Seki, a member of the Japan Innovation Party, was born in Chengdu in China’s Sichuan Province and became a naturalized Japanese in 2007. He was elected to the House of Concilors last year. His views on the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) — espoused in a series of books on politics and history — prompted Beijing to sanction him, including barring Seki from traveling to China. Seki wrote on X that he intends
RSS