Taiwan Church News
3748 Edition
Dec 25 ~ 31, 2023
Weekly Topical
Children of Gadris Celebrate Christmas in the Mother Tongue of Payuan
Reported by Lin Wan-ting from Pingtung
Tjavatjavang Church of Payuan Presbytery held mother tongues speech competitions for the elderly citizens, children, brothers and sisters in December, 2023. Awards to the winners were granted in the Christmas thanksgiving service in the morning on Dec 24th. In the afternoon, indigenous dramas in mother tongues were also performed and competed, with four family taking turns to perform on stage. After the result of competition was announced, the dramas were showcased at the Cultural and Health Stand of Dawa Tawang Community Center.
As Tjavatjavang Church had applied to the Council of Indigenous Peoples (CIP) to implement a mother tongue revitalization project, called “Program for Promoting Indigenous Language Development by the Indigenous Churches”, a series of mother tongues activities were therefore proceeded. The related events held recently included Senior Citizens Fellowship’s singing mountain love-lyrics, Sunday school students and the youth’s mother tongue text-reading, listening, speaking and riddle-guess, as well as women fellowship and brother fellowship’s riddle-guess and reading of “A Hundred Biblical verses of the Payuan Language” and etc.
The drama competition on Dec 24th was launched with Senior Citizens Fellowship singing mountain love-lyrics. The lines of drama are adapted from the mother tongue picture book, “Gadris”, co-authored by Rev Ljumeg Patadalj and Evangelist Aruai Patadalj, reviewed by Rev Giljgiljaw (former pastor of Tjavatjavang Church ) and another two Evangelists, and published by Taiwan Church Press in 2023.
Ms Paelrese, an indigenous Rukai lady and an indigenous language promotion official from Pingtung County Government, said that there were about 70 indigenous churches applying to implement the “Program for Promoting Indigenous Language Development by the Indigenous Churches” in Pingtung County. Among the churches submitting application to CIP, she said, the extraordinary performance of the Tjavatjavang Church was highly recognized and affirmed. The Presbyterian churches she was sent to promote mother tongue revitalization all belong to Payuan Presbytery. In addition to Tjavatjavang Church, there are also Tjukuvulj, Kindjaluan, Ljinivak, Icenga, Suimung and other Presbyterian churches, she said.
Ms Paelrese also mentioned that, due to the different geographies and demographical factors, even if the program applicants were all Payuan indigenous churches, they still have their own mother tongue characteristics, especially their accents and intonations. She encouraged the audience not only to read and write down the Payuan language, but also keep and pass the beautiful sounds of Payuan mother tongues in oral communications.
In addition to utilizing mother tongues to do things when we plant or hunt, she reminded, the indigenous community shall efficiently use mother tongues in the space of the church, for example church address plates, bulletin boards and many other daily stuffs could be written down in indigenous languages, so that the church environment could become an education milieu for the community to delve into and learn mother tongues much more easily.
Translated by Peter Wolfe
