Comments on: Amis Hebrew School (Learning an Endangered Language Part 8)

By: Kerim

Kerim — Tue, 16 Oct 2012 23:51:43 +0000

@DJ For now I'm focusing on more official initiatives, not so much the use of the language in popular culture, though I'd love to hear more about your thoughts on this. But testing is a big part of my research and has a big impact on how the language is taught. I'll probably write more about this in another post.

By: DJ Hatfield

DJ Hatfield — Tue, 16 Oct 2012 15:45:56 +0000

sigh. at least your class isn’t dominated by the need to game the testing system. this analogy, i think, is a useful one, and might show the disadvantages of evaluating languages as a component of heritage. once again, i’m reminded of the bold–and useful–thinking behind suming’s experiments in ‘amis language media

By: Kerim

Kerim — Tue, 16 Oct 2012 14:52:16 +0000

@John My father had a similar experience with French in college.

@Al: Native Language education (including in Hoklo and Hakka) is taught for one 40 min period a week in elementary schools. This class is often skipped if there is something else, like preparation for a test, which the school feels is more important. Texts are very basic and mostly involve a few simple dialogs and some songs. Yes, there are a few grammar books, and one of my teachers is preparing to work on a more definitive one.

By: Al West

Al West — Tue, 16 Oct 2012 14:45:09 +0000

Kerim,

What’s the situation like for children – do they have the option to learn Amis at school, or is it the same kind of dead-language-tuition style even if they choose it? Also, are there any good textual resources you can use? I picked up a few books on indigenous languages when I was last in Taiwan, in 2009, including a good reference grammar of Seediq (賽得克語參考語法, 張永利 [2000]). Anything like that for Amis?

Sorry if you’ve answered these questions elsewhere!

By: John McCreery

John McCreery — Tue, 16 Oct 2012 07:26:44 +0000

Kerim, I briefly encountered something perhaps even closer to the way in which you were taught Hebrew in Puli (1969-71). There were classes in classical Chinese at the local Confucius temple. As I recall, the students (a mixed lot similar to what you describe) were memorizing the Thousand Character Classic using Hokkien instead of Mandarin pronunciations. Also, of course, there was my wife's experience. As a graduate student in Japanese literature at Yale, she was required to pass an exam in either French or German. Having previously studied Latin for five years, she taught herself enough French to translate the set piece required to pass the test and, to the best of my knowledge, has never spoken a word of the language.