A Few Comments on Translating Western Literature into Formosan Languages: The Case of The Little Prince

Published in Indigenous Peoples Quarterly (Summer, No. 2), 2016: 60-63.

Badai (Pinuyumayan): Part I

I've been meaning to write about Badai for a while. The plan got stalled kind of because he is one of the most prolific indigenous writers in Taiwan, publishing often two or three times a year since his debut in 2007.

The books I've been reading recently, for example, all came out in 2009. All of them, too, were either about or directly developed from the art of traditional healing or shamanism he studied first-hand between 2000 and 2008 in Tamalakaw, his birth village. The Pinuyumayan word for that art is 'taramaw' (or spelt as daramaw). 

Taiwan als Ursprungsort vieler indigener Sprachen

Taiwan als Ursprungsort vieler indigener Sprachen (also available in audio) on 13th January 2016 by André Zantow from Deutschlandradio Kultur.

FestPac Day 5: Unexpected islanders

FestPac Day 5: Unexpected islanders on 27th May 2016 by Johanna Salinas from The Guam Daily Post.

12th Festival of Pacific Arts (22nd May - 4th June, Guam)

This is by far the most emotionally-charged official trip I've ever been on: my first time at FestPac and Taiwan's fourth time (as for as I know) since the 9th in 2004 on Palau, the 10th in 2008 on American Samoa, and the 11th in 2012 on Solomon Islands.

I know I can consider myself lucky, being often invited to international events such as FestPac as part of the indigenous delegation from Taiwan. My function is often that of interpretation. But for those who've been on the same trip with me, they would know why I am invited.

I always deliver much more than what is asked of me. This is certainly also the case in Guam this time. My roles were many, including

Orality and Literacy: The Technologizing of the Word (1982)

First published in 1982 by Methuen & Co. Ltd, Jesuit scholar Walter J. Ong's classic study of the development from orality to literacy has been a constant reprint for the past three decades.

This cover (photo left) is from the edition of 2002. Amazon is selling a yet new edition celebrating the book's thirty-year anniversary.

Ong premises that primarily orality society is a society "totally unfamiliar with writing" (p. 6), whose "oral university of communication or thought" (p. 2) is very difficult for readers like us born in the age of 'secondary orality' to conceive.

In order not to mistaken oral societies for being inferior or secondary to chirographci (writing) and typographic (print) societies, which is absolutely incorrect too, it is essentially approach them diachronically or historically. That is what Ong did in this book by contrasting "orality with alphabetic writing...as used in the West" (p.3).

The Website of Indigenous Language Research and Development Center

Published in Aboriginal Education World 68 (2016): 22-25.

野的巴冷美

原文是那瓜在2013年4月5日寫的，我今晚才看到。謝謝那瓜。

明信片畫冊的故事 (5) Yedda Palemeq與開往布拉格的夜車

今天要跟大家分享的故事，是以排灣族的Yedda Palemeq為主角的『開往布拉格的夜車』。

在去荷蘭之前，我跟Yedda並不認識。等在Leiden認識了，才知道Yedda在台大外文系及外文所時，曾跟鮑曉鷗教授（José Borao）學了六年西班牙文，而我則是花了兩年時間，才把鮑教授的大作《西班牙人的台灣體驗 1626-1642：一場文藝復興時代的志業及其巴洛克的結局》譯成中文，說來，也算是有點淵緣。後來我們一起上荷文課及其他課程，Yedda都表現得很好，而且是『穩定的很好』。不像我，因為bipolar的關係，有時大腦會突然shut down，然後就這個也聽不懂，那個也看不懂了。我向Yedda解釋我的狀況，因此當我有這『症狀』發生時，她就會代為解釋：『There is nothing wrong. She’s plugged out. That’s it.』

Satellite Event of the 13th International Conference on Austronesian Linguistics

Published in Aboriginal Education World 67 (February, 2016): 82-85.

Sequoyah and the Invention of the Cherokee Alphabet （2012）

Writing Systems for Taiwan Indigenous Languages （原住民族語言書寫系統） are announced officially in 2005 by Council of Indigenous Peoples and Ministry of Education. These symbols are developed by linguists, indigenous language experts/teachers and authorities based on Roman letters, though it must not be ignored that both Mandarin phonetic symbols and Japanese scripts were once candidates promoted by different forces at different times.

Sometime during the early decades of 1800 (circa 1809), a man remembered by Washington Post in 1899 as 'Cadmus of Cherokees' (Note: In Greek mythology, Cadmus was the founder of Thebes and the creator of Phoenician alphabets) single-handedly created a writing system  for his native language.

With the help of his six- to ten- year old daughter Ahyokeh, who was his best pupil and assistant, he completed the syllabary in 1821 and convinced the Cherokee Council as well as his people by demonstration of the truth of his invention.

This man was Sequoyah or George Guess (Gist). According to a Cherokee writer and a self-claimed descendant of Sequoyah in 1971, Traveller Bird, the name Sequoyah was Sogwili in Taliwa and it meant 'horse' (Sequoyah and the Invention, p. 78).