National Taiwan Normal University yesterday unveiled the result of this year's Aboriginal culture and language proficiency examination, with test-takers who lived in Aboriginal communities outshining other examinees.
A total of 6,950 Aboriginal students registered for the examination, but only 5,308 participated in the accreditation examination.
Up to 61.8 percent of the examinees passed the test, with those who lived with their grandparents or lived in an Aboriginal community performing better than those who lived in a non-Aboriginal community, Chen Hsueh-chih (陳學志), associate dean of the university's School of Continuing Education, told a press conference.
Examinees who obtained better scores either learned their mother tongue from childhood or had actively participated in the Aboriginal language classes offered in school or churches in Aboriginal communities, Chen said.
Female students generally performed better than their male counterparts, school CEO Huang Hung-cheng (黃鴻程) said.
The majority of examinees who passed the test were native speakers of Amis, with 1,166 people out of the 1,992 Amis test-takers receiving accreditation, school data showed.
Native speakers of Paiwan and Atayal who passed the examination came in second and third respectively, data showed.
Examinees who were native speakers of Saisiyat and Thao scored lower than speakers of other Aboriginal languages, the statistics showed.
“This means we may have to invest more resources to revive these two languages,” Huang said.
Vice Minister of the Council of Indigenous Peoples Mayaw Dongi, who was at the press conference, emphasized the need to encourage speakers of Aboriginal languages to use their mother tongue.
“There are about 5,600 languages in the world, but linguists predict that only 100 would survive a millennium later,” he said.
“Linguists also believe that a language will die if no more than 75 percent of its speakers actually speak the language,” he said, adding that losing the nation's Aboriginal languages would be a “huge loss” to humankind and Taiwan.
Mayaw said many people had criticized the accreditation examination system because students who passed it are granted bonus points when they take the high school or college entrance examinations.
“But granting preferential treatment to Aborigines is necessary because there is a substantial difference between the living environment of Aborigines and people of other ethnic groups,” Mayaw said.
US climber Alex Honnold is to attempt to scale Taipei 101 without a rope and harness in a live Netflix special on Jan. 24, the streaming platform announced on Wednesday. Accounting for the time difference, the two-hour broadcast of Honnold’s climb, called Skyscraper Live, is to air on Jan. 23 in the US, Netflix said in a statement. Honnold, 40, was the first person ever to free solo climb the 900m El Capitan rock formation in Yosemite National Park — a feat that was recorded and later made into the 2018 documentary film Free Solo. Netflix previewed Skyscraper Live in October, after videos
NUMBERS IMBALANCE: More than 4 million Taiwanese have visited China this year, while only about half a million Chinese have visited here Beijing has yet to respond to Taiwan’s requests for negotiation over matters related to the recovery of cross-strait tourism, the Tourism Administration said yesterday. Taiwan’s tourism authority issued the statement after Chinese-language daily the China Times reported yesterday that the government’s policy of banning group tours to China does not stop Taiwanese from visiting the country. As of October, more than 4.2 million had traveled to China this year, exceeding last year. Beijing estimated the number of Taiwanese tourists in China could reach 4.5 million this year. By contrast, only 500,000 Chinese tourists are expected in Taiwan, the report said. The report
Temperatures are forecast to drop steadily as a continental cold air mass moves across Taiwan, with some areas also likely to see heavy rainfall, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said. From today through early tomorrow, a cold air mass would keep temperatures low across central and northern Taiwan, and the eastern half of Taiwan proper, with isolated brief showers forecast along Keelung’s north coast, Taipei and New Taipei City’s mountainous areas and eastern Taiwan, it said. Lows of 11°C to 15°C are forecast in central and northern Taiwan, Yilan County, and the outlying Kinmen and Lienchiang (Matsu) counties, and 14°C to 17°C
STEERING FAILURE: The first boat of its class is experiencing teething issues as it readies for acceptance by the navy, according to a recent story about rudder failure The Hai Kun (海鯤), the nation’s first locally built submarine, allegedly suffered a total failure of stern hydraulic systems during the second round of sea acceptance trials on June 26, and sailors were forced to manually operate the X-rudder to turn the submarine and return to port, news Web site Mirror Daily reported yesterday. The report said that tugboats following the Hai Kun assisted the submarine in avoiding collisions with other ships due to the X-rudder malfunctioning. At the time of the report, the submarine had completed its trials and was scheduled to begin diving and surfacing tests in shallow areas. The X-rudder,
RSS