A majority of Taiwanese, or 68.4 percent, feel that “native” languages are in danger of disappearing, a poll released yesterday by the Professor Huang Kun-huei Education Foundation showed.
Previous policies vigorously promoting Mandarin have crippled the development of native languages, foundation chairman Huang Kun-heui (黃昆輝) said.
Of the poll’s respondents, 37.2 percent said that the Ministry of Education’s policies effectively preserve native languages, he said.
Photo courtesy of the Taoyuan Department of Education
While 93.9 percent of those polled said that speaking native languages with family members is the best way to learn a language, 67.5 percent said their family members could not speak native languages, demonstrating that such methods are not the most effective, Huang said.
Citing Ministry of Culture data, Huang said that the use of Hoklo (commonly known as Taiwanese) has dropped by nearly 60 percent within the past three generations, while the use of Hakka has fallen 70 percent, and the use of indigenous languages has plummeted by almost 90 percent.
The less a language is used, the more likely it is of becoming endangered or extinct, and the preservation and restoration of native languages in Taiwan is a task that cannot be put off any longer, Huang said.
Foundation member Feng Ching-huang (馮清皇) said that about 64.9 percent of the respondents still used their native tongue daily.
Broken down into region, Tainan, and Yunlin and Chiayi counties had the largest percentage of people who speak a native tongue daily at 82.4 percent, followed by Taichung, and Changhua and Nantou counties at 73.6 percent, and Kaohsiung, and Pingtung and Penghu counties at 73.3 percent, Feng said.
The poll showed that the use of native languages dropped in conjunction with the respondents’ age, Huang said.
Feng said that 91.5 percent of respondents aged 65 or older used a native tongue frequently, followed by those aged 50 to 64 at 73.3 percent.
Respondents with a junior-high school education or lower used native languages the most, at 90.6 percent, followed by those with a high-school or vocational high-school education at 70.2 percent, Feng said.
National Cheng Chi University Graduate Institute of Taiwan History chairman Hsueh Hua-yuan (薛化元) said it is a basic human right to use one’s native language.
Government policies have previously infringed upon that right, resulting in the prevalence of Mandarin in education, government and mass media, Hsueh said.
The Development of National Languages Act (國家語言發展法) has provided a legal basis to help protect local languages, but the preservation and development of the native languages of multiple ethnicities is still an uphill battle, he said.
A signaling system malfunction disrupted high-speed rail (HSR) services beginning at 8am today, with trains temporarily reduced to three northbound and three southbound trains per hour as authorities conduct inspections. The malfunction occurred on a section of track in Miaoli County during pre-operation checks early this morning, forcing northbound and southbound trains to use a single track, the HSR operator said. The regular schedule has been replaced with three hourly trains offering only nonreserved seating in each direction, stopping at every station, it said, adding that business class cars would still have reserved seating. Departures from terminal stations are scheduled at the top
DRONE CENTRAL: Taiwan aims to become Asia’s democratic hub for drones, with most exports focused on high-quality military-grade models, an official said Taiwan’s drone industry is expected to expand significantly by 2030, producing 100,000 units per month and exporting half of them, the Ministry of Economic Affairs said yesterday. Current drone production capacity is about 15,000 units per month, but the industry can quickly scale up as demand increases, Industrial Development Administration Director-General Chiou Chyou-huey (邱求慧) told a news conference in Taipei. Taiwan’s drone output grew 2.5-fold last year to NT$12.9 billion (US$408.3 million) under a government program to develop the uncrewed vehicle sector, he said. The Executive Yuan in October last year approved plans to invest NT$44.2 billion into domestic production of uncrewed aerial
VERBOSE VESSELS: A CGA cutter and a China Coast Guard exchanged verbal barbs for more than a day in Taiwanese-controlled waters before the Chinese vessel left The Taiwanese and Chinese coast guards had a standoff near the strategically located Pratas Islands (Dongsha Islands, 東沙群島) in the north of the South China Sea, the Coast Guard Administration (CGA) said yesterday. The two sides engaged in intense radio exchanges over sovereignty claims during the 33-hour standoff. China Coast Guard vessel 3501 eventually left the restricted waters, 26.6 nautical miles (49.2km) west of the Pratas Islands, at 5pm yesterday, the CGA said. Lying approximately between southern Taiwan and Hong Kong, the Taiwan-controlled Pratas are seen by some security experts as vulnerable to Chinese attack due to their distance — more than
WARNING: China should stop engaging in actions that undermine regional peace and stability, as it would only build resentment among people across the Strait, the CGA said China has deployed more than 100 navy, coast guard and other vessels in waters from the Yellow Sea to the South China Sea and the western Pacific since US President Donald Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) met in Beijing, National Security Council Secretary-General Joseph Wu (吳釗燮) said yesterday. “In this part of the world, #China is the one & only PROBLEM wrecking the #StatusQuo & threatening regional peace & stability,” Wu wrote on X. In a separate post, he said Beijing was coercing Taiwan’s maritime domain, calling it illegal and provocative, after the Coast Guard Administration (CGA) expelled a
RSS