The result of years of hard work documenting and recording Aboriginal languages, an Aboriginal e-dictionary will be published online next month as part of the first phase of a language database project, the Council of Indigenous Peoples said.
The e-dictionary will cover seven of Taiwan’s Aboriginal languages: Bunun, Saisiyat, Tsou (of the Alishan region), Truku, Thao, Kanakanavu and Tao (also known as Yami, from Orchid Island [Lanyu, 蘭嶼]), said Chen Kun-sheng (陳坤昇), head of the Education and Cultural Affairs section at the council.
“It took us seven years to get to this stage. Compiling a database of Aboriginal words and phrases has involved the efforts of more than 1,000 tribal elders, Aboriginal-language speakers and linguistic researchers working to record and document words and phrase,” he said.
Chen said that each Aboriginal group was allotted about NT$3 million (US$100,250) for the first two years of the project.
“We relied on the help of Aborigines to complete a large part of the project, many of whom see the work as a personal mission because they feel a responsibility to preserve their language,” he said.
The online dictionary can be accessed at http://e-dictionary.apc.gov.tw. The site enables people to listen to or learn Aboriginal languages in classrooms or at home.
Chen said the database, which is to be made available next month, contains about 350,000 Aboriginal phrases. The project’s goal is to document all 14 council-recognized Aboriginal languages and put 16 e-dictionaries online by 2015, he added.
There are three living languages of the Lowland Plains Indigenous Peoples (also known as Pingpu Aborigine groups, 平埔族群) that are still spoken in Taiwan: Pazeh, Kaxabu and Siraya.
The Pingpu groups are not officially recognized by the council, but they are recognized by the international community and by UN-related Aborigine forums.
Taiwan has received more than US$70 million in royalties as of the end of last year from developing the F-16V jet as countries worldwide purchase or upgrade to this popular model, government and military officials said on Saturday. Taiwan funded the development of the F-16V jet and ended up the sole investor as other countries withdrew from the program. Now the F-16V is increasingly popular and countries must pay Taiwan a percentage in royalties when they purchase new F-16V aircraft or upgrade older F-16 models. The next five years are expected to be the peak for these royalties, with Taiwan potentially earning
STAY IN YOUR LANE: As the US and Israel attack Iran, the ministry has warned China not to overstep by including Taiwanese citizens in its evacuation orders The Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MOFA) yesterday rebuked a statement by China’s embassy in Israel that it would evacuate Taiwanese holders of Chinese travel documents from Israel amid the latter’s escalating conflict with Iran. Tensions have risen across the Middle East in the wake of US and Israeli airstrikes on Iran beginning Saturday. China subsequently issued an evacuation notice for its citizens. In a news release, the Chinese embassy in Israel said holders of “Taiwan compatriot permits (台胞證)” issued to Taiwanese nationals by Chinese authorities for travel to China — could register for evacuation to Egypt. In Taipei, the ministry yesterday said Taiwan
Taiwan is awaiting official notification from the US regarding the status of the Agreement on Reciprocal Trade (ART) after the US Supreme Court ruled US President Donald Trump's global tariffs unconstitutional. Speaking to reporters before a legislative hearing today, Premier Cho Jung-tai (卓榮泰) said that Taiwan's negotiation team remains focused on ensuring that the bilateral trade deal remains intact despite the legal challenge to Trump's tariff policy. "The US has pledged to notify its trade partners once the subsequent administrative and legal processes are finalized, and that certainly includes Taiwan," Cho said when asked about opposition parties’ doubts that the ART was
If China chose to invade Taiwan tomorrow, it would only have to sever three undersea fiber-optic cable clusters to cause a data blackout, Jason Hsu (許毓仁), a senior fellow at the Hudson Institute and former Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) legislator, told a US security panel yesterday. In a Taiwan contingency, cable disruption would be one of the earliest preinvasion actions and the signal that escalation had begun, he said, adding that Taiwan’s current cable repair capabilities are insufficient. The US-China Economic and Security Review Commission (USCC) yesterday held a hearing on US-China Competition Under the Sea, with Hsu speaking on
RSS