Taiwan Church News 3282 Edition January 19 - 25, 2015 Headline Mews PCT Worries About The Accelerating Shrinkage Of Taiwan's Mother Tongnues Reported by Simon Lin From January 13 to 15, associated with Suan-lien Presbyterian Church, PCT's Promote Taiwan's Mother Tongues Committee(PTMTC) invites PCT presbyteries across the island to hold a pilot teacher seminary for the Taiwan Holo language and Peh-oe-ji in Taipei. As the registered members attending this seminary are no more than 30 people, many participating members worries that PCT, used to be renown for her fluent mother tongue in mission, service and education, would lose the battle to preserve one of the most treasured gift favored by God - our versatile mother tongues. Rev. Du Chien-sün, Director of PTMTC, solemnly warns a deteriorating language dementia under way in PCT: against the fact that most young Holo pastors can not deliver a fluent sermon in Holo language and an increasing number of Elders can not read Peh-oe-ji Bible, more and more juvenile youth and Sunday School children can only speak or read the Mandarin Chinese within church. Rev. Du criticizes current language scenarios within PCT is a big problem: boasting PCT's identity with Taiwan culture and languages on the one hand, yet giving no priority to apply Peh-oe-jih Romanization within church ministries. Therefore, after this pilot teacher seminary, several proposals are suggested to enhance the education of Taiwan's mother tongues in PCT: (1) General Assembly should establish a clear language policy on this island; (2) To facilitate the scholar studies about Taiwan Holo language, a list of standard characters or words for Taiwan Holo and Peh-oe-ji should be set up; (3) "the Holo language" should changed her name back as "the Taiwanese language" ; (4) Help new immigrants to learn the Taiwanese language and etc. Translated by Peter Wolfe |