FINAL PUBLIC HEARING ON NATIONAL LANGUAGE DRAFT BILL IN TAICHUNG|"國家語言"末場公聽 促手語入法.台語正名

The final public hearing was held for the Ministry of Culture's draft National Language Development Bill in Taichung. Hearing impaired groups advocated for Taiwan sign language and other groups advocated for Taiwanese names, while yet others, said that Taiwan should pay attention to international standards. The final public hearing on the bill for the national language development bill saw hearing impaired people from all over Taiwan silently debating the inclusion of Taiwan sign language in the draft bill. ==LEE HUNG-YUAN Exec.-Dir., Taoyuan Welfare Assn. of the Deaf== The hearing impaired and the hearing should have equal status and we hope that our sign language has its own grammar, its own structure and is the native language of our deaf people. Hearing impaired groups want Taiwan's unique sign language included in the draft bill to develop their own culture. After the public hearing, some groups advocated that Chinese must not be included in the law and the Minnan language must be designated as Taiwanese language. They were also against recent immigrants' languages being included in the law. ==CHEN KUAN-LANG member, Taiwan Radical Wings== The second article of the draft bill which relates to Minnan language, which is a Chinese language and recent immigrants' languages should not be included in the draft bill. Retired teachers suggest that the draft bill should be renamed as a 'national diverse language development bill' and that national language should respect diversity and should avoid stronger languages excluding more vulnerable languages. ==HSU HUI-HSIN member, Taiwan ERA (retired teachers' assn.)== We suggest that the draft bill's name be changed to 'diverse language development bill' and that the eighth article be removed completely, it is difficult as, in all of Taiwan's cities and counties, there is no-one who has the same mother language. The Minister of Culture, Cheng Li-chiun, promised that after all seven of the public hearings on the draft bill were finished, a final version would be produced which incorporated all views. Then another national public hearing would go ahead with the goal of successfully amending the law to protect all languages and groups. TRANSLATED BY：CLARE LEAR 文化部「國家語言發展法」草案公聽會，最後一場，在台中舉行。上午，有聽障團體主張，讓「台灣手語入法」，還有團體，是要求「台語正名」，更有人建議，「國家語言發展法」，應該要重視和國際接軌。 「國家語言發展法」的公聽會台中場，來自全國各地的聽障人士，他們無聲的熱烈討論著，但共同的主張就是，「台灣手語要入法」。 ==桃園市聾啞福利協會常務理事 李鴻源== 我們聽障者跟聽人 能夠有平等的地位 希望將我們的聾人手語 我們有自己的語法 自己的結構 這是屬於我們聾人自己的母語 聽障團體要訴求的是，「台灣手語」入法，才能發展屬於他們的文化。而公聽會開始後，也有團體主張，華語不能入法，閩南語要正名為「台灣話」，還有新移民語言也不適合入法的主張。 ==基進黨黨員 陳寬郎== 法案裡面第二條所提出的 閩南語這種大中華思維 （另外)移民語言 不適合放在國家語言發展法裡面 成為保障對象 也有曾經從事教育第一線工作的退休教師建議，法案採「國家多元語言發展法」名稱，認為國家語言除了要尊重多元文化，更要避免強勢語言排擠弱勢語言。 ==全國退休教師協會會員 徐慧芯== 建議草案名稱應該改為 多元語言發展法 我認為這(法案)第八條 應該全部刪除 非常難行 台灣沒有一個縣市人口 是同一個母語的 文化部長鄭麗君則是保證，國家語言發展法草案7場公聽會結束後，匯整各界意見的版本，還會再舉辦一場全國大型公聽會，希望「國家語言發展法」，能夠順利修法實施，保障各種語言與族群。 記者 黃千容 賴世杰 台中報導