Thread by @WilliamYang120

By @joyuwang: "This language is to fight against＃China,” said Taiwanese writer Tenn Sun-tshong, adding that the China factor was one of the reasons behind a surge in demand for Taigi speakers in #Taiwan, especially in publishing. wsj.com/articles/chine…

“Speaking our mother language is the most effective vaccine” against a more assertive China, said Ms. Sin, one of a growing group of Taiwanese parents who are trying to steep their children in the island’s local languages—...

... while also brushing up themselves—in what they see as a form of resistance against China’s authoritarian influence.

Taigi is sometimes written in Chinese characters but sounds unintelligible to Mandarin speakers. It is one of a host of local languages spoken in Taiwan, alongside another branch of Chinese called Hakka and several indigenous languages with Austronesian roots.

In recent years, however, the local languages have staged the beginnings of an unlikely comeback.

Teachers of Taigi have experienced surges in enrollment. The number of people registering to take proficiency tests in Taigi and indigenous languages has almost tripled ...

... to nearly 45,000 in 2020 from less than 16,000 in 2012, according to government data.

Preserving Taigi won’t be easy, even with government support, given how dominant Mandarin has become and how important it is for business with mainland China, some linguists warn.

More than half of native Taigi speakers no longer use their mother tongue at home, according to a poll of more than 70,000 people conducted by Mr. Ho, of the National Taichung University of Education.

Yet more than 80% of the people Mr. Ho surveyed also said they were interested in learning their mother language from their parents.

Chen Shu-ting, a 39-year-old stay-at-home mother of two children, decided to adopt a Taigi-only rule at home following student protests against a trade pact with China in 2014. Before she could do that, however, she had to relearn the language she hadn’t spoken since childhood.

China’s effect on the language debate was visible at a demonstration in Taipei that broke out in September after Taiwan’s defense minister got into a spat with a lawmaker over the use of Taigi during a legislative hearing.

At least three protesters had repurposed signs from an earlier demonstration, scrawling anti-Mandarin messages on the back of posters that originally said “No China.”

“Speaking our mother tongue is a basic human right,” filmmaker A-yo Chiu said in Taigi at the rally. “Taiwan is a treasure island with multiple languages and cultures, which is where our value lies.”