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Cabinet backs draft law to protect national languages

The Cabinet approved yesterday a national languages development bill that aims to ensure the nation's many languages are all protected and treated equally.

Premier Su Tseng-chang (蘇貞昌) said the government should respect all languages and not repeat the mistakes of the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT), which oppressed local languages and promoted Mandarin as the nation's only language.

"Languages are an important cultural heritage. All languages should be given the same level of importance and granted equal status," Su said during the weekly Cabinet meeting after the draft law was approved.

Thanks to government efforts in recent years, some endangered languages, such as Hakka, are seeing a renaissance, Su said.

The draft law states that national languages refer to the mother tongues of the nation's ethnic groups and that citizens should not be discriminated against on the basis of language.

The right of foreign residents and naturalized citizens to use their mother tongues must be respected, the draft says, adding that the government should incorporate and respect language diversity while promoting national languages.

The draft stipulates that the government should promote the preservation, learning and research of national languages and develop measures to restore endangered languages.

The draft says that citizens can use any national language in publication, audio/video broadcast, Internet transmission or other forms of media communications.
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