"The Little Prince" in Fifteen Taiwan Indigenous Languages

Among ILRDC's annual research projects, "Edit and Translate Indigenous Texts"（編譯族語讀本）is one that inspires creativity and broadens the scope of as well as deepens the depth of written indigenous languages in Taiwan.

As commonly known, most indigenous languages in the world do not subscribe to a writing tradition, and those that do now have less than a century for a continuous and steady development.

Briefly in Taiwan, Formosan languages from the western plains were put into written form as early as in the 17th century by Dutch missionaries who sought to evangelize the people through translating the Bible, tenets and creeds. This trend was stopped in the 18th and 19th century as native communities were largely ignored by the ruling Qing Government. It was after the Japanese Occupation that educated Formosans started the movement of writing in their own languages with a mixed script of Japanese, Mandarin and Roman letters. Intellects wrote journals; missionaries translated Bibles; teachers compiled teaching materials; and song writers produced beautiful yet sentimental music about the disappearing peoples.

After WWII, Taiwan was reconstructed under the Nationalist Government of ROC. As opportunities arose in the 1980s to improve indigenous rights, activists seized them and initiated changes for the island's indigenous society. One change was the standardization of writing script for indigenous languages in 2005. Now, every publication in indigenous language in whatever form has a criterion to resort to.

Background to Discovery: Pacific Exploration from Dampier to Cook (1990)

This collection on European exploration in the Pacific from the late 17th century throughout the 18th century was edited by Derek Howse (1919-1998) in dedication to Harvard Professor of Oceanic History and Affairs, John Horace Parry (1914-1982).

As Howse explained in the "Preface", Horace, then invited as the Clark Library Professor for the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) for the academic year 1983-1984, orchestrated the original series of seminar about the exploration in the Pacific during the 18th century. However, his sudden decease in 1982 brought the plan to a halt.

Howse accepted the invitation from UCLA and succeeded as the next Clark Library Professor. To remember Horace's lifelong work on maritime history, Howse decided to continue with the original plan and published six of the original eight seminar lectures in this collection via University of California (1990).

Though the book is already out of print, a digital version from cover to cover is made available by UC Press E-Book Collection 1982-2004, starting here with the "Preface".

Sauljaljui Pinevar (Paiwan)

Sauljaljui Pinevar, otherwise known in Chinese as Chou Shu-chin（周淑琴）, was my classmate at Shimen Elementary School. She was the leader of the class; the captain of our school handball team; and a constant winner in exams or competitions of sorts.

Now, she works as a teacher at a primary school near our hometown, a mother of three children, and a writer whose writing is motivated by none other than a desire to pass down the knowledge about the past to younger generations and in one word, Love.

Watch her interview: Motivated by Love.

"The Story about the World Under the Water" (Taipei: TIPI, 2013)《水世界下的故事》and "cunuq's Summer" (Taipei: TIPI, 2014)《佐諾的夏天》are the results of her love-driven hard-work.