Shandiren has largely been replaced by yuanzhumin most likely because it has offensive historical connotations for Taiwanese aboriginals. My Amis acquaintances abhor the term since it implies that all aboriginals are people of the mountains when historically that is not the case. Only after being forced off their land did aboriginals become mountain people. Some upon hearing the term would respond with their own term Bai2 Lang4 which is the Amis’ mispronounced form of the Taiwanese pai1 lang2 壞人- bad person.
The reason I asked is that this was an item on the agenda for discussion at the meeting of the government’s 雙語詞彙翻譯審查小組 yesterday afternoon. A local authority had asked if it was correct to translate the 鄉土語言教室 sign outside the relevant classroom in schools as “Folk Custom Language Classroom”. The RDEC suggested that it be translated as “Dialects Language Classroom”, and put it to the meeting for discussion. The other members of the committee concurred with my proposal that it should be “Native Languages Classroom”, so that will become the officially recommended translation.
Well, I mentioned that I thought the MoE was supposed to have changed the official term from 鄉土 to 本土, but that just drew a blank response from the senior MoE representatives at the meeting and slipped by the wayside.
Sorry, but I think I am missing something here (and long haired dictionary is not on hand)
From this thread I assume that we are talking about languages used in Taiwan, that are not classed as Chinese languages.
So, do these xiang tu yu yan /ben tu yu yan include Hakka, which is a Chinese dialect (forgive me :aiyo: ) or is it specifically for non-Chinese languages?
If it is to describe the non-Chinese languages then why wouldn’t ‘Aboriginal languages’ do as an English translation?
Or Aboriginal languages and Hakka if it does include it.
Or does the term encompass more than I am imagining? :eh:
