Puyuma mother tongue teacher Ms. Yu-yun Cheng had been attentive to the promotion of indigenous language. She said that there are over ten thousand Puyuma people in Taiwan, and “once the mother tongue disappears, the Puyuma culture is gone.” The indigenous language belongs to the Austronesian language system. For a long time it has never developed its own character symbols. Mouth-to-mouth transmission is the only way to pass down their culture. Mother tongue carries the important features of historical and cultural development. In order to pass the oral indigenous language certification, Ms. Cheng, who didn’t know Roman spelling, flew between Taitung and Taipei on a one-day round trip just to find a teacher to teach her the spelling.

“I am getting old. What do I do this for? I am for the Puyuma language currently lying on the bed of intensive care.” Even though already a senior, Ms. Cheng wished to beat the time and held more mother tongue learning seminars and workshops as chance permitted. She ever taught local language for indigenous people at Taipei County Hsinchuang Guang Hua Elementary School. Although there was only one Puyuma student, Principal Han-dun Li was still very supportive.
Indigenous language is on the verge of disappearing. Active measures should be taken in order to promote the language and carry out cultural rooting. It is an important task of great urgency. In view of the disappearing trend of Puyuma language for its tribal people living in the cities, Ms. Cheng determined to start her journey of language promotion. She started from “education.” In 2002, after receiving her “Certification of Indigenous Language” credential issued by the Council of Indigenous Peoples, Executive Yuan, she took the position of a supporting teacher of Puyuma local language in many elementary schools in Taipei County (Hsinchuang Si Hsian Elementary School, Lujhou Ren Ai Elementary School, Shijr Bai Yun Elementary School, Banchiao Da Guan Elementary School, Shulin San Duo Elementary) and started off her career to teach and promote indigenous language.

In order to better understand the problems facing current promotion of indigenous language, we’ve collected some information listed as follows:
• Written records of mother tongue
　Indigenous people do not have written words. Everything is taught orally by teachers while different accent exists in different places without unification. Currently it is taught by Roman spelling which is difficult for students to remember. Besides, there is no mother tongue speaking environment in the communities, so the effect is not good.
• Teacher shortage
　There is a lack of mother tongue teachers at the moment. Even teachers of indigenous people are not capable of speaking their mother tongue.
• Insufficient learning hours
　The time arranged to learn mother tongue is only one class per week. Students cannot fully absorb the language. There is little chance for students to practice among themselves and they can’t practice back home, so they don’t have much impression in terms of learning mother tongue.
• Social factors
Students often speak Mandarin in their living environment, and not many of them can speak indigenous language.

Language is not only the major tool of communication among people, but also “the internal culture,” a pattern that people identify themselves. It is our most precious cultural asset. Through the manifestation of language, people are able to keep their culture. Different language represents different vision and different way of thinking. As language spreads, the spirit of different culture is able to reflect its features in a way that the people of that culture can continue to thrive. Disappearance of a certain language is the destruction of that people. Indigenous language is on the verge of disappearing. Active measures should be taken in order to promote the language and culture and carry out cultural rooting. It is an important task of great urgency. Only by doing this can we pave a solid foundation for the most localized original culture of Taiwan to last long. We will work harder. We hope our people to identify themselves, to recognize own culture, and to speak the language often and harder. Eventually there shall be one day when you and I can speak our mother tongue fluently.

Promotion of Indigenous Language—the Mother Tongue Language Policy of the Council of Indigenous Peoples

The Council of Indigenous Peoples makes much of the promotion of indigenous language and mother tongue language policy. They have drafted the “Four-Year Action Plan on Promotion of Indigenous Language.” Their tasks rang from cultivating teachers, editing teaching materials, carrying out promotion in the tribe (family), to establishing the “Directions Governing the Indigenous Peoples Language Skill Certification Procedure” which specifies the methods of awarding language skill certification by means of “document review,” “recommendation” and “written and oral test.” The “Implementation Guidelines for Indigenous Peoples Language Skill Certification Procedure” is made in order to proceed with the aforementioned methods and to regulate the rules of question design for language skill certification.

Editing Materials for Indigenous Peoples
The Ministry of Education has asked the Center for Aboriginal Languages Cultures and Education to take on the three-year teaching material editing plan to publish a Mandarin edition first, then translate it to languages of other tribes. Since the market profit for indigenous language textbook is rather small, not too many book publishers are willing to publish those textbooks. Therefore, together the Ministry of Education and the Council of Indigenous Peoples offer NT$70~80 million as the funds for this three-year teaching material editing plan, and entrust National Cheng Chi University to execute. This textbook set is scheduled to be published in twelve volumes. CD and VCD format of the textbook set will also be produced for students of different age groups to learn.

The Importance of Tribal Language

Language is not only the major tool of communication among people, but also the pattern that people identify themselves. It is our most precious cultural asset. Through the manifestation of language, people are able to keep their culture. Different language represents different vision and different way of thinking. As language spreads, the spirit of different culture is able to reflect its features in a way that the people of that culture can continue to thrive. Disappearance of a certain language is the destruction of that people. Indigenous language is on the verge of disappearing. Active measures should be taken in order to promote the language and culture and carry out cultural rooting. It is an important task of great urgency. Only by doing this can we pave a solid foundation for the most localized original culture of Taiwan to last long.