Similar to circumstances in the United States, Taiwan is facing an endangerment of Indigenous language loss. Although approximately 35% of 400,000 Indigenous people in Taiwan fluently speak their native language, in certain communities it’s far less. The Taiwanese government recognizes 16 tribes who lived on the island for thousands of years prior to the arrival of the Han people. Among these tribes is the Thao, the smallest tribe with less than 800 people. Thao (the language) is within the Austronesian language family, a family of languages spoken throughout Malaysia, the Philippines, Indonesia, and most of the Pacific. However in Taiwan, Thao is among the four out of sixteen languages considered to be critically endangered by the United Nations Educational Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO). During the authoritarian and assimilationist Japanese rule, followed by the Kuomintang’s nationalist regime, speaking native languages was criminalized, and this span of time resulted in not just a loss of language for the Thao but also lives, land, and culture. The loss in language is reflected more so among urban communities, where people were moved by natural disasters, by force, or economics. 

However there is still an inkling of hope. Panu Kapamumu, chairman of the Thao cultural development association, approximates their efforts have recorded 90% of the Thao language. There are also five dedicated teachers of Thao in Taiwan, however there are minimal resources and this is more so an informal community effort. In 2017, Taiwan’s Parliament passed a law that sought to preserve and promote Indigenous languages, designating the l6 languages of the different tribes as national languages of Taiwan and increasing the Council of Indigenous People’s (CIP) language budget by five-fold. More Indigenous consultation of policy development, along with the establishment of a language research and development foundation and the offering of language courses in schools and universities was also advised. However, while these good intentions are appreciated, assistant professor of linguistics at National Tsing Hua University, Ting-chung Chen, pointed out how the foundation responsible for language preservation and educational measures is understaffed, and it would be impractical in a sense to properly meet the needs of the 42 dialects within those 16 Indigenous languages.

“A lot of communities are trying to come up with their own textbooks … but they don’t really know how to do that. Teachers aren’t trained as teachers,”- Assistant Professor of Linguistics, Ting-chung Chen

Sources:

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/jun/09/healing-words-taiwans-tribes-fight-to-save-their-disappearing-languages