Mulleres na Lexicografía / Women in Lexicography

Maa-Neu Dong ( In Tao/Yami: si Somapni) ( In Chinese: 董瑪女Dǒng Mǎnǚ)

Chinese, Tao/Yami

1957, in Yuren Village (Tao/Yami: Iratay), Lanyu Township, Taitung County, Taiwan.

Maa-Neu Dong’s first experience with the preservation of her mother tongue was at the age of 11 or 12, when she was still a pupil. Back then, a Canadian missionary named Grace Irene Wakelin (in Chinese: 魏克琳) was preaching on Dong’s native island. Wakelin compiled a New Testament written in Yami/Tao language, using Zhuyin, a phonetic system prevalent in Taiwan to transcribe Chinese. Under Wakelin’s guidance Dong learnt to write her own language. In 1980, Dong started working at Institute of Ethnology, Academia Sinica, Taiwan. She was employed as a research assistant by Mr Pin-Hsiung Liu, a researcher at the same institute. She was tasked to transcribe the New Testament into Latin alphabet. Mr Liu subsequently applied for a project for Dong and she returned to Lanyu to collect oral folklores, to transcribe them into Latin alphabet too, and to translate them into Chinese. In 1990, Dong started her employment at National Museum of Natural Science (NMNS), Taichung, Taiwan. At leisure, she began to compile a Tao/Yami dictionary on her own initiative, which nonetheless did not yield the desired outcomes due to her lack of experience. It was until around 1995, she met Prof. Victoria Rau at a seminar in Taipei for Aboriginal Languages hosted by Ministry of Education of Taiwan. As Dong was searching for someone with whom she can collaborate on the dictionary project, they soon managed to join their respective expertise and have worked together since. Looking back at her lexicographical works, Dong addressed in our interview the following major challenges she encountered: 1. Cultural terms: Attributable to differences in the living environments of Tao people as opposed to Chinese cultural sphere, many ichthyological terms need to be checked individually if they have an equivalence in Chinese. In addition, Tao/Yami society traditionally observed gendered professions and men were tasked with fishing yet females with weaving. The differentiation of ichthyological terms can thus only be reliant on the knowledge of male speakers of Tao/Yami. On the other hand, the translation of months and seasons is no less challenging, stemming from the fact that Tao people name the months according to their fishing seasons (unlike Chinese, where names of months are numbered, i.e. January = lit. ‘first month’) and that a year is not divided into four seasons as Lanyu is in a different climate zone. 2. Polysemy: Certain vocabulary in Tao can be translated differently depending on the context. An example is the word ‘rahet’, meaning both ‘bad’ and ‘fish only edible by males’, and the lack of context often made the translating tasks more daunting. 3. Abstract terms: The referents of these terms could be hardly specified even after consultations with the tribal elderly as their lengthy explanation can sometimes lead to even more confusion. After Dong’s retirement from NMNS, Dong has remained in the team for language preservation. At the same time, she has also continued to participate numerous events for the teaching of Tao/Yami and is preparing for an further expansion of her dictionaries. During our interview, Dong observed that although younger Taos no longer have a good command of their native language, the recent trend of language revival has brought some ambitious youth back to Lanyu, where they honed their linguistic skills by interacting with the elderly. She wishes that Taos of the next generations can master the current writing system of Tao and profit from the didactic materials they have compiled thus far. Hopefully in the process of language revitalization, they can continue to pass on the Tao language and culture.

● Dong, Maa-Neu & / D. Victoria Rau, D. Victoria (2008). Yami Learning Dictionary ( in Chinese). Providence University, Taiwán. https://museum02.digitalarchives.tw/teldap/2008/yamibow/index_TAO.htm ● Rau, Victoria / Dong, Maa-neu / Chang, Ann Hui-Huan / Rau, Daniel E. /Rau, Gerald A. (Eds.). (2012). 達悟語詞典 ( Yami (Tao) dictionary). National Taiwan University Press.Online: https://issuu.com/ntupress/docs/9789860325195 ● Rau, Victoria / Dong, Maa-neu / Chang, Ann Hui-Huan (Eds.). (2018). 達悟語聖經詞典 (Yami Bible Dictionary). The Bible Society in Taiwan. http://www.ccunix