《TAIPEI TIMES》 Civic groups call for founding of public Hoklo TV channel

By Wang Jung-hsiang / Staff reporter

Civic groups in Kaohsiung yesterday called for the government to establish a Hoklo-language （also known as Taiwanese） public television station.

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People at the forum expressed a bleak outlook for the development of Hoklo, with Southern Taiwan Society chairman Chang Fu-chu （張復聚） saying that the language would perish in 30 years if action is not taken to salvage it.

The forum was organized by the Taiwan Radical Wings Party and the Promoting Public Hoklo Television Station Alliance, with participants urging the government to establish a public TV station using Hoklo.

The government is working on a draft national language development bill.

Vernacular languages in Taiwan have been listed as endangered by the UN, Chang said, adding that languages die when people no longer learn and speak them.

The inept language policy of the then-Chinese Nationalist Party’s （KMT） authoritarian regime caused the decline of Hoklo, the Taiwan Radical Wings party said, adding that a public Hoklo TV station is essential to amending past wrongs and bringing about transitional justice.

Taiwan Radical Wings’ Kaohsiung branch director Lee Hsin-han （李欣翰） said that the next generation could see Hoklo disappear, as fewer young people speak Hoklo and more elderly people communicate with their grandchildren in Chinese.

Saying that most public resources are allocated to protecting Aboriginal and Hakka languages, Li Kang-khioh Taiwanese Foundation director-general Chen Feng-hui （陳豐惠） said that from the perspective of fairness and justice, the call for a public Hoklo TV station is only a tiny step in the effort to revive the language.

“While such a TV station is certainly not a cure-all, it would be an engine to the language’s development,” Taiwan Citizen Participation Association secretary-general Hsu Hui-ying （許慧盈） said.

新聞來源：TAIPEI TIMES