Astronomer Tsai An-li (蔡安理) yesterday received a Ministry of Education prize for her contributions to native languages for translating hundreds of NASA releases into Hoklo (commonly known as Taiwanese), creating a corpus of astronomical terms for the language.
Starting in December 2020, Tsai applied to set up an official NASA-related Web site, the Astronomy Picture of the Day Taiwanese (逐工一幅天文圖), and began translating one NASA article from English to Hoklo daily.
In addition to creating a corpus of astronomical terms, Tsai also created Hoklo-language astronomy videos online.
Photo: Tu Chien-jung, Taipei Times
An adjunct professor at National Taiwan Normal University's department of Earth Sciences, Tsai said that despite being born in Taipei, she had grown up speaking Hoklo, as she had lived with her grandparents.
Most people in northern Taiwan speak Mandarin, while those in southern Taiwan are more likely to speak Hoklo.
Tsai said her grasp of Hoklo dramatically lapsed during high school and her father reminded her: “A Taiwanese must know how to speak Taiwanese,” which sparked her resolve to help preserve the language.
The example of a professor from Hong Kong teaching astronomy in Cantonese at National Tsing Hua University and another teaching Earth sciences in Hoklo served as encouragement, Tsai said.
Tsai said she is teaching an elective Hoklo-language astronomy course at National Taiwan Normal University in which students have to present their end-of-year report in the language.
The ministry’s lifelong devotion prize went to National Taiwan Normal University English Department retired professor Huang Mei-chin (黃美金), who devoted her life to researching indigenous languages while not being of indigenous ethnicity.
Despite indigenous languages becoming official national languages, an environment to foster their use is still absent as older people more familiar with the languages are passing away, Huang said.
Taiwan is “the root” of Austronesian languages which is in danger of being “uprooted” in 50 years, she said, adding that she would continue her mission to preserve indigenous languages.
Minister of Education Pan Wen-chung (潘文忠) said that the Development of National Languages Act (國家語言法) is an important milestone and provides the legal basis for the government to spend NT$300 billion (US$9.86 billion) to preserve and promote native languages.
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