WGSS 514Final: Conference PaperChing Chih TsengVanishing Voice: The Culture of the Indigenous People of TaiwanToday I will tell a story, the history of the indigenous people of Taiwan. First of all, I would like to introduce the context of Taiwan. In 1590, the Portuguese explored Taiwan and named it "Formosa", meaning beautiful island. Now people call Taiwan, or the official name of the Republic of China is my country. Taiwan has a total area of ​​approximately fourteen thousand square miles. We have twenty-three million three hundred and forty thousand inhabitants. Who lives on this beautiful island? Today, 98% of Taiwanese people are descended from a mix of Han Chinese that includes 70% Hoklo, 14% Hakka and 14% mainlanders. While 2% are indigenous, Taiwan's indigenous people have lived on this island for perhaps 8,000 years. They are Austronesian speaking people. Some anthropologists even believe that the Austronesian people originated in Taiwan. After the founding of the Republic of China in 1911, the Nationalist government established the National Language Movement (NLM); a mass effort to standardize and propagate the national was chosen as the supra-dialectal standard. In 1916, the Ministry of Education authorized a system of transcription of alphabets which was renamed National Phonetic Symbols (NSP) in 1930. Additionally, the Taiwan government arbitrarily classified national phonetic symbols. indigenous peoples as wild peoples for more than fifty years. Finally, indigenous peoples launched an indigenous movement in 1984 to fight for identity and protection of rights. After nearly a decade of fighting movement, Taiwan's indigenous people finally changed their identity from savage people to the official name "indigenous people". Now, Tai... middle of paper ... original indigenous name is Abi. The Friends were also called “Pangcah”, in our language, “Pangcah” means people or even tribe. Amis has another meaning which is north, because Amis live in the northern part of my country. I wish and hope that our voice, our unique culture can be heard and seen by my country and the rest of the world. Where is the social justice for the indigenous people living in Taiwan? We have fourteen different indigenous tribes in Taiwan; each tribe has its own language and traditional culture, unique and beautiful. It is sad to think that one day indigenous cultures might disappear from Taiwanese society. The lifting of martial law in 1987 marked a new era for a multicultural and multilingual society in Taiwan. With this political change and global multiculturalism, people began to see dialects in a new light.