A series of fora were held from July 30 to Sunday ahead of the National Languages Development Convention at the end of next month.
The first of the convention’s four key themes, “prestige for national languages,” seems strange.
It is true that in the past, Mandarin had a monopoly on prestige, while anyone who spoke another mother tongue was humiliated.
I was one of those who suffered during the tail end of that policy, under which you could be fined for speaking Hoklo, commonly known as Taiwanese.
However, does that mean that speaking one’s mother tongue should now be prestigious? Is it about equal rights, or is it going too far in the other direction?
The point is that equal rights are based on respect, but prestige is like the ancient Chinese notion of li (禮, “decorum”) which was the basis for differential or even discriminatory treatment.
At international events such as sports competitions, countries try to differentiate themselves from other countries and prove that they are better than them by winning.
Their athletes can win graded degrees of prestige in the form of gold, silver and bronze medals, and there is nothing wrong with that.
However, within one’s own country, should people take the same attitude to their compatriots and the mother tongues used by different communities? Could prestige become a pretext for grabbing resources and suppressing other groups?
“Prestige” is also jargon that is frequently used in business circles. For example, silver credit cards are prestigious, but gold cards are even more so, and businesses feel compelled to extract value from their clients by creating even more prestigious platinum cards and black cards.
Could prestige for national languages be a means of generating profit for cram schools and language testing organizations?
If passing an intermediate test in a language is considered prestigious, presumably it would be even more prestigious to pass an advanced test, and if mother tongues are considered prestigious, people would probably want to take tests all the way from elementary to advanced levels.
It would be different if the emphasis was placed on respect instead of prestige; it would make people feel comfortable about using their mother tongues.
They could do so without being looked down upon (or looking down on themselves) and they would also have no reason to look down on communities that use a different mother tongue.
There would also be no need for people to roll up like a hedgehog or rise up in revolt when the use of their mother tongue offends some kind of aesthetic standard.
For government institutions, it is a matter of fulfilling the rights that are due to each community’s mother tongue.
The examples cited under the convention’s theme of “prestige,” such as publishing official documents in Amis and Rukai languages, are all examples of gradually implementing Aborigines’ basic civil rights.
These are rights that communities should have had all along, so why dress them up as prestige? They just provide long-overdue basic respect.
Respect and prestige might sound similar, but picking the wrong one could have serious consequences. It would be much better if language development policies at the national level could emphasize respect instead of prestige.
Chue Lou-hsien is a freelance translator.
Translated by Julian Clegg
Yesterday’s recall and referendum votes garnered mixed results for the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT). All seven of the KMT lawmakers up for a recall survived the vote, and by a convincing margin of, on average, 35 percent agreeing versus 65 percent disagreeing. However, the referendum sponsored by the KMT and the Taiwan People’s Party (TPP) on restarting the operation of the Ma-anshan Nuclear Power Plant in Pingtung County failed. Despite three times more “yes” votes than “no,” voter turnout fell short of the threshold. The nation needs energy stability, especially with the complex international security situation and significant challenges regarding
Most countries are commemorating the 80th anniversary of the end of World War II with condemnations of militarism and imperialism, and commemoration of the global catastrophe wrought by the war. On the other hand, China is to hold a military parade. According to China’s state-run Xinhua news agency, Beijing is conducting the military parade in Tiananmen Square on Sept. 3 to “mark the 80th anniversary of the end of World War II and the victory of the Chinese People’s War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression.” However, during World War II, the People’s Republic of China (PRC) had not yet been established. It
A recent critique of former British prime minister Boris Johnson’s speech in Taiwan (“Invite ‘will-bes,’ not has-beens,” by Sasha B. Chhabra, Aug. 12, page 8) seriously misinterpreted his remarks, twisting them to fit a preconceived narrative. As a Taiwanese who witnessed his political rise and fall firsthand while living in the UK and was present for his speech in Taipei, I have a unique vantage point from which to say I think the critiques of his visit deliberately misinterpreted his words. By dwelling on his personal controversies, they obscured the real substance of his message. A clarification is needed to
There is an old saying that if there is blood in the water, the sharks will come. In Taiwan’s case, that shark is China, circling, waiting for any sign of weakness to strike. Many thought the failed recall effort was that blood in the water, a signal for Beijing to press harder, but Taiwan’s democracy has just proven that China is mistaken. The recent recall campaign against 24 Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) legislators, many with openly pro-Beijing leanings, failed at the ballot box. While the challenge targeted opposition lawmakers rather than President William Lai (賴清德) himself, it became an indirect
RSS