please support Siraya reclamation

[Chun Jimmy Huang]

Tabe, friends and colleagues from ILAT,

Siraya is one of the indigenous peoples (Austronesian) in Taiwan 
that have not yet been recognized by Taiwan's government. The 
Siraya language was last spoken a century ago, and hence it is 
labeled as "extinct" by the mainstream society and academia. The 
relation between such labeling and the denial of our identity is 
hence obvious.

However, the fact is that the Siraya people are still living 
strong. And we have been working on revitalizing our sleeping 
mother tongue and native culture since 1997.

On May 2nd, 2009, the Siraya Culture Association and friends are 
going on the street to demand the government recognize the 
"indigenous" status of Siraya and also other Taiwanese low-land 
indigenous peoples. Such political recognition is of great 
significance to our language revitalization effort, for it 
concerns availability of funding and resources. Also, to our 
people, it will mean that we are no longer mistaken as "extinct."

The Siraya Culture Association has made an online petition form. I 
would much appreciate if you can sign it and show your support.

Unfortunately our computer technician has trouble creating an 
English interface and hyperlinks now. So I just translated the 
statement and the explanation of the signing process from the 
original Chinese text to English.

Basically, you can:
go to this website first
http://campaign.tw-npo.org/campaign/sign.php?id=2009031902170000

Scroll down and read the English statement.

Then, go to the bottom of the page and click on the link to the 
right (or open it on a new tag/page) that has 6 Chinese 
characters. That's for individual signing. Then, from top to 
bottom you will see several grids.

(1) Name. Please sign your name here in your native language.
(2) English name. If your native name is in English, ignore this 
grid. You do need to sign (1) to be accepted by the system, 
though.
(3) Affiliation
(4) Ignore this... it's geographical locations in Taiwan.
(5) Email
(6) cell phone number
(7) (other) phone number

Except for (1), everything else is optional.

(8) And then, if possible, please leave some message in the big 
box. Any word from you would mean a lot to us.
(9) Verify by entering the number in the last grid. Then click on 
the button below it and you are done.

Madak ki alilid (thank you very much!)


Chun Jimmy Huang
PhD candidate,
Linguistics, University of Florida
Linguistic consultant,
Tainan Ping-pu Siraya Culture Association