A cab driver driven by a mission...

A taxi driver working in Greater Kaohsiung, worried that the Hoklo (also known as Taiwanese), Hakka and Aboriginal languages are gradually dying off, has been giving out flyers to customers urging parents to respect their children’s right to inherit their native language by using it with them.“Once you learn how to speak a native language when you are young, it is with you forever,” he said. “Therefore the sequence of language learning should be be oral fluency in native languages, then Mandarin and then a foreign language.” Pan’s intent was to promote the idea that parents should be required to speak in their native language with their children in order to preserve the native languages.

The entire article can be read here

Outback Australia photos

G'day everyone :)

I hope to be uploading pictures of my time earlier this year working in a remote Aboriginal community of Western Australia. I was involved with fieldwork & language documentation among many other tasks. Stay tuned for pictures of all different language activities and life in the Aussie outback!

Thanks for reading :)
Lizzie

Maori language upgraded 'severely endangered' to 'endangered'

This is certainly good news for the Maori language...

Half of the 6000 languages spoken around the world are in danger of disappearing and Ruamata school principal Cathy Dewes says te reo Maori is not yet out of the woods.

Although the UN Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO) degree of language endangerment has moved the Maori language from severely endangered to endangered, Dr Dewes said: "We believe te reo has moved from severely endangered to definitely endangered but our language needs to be spoken by all generations, be transmitted intergenerationally and spoken everywhere and anywhere to survive." UNESCO works to create the conditions for dialogue among civilizations, cultures, and people, based upon respect for commonly shared values.

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