As the Latin name of Taiwan’s premier academic institution, Academia Sinica, translates into “Chinese Academy,” some of its members are calling for a name change to avoid confusion, but media reports have said that all those being considered are English-language names.
While serving at the academy, my affiliation was always listed at the end of every research paper as “Institute of Mathematics, Academia Sinica.” The first half of the author affiliation was in English and the second half in Latin, a mix that really is neither fish nor fowl.
As not many of those in the academy’s institutes can translate the names of their institutes into Latin, it seems more convenient to translate the name of the academy into English.
Why was the academy’s name translated into Latin when it was established in 1928? The main reason was that Latin was the language of academia until the middle of the 19th century.
Great mathematicians, such as Carl Gauss and Georg Riemann, all wrote their papers in Latin.
Next, German became the dominant language in math, until World War II when its dominance was usurped by English — which shows that whichever language academia considers to be the international language is changeable.
Another reason the academy’s name was translated into Latin is that Latin was the common language of the ancient world.
Still, the status of international languages changes over time. French, which was the lingua franca until World War II, has been replaced by English — although French is still the language used for international exchanges on postal affairs.
Today, English is the world’s common language.
The UK used to be the “empire on which the sun never sets,” and the US has been a superpower since World War II. As the two nations have English in common, English has become today’s lingua franca, not without implying a certain hegemonic power.
During the Cold War era, countries in the Soviet Union used Russion as a common language, so, against this backdrop, the Latin translation of the academy’s name helped avoid hegemonic connotations, as Latin was by then a neutral language.
Unfortunately, the complexity of Latin grammar has led to its disuse, to the point that it has almost exclusively become the language of the Catholic Church, rendering inappropriate a Latinate name such as “Academia Taiwanica.”
In 1887, Polish ophthalmologist Ludwik Zamenhof created the language Esperanto, which he intended to be used as a universal lingua franca.
Esperanto is easy to learn, can be used for academic discussions, and is not the mother tongue of any country or people.
In the past few years, the number of Esperanto learners has sharply risen. Even the UN has used it. UNESCO published a book titled De ideoj al agoj, 70 jaroj de UNESKO to mark the organization’s 70th anniversary in 2015.
Esperanto has received little attention in Taiwan — fewer than 100 Taiwanese can speak it.
However, Wu Rwei-ren (吳叡人), an associate research fellow at Academia Sinica’s Institute of Taiwan History, is one of them.
Esperanto is a developing, democratic language. As the US is one of the world’s primary democracies, many Americans are learning Esperanto.
The academy should adopt a name in Esperanto, such as “Tajvana Akademio” or “Centra Esplora Akademia Tajvana.” It could even be renamed “Centra Esplora Akademio, Tajvano” to avoid conflict between the pan-blue and pan-green camps.
Wang Ju-kwei is a retired professor of National Central University’s Department of Mathematics.
Translated by Eddy Chang
The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) has long been expansionist and contemptuous of international law. Under Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平), the CCP regime has become more despotic, coercive and punitive. As part of its strategy to annex Taiwan, Beijing has sought to erase the island democracy’s international identity by bribing countries to sever diplomatic ties with Taipei. One by one, China has peeled away Taiwan’s remaining diplomatic partners, leaving just 12 countries (mostly small developing states) and the Vatican recognizing Taiwan as a sovereign nation. Taiwan’s formal international space has shrunk dramatically. Yet even as Beijing has scored diplomatic successes, its overreach
After more than a year of review, the National Security Bureau on Monday said it has completed a sweeping declassification of political archives from the Martial Law period, transferring the full collection to the National Archives Administration under the National Development Council. The move marks another significant step in Taiwan’s long journey toward transitional justice. The newly opened files span the architecture of authoritarian control: internal security and loyalty investigations, intelligence and counterintelligence operations, exit and entry controls, overseas surveillance of Taiwan independence activists, and case materials related to sedition and rebellion charges. For academics of Taiwan’s White Terror era —
On Feb. 7, the New York Times ran a column by Nicholas Kristof (“What if the valedictorians were America’s cool kids?”) that blindly and lavishly praised education in Taiwan and in Asia more broadly. We are used to this kind of Orientalist admiration for what is, at the end of the day, paradoxically very Anglo-centered. They could have praised Europeans for valuing education, too, but one rarely sees an American praising Europe, right? It immediately made me think of something I have observed. If Taiwanese education looks so wonderful through the eyes of the archetypal expat, gazing from an ivory tower, how
After 37 US lawmakers wrote to express concern over legislators’ stalling of critical budgets, Legislative Speaker Han Kuo-yu (韓國瑜) pledged to make the Executive Yuan’s proposed NT$1.25 trillion (US$39.7 billion) special defense budget a top priority for legislative review. On Tuesday, it was finally listed on the legislator’s plenary agenda for Friday next week. The special defense budget was proposed by President William Lai’s (賴清德) administration in November last year to enhance the nation’s defense capabilities against external threats from China. However, the legislature, dominated by the opposition Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) and Taiwan People’s Party (TPP), repeatedly blocked its review. The
RSS