Written by Elizabeth Zeitoun.
Image credit: Map of Taiwan redrawn.
Many languages are spoken in Taiwan, including Southern Min, Eastern Min, Hakka, various Indigenous languages – sixteen are officially recognised – Taiwan Sign Language, and languages brought by Southeast Asian migrants (Price 2019). However, many of these languages are now endangered, with some having already gone extinct, and others at risk of disappearing rapidly, primarily due to language policies enforced during the Japanese occupation (1895-1945) and the early years of the Nationalist government (1949-1989). During the Japanese colonial era, the “Kōminka” policy promoted Japanese as the only official language, while the ROC’s “Mandarin-only” policy further suppressed “local” languages. These policies have severely impacted the transmission and their use, leaving most of them vulnerable today (Her 2025).
The 1990s marked a turning point in efforts to preserve Indigenous languages, spurred by the “Indigenous Peoples’ Name Rectification” movement and significant changes to the ROC Constitution. These movements led to the establishment of the Council of Indigenous Peoples (CIP) in 1996, which has since played a crucial role in revitalising these languages. It has been instrumental in implementing the “Act for the Certification of Indigenous Language Proficiency” in 2001, which created a certification system for Indigenous languages, evolving into a five-level proficiency test by 2017 (Collart, Wu and Huang 2024). The CIP has also overseen several six-year revitalisation plans aimed at integrating Indigenous languages into daily life, developing language programs, and promoting linguistic diversity. Similarly, in January 2012, the Hakka Affairs Council (HAC) was established to preserve and revitalise Hakka language and culture, succeeding the Council of Hakka Affairs, which was founded in 2001 (Chun and Chen 2025).
Taiwanese society is in perpetual motion. More recently, it has been shaken by the Tsai Ing-wen government’s “Bilingual 2030” policy, aimed at promoting English. This has sparked debate over its potential impact on Taiwan’s linguistic diversity, with two opposing views: one warning against the marginalisation of “local” languages, reducing Taiwan’s linguistic landscape from twenty languages to just two official ones, and the other advocating the reduction of Mandarin’s dominance by promoting English (Chang and Tsou 2025).
A word needs to be said about my own journey, which is connected to the editing of this special issue. While two Formosan languages, Siraya and Favorlang, were recorded during the Dutch colonial period in the 17th century, it was not until the late 19th century that Japanese scholars began to investigate the cultures and languages of Taiwan’s Indigenous ethnic groups more extensively. Despite important compilations, such as Ogawa and Asai’s (1935) pioneering monograph, the field struggled to thrive due to the policies that marginalised the term “aborigine”, the people, and their culture. Linguists like Paul Jen-kuei Li and Shigeru Tsuchida made significant contributions by studying the synchronic and diachronic phonologies of these languages, providing vocabulary lists that laid the foundation for phonological and lexical reconstructions, and engaging in extensive discussions about the internal and external subgroupings of the Formosan languages. However, it wasn’t until the late 1980s and early 1990s that Formosan languages began to gain more attention from linguists and students.
I was fortunate to be one of those who became involved during this period. Over the past 30 years, I have remained deeply committed to the preservation of these languages, despite the slow pace of progress. The work is time-consuming and challenging, and the passing of fluent speakers only accelerates the urgency of this effort. In addition to my own research, I have encouraged my PhD students to write comprehensive grammars, which are essential for re-appropriating these languages through the creation of coherent teaching materials. After more than three decades of continuous fieldwork, no one understands the loss of speakers—and languages— better than I do. Every step—gaining access to communities, building bridges with speakers, recording, transcribing, and analysing data—requires immense patience, all while confronting the painful reality that these languages are vanishing at a faster rate than I could have imagined when I first began my research.
Having started my work in 1991, I have personally “experienced” the history of Taiwan and observed its profound transformations. I have witnessed the significant changes that occurred following the lifting of Martial Law in 1987, and the subsequent democratisation and liberalisation of Taiwanese society. As part of this process, I confronted the stigmatisation of “indigeneity” by actively engaging in the training of Indigenous assistants (as early as 1997) and students (in the early 2000s), and working hands-on to support the development of language policies. For over 20 years, I have been involved in language proficiency exams. At one point, I served as a member of the Council of Indigenous Peoples (CIP) and of the Indigenous Peoples Commissions of Taipei City.
