Taiwan Church News 3879 Edition 29 June ~ 5 July, 2026 Weekly Topical As Mother Tongues Dying, Citizen Groups Call No More Mandarin Hegemony in Taiwan Reported by Lin Yi-ying from Taipei In response to the implementation of Taiwan’s language policy and Development of National Language Acts, the Control Yuan released an investigation report on June 17. The conclusion of thereport criticizes the government’s language policies in the past decades have resulted into an existential crisis for indigenous languages, Hakka and Taiwanese. Assembled at the Control Yuan on June 26, many citizen groups call the government to apologize to the public for its historical mistakes to insist mandarin hegemony without reflection. They also plead that the Executive Yuan should set up a “Language Equality Committee” to overhaul all legal regulations and administrative rules related to language discrimination. Many renown leaders and activists of citizen groups were invited to participate in this significant assembly, including Rev Rii Tjaljimaraw, education-specialist of PCT Indigenous Mission Committee; Rev Walis Tusang of Sediq Ethnic District Assembly; Ms Huang Chun-ling of Cou Ethnic District Assembly; Mr Tanubake Pakidavai of Ngudradrekai Presbytery; Ms Iyu Lekal, assistant of PCT Indigenous Mission Committee; Ms Hsu Hui-ying, convener of the Taiwanese Policy Promotion Alliance; Ms Ku Yong-yan, chairwoman of Taiwan Taiwanese Way Council; Mr Lai Chao-nan, deputy executive officer of Li Kang Kioh Foundation; Prof Hsu Hui-ruh of Department of Taiwan Culture, Languages and Literature of National Taiwan Normal University; Prof Hung Tzu-wei, research fellow of Institute of the European and American Studies, Academia Sinica, and many other representatives of citizen groups. “Since the KMT implemented mandarin hegemony from 1946, the tragedy for the indigenous is their mother tongues start to decline and disappear. If the government has no laws or incentives to protect or encourage mother tongues, any restoration of mother tongue would not make much progress. It should be stipulated that the indigenous have to learn their own ethnic language, and their mother tongue educations should be done in schools or among tribes,” Rev Rii Tjaljimaraw remarked. She indicated that it is “very strange thoughts” to use mandarin to teach the indigenous languages across schools in Taiwan. Taking as an example the teaching of English in an immersive environment with all English language, she frankly indicated “indigenous children can learn their mother tongues effectively, if the the indigenous languages could be taught without any questionable support from current mandarin textbooks.” Rev Walis Tusang said it’s a universal common sense that the state shall not forbid or prohibit their own ethnic groups to speak their own mother tongues. He warned that now many indigenous youth in Taiwan can only speak mandarin, and they could no more understand any cultural history and tribal story of their ethnic communities vividly delivered via their mother tongues. He hoped that the problem could be solved in future through legislative or administrative measures. In other words, no more mandarin hegemony! He suggested Taiwan to follow Malaysia, “so that children can be exposed to 4 to 5 languages at least in schools, and learn how to respect different ethnic groups in daily lives.” Ms Ku Yong-yan said that she was a typical victim abused by “mandarin hegemony”. When she was a child, she was not taught mother tongue and therefore could not know who she was and where she came from. When she became a mother, she wanted to learn more mother tongue to teach her children. As the mandarin hegemony in Taiwan is “still not over yet”, she highly affirmed the investigation report of the Control Yuan which requested the government to apologize for its wrong language policy and make all languages equal in Taiwan. As mandarin hegemony still stands in the way to an authentic self-identity and carries on to hurt self-confidence and human dignity of all ethnic groups across Taiwan, Ms Ku urged everyone to practice mother tongue at home and in daily lives, and called the government to reform language education in the spirit of transitive justice. “To use mother tongues to learn, not learn mother tongues in use.” Led by Ms Hsu Hui-ying, representatives of citizen groups entered into the Control Yuan with slogans of ”No more mandarin hegemony”, “Throw away mandarin hegemony and build up a multilingual country” They confirmed that both Mr Kao Yong-cheng and Mr Hsiao Tzu-yu, members of the Control Yuan to publish the astounding report and expressed their appreciation for their huge contributions to make Taiwan languages equal. Translated by Peter Wolfe |