DPP and TSU lawmakers yesterday welcomed a draft law designed to give all Taiwan's local languages an equal legal footing.
The Mandarin Promotion Council under the Ministry of Education recently approved the proposed language equality law (
The proposed law would prohibit discrimination against court testimonies given in the local languages -- Hoklo, Hakka and a dozen Aboriginal languages.
It would also require courts to provide translations in such situations. The rules would also apply to the legislature.
For several decades after 1949, the KMT government promoted Mandarin Chinese and prohibited the use of local languages at schools. Before then, Japanese colonial rulers also suppressed local languages to varying degrees.
DPP Legislator Chen Chin-chiung (陳景峻) said the bill represented a good development that showed respect for local ethnic groups and their languages.
TSU Legislator Lo Chih-ming (
Opposition makers, however, were more reserved about the law. KMT Legislator Apollo Chen (
But Yang Yung-chuan (
The government is also considering listing local language proficiency as a requirement in some civil-service exams.
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