This was not a path I had initially sought out, but one in which I found myself deeply immersed, swept up in a whirlwind of social and political change. This realisation reached its peak when I was asked to share my thoughts at the Parliament on April 13, 2017, during deliberations concerning the National Languages Development Act, which was promulgated in January 2019. I responded by saying that unless there was genuine respect for Indigenous peoples, none of those who had lost their language and/or culture would be able to regain their self-esteem or have the means to reclaim – or even learn how to reclaim – both.
The purpose of this topical section was to reflect on the Indigenous language policies in Taiwan, with possible comparisons with other linguistic communities in Hawaii, New Zealand, or other parts of the world. It was meant to include a comprehensive introductory paper that would assess the current state of language policies concerning the Formosan languages, review various programs in which linguists may have been involved over the past twenty years, and reflect on the limitations of these measures, as briefly mentioned earlier. However, a similar article was included in the Handbook on Formosan languages: The Indigenous languages of Taiwan (Collart, Wu and Huang 2024). I had initially gathered twelve abstracts that explored the intersections of language policies, community action, and the role of linguists, while acknowledging the challenges Indigenous peoples face in an evolving cultural and social landscape. Unfortunately, the intended discussion did not materialise, due to a combination of factors, including the publication of related works and the lack of follow-through from some contributors.
Nonetheless, I decided to continue, as I believe it is crucial in the field of Taiwan studies to document ongoing changes, transitions, and evolving perspectives. This topic section features four articles that provide various aspects of the challenges faced by researchers in trying to develop effective strategies for revitalisation and Indigenous communities, who are directly affected by language policies.
The first two papers examine constitutional rulings and their impact at the national level. The first article, written by Cassandra Preece, focuses on Taiwan’s Indigenous Language Development Act, exploring the role of institutional and non-institutional actors, particularly that of the CIP, in shaping language policies and representation for Indigenous ethnic groups. Interviews provide insights into the CIP’s influence and suggest directions for further research on language policy (Preece 2026).
The second paper, by Christopher Joby, analyses language revitalisation following Taiwan’s Constitutional Court ruling on 28 October 2022, towards the national recognition of the Plains Indigenous peoples. It examines the revitalisation efforts by Siraya language activists using historical Dutch missionary texts to compile teaching materials. It also discusses the phonological and lexical discrepancies between the original sources and the modern texts (Joby 2026).
The third article, by Apay Tang, evaluates the Silent Way teaching method in a multilingual environment, specifically with Truku Seediq students in elementary schools. Based on both qualitative and quantitative assessments over eight weeks, the study finds this method effective for teaching Indigenous languages (Tang 2026).
The fourth paper, by Amy Pei-jung Lee, discusses the writing systems for Formosan languages, focusing on standardisation efforts made by the Ministry of Education and the Council of Indigenous Peoples. It reviews the development of these systems, their adaptations to individual languages, and ongoing debates about orthographic standardisation, offering recommendations for future language policies (Lee 2026).
In conclusion, recent research and increased societal awareness towards Indigenous peoples have certainly contributed to the revitalisation of (some) Indigenous languages. However, it is still too early to tell whether this is just a chimaera. Despite all our collective efforts, I remain somewhat pessimistic about the future of the Formosan languages.
The four articles in this special issue are now available in the International Journal of Taiwan Studies 9.1 (March 2026): https://brill.com/view/journals/ijts/9/1/ijts.9.issue-1.xml.
Elizabeth Zeitoun is Distinguished Research Fellow at the Institute of Linguistics, Academia Sinica. Her major research interests lie in Austronesian linguistics, morphosyntax, typology, and historical linguistics. She is specialised in Rukai, Saisiyat, and Tsou, and has worked on many Formosan languages. She has published a number of sketch grammars in Chinese and two major monographs on Rukai and Saisiyat. She has been Acting Editor and later Executive Editor of Language and Linguistics from April 2008 through June 2013, and is one of the co-editors of the Handbook of Formosan Languages: The Indigenous Languages of Taiwan (Brill 2024).
This article was published as part of the International Journal of Taiwan Studies-Taiwan Insight special issue on ‘Indigenous Language Policies in Taiwan and Beyond’.
Taiwan Insight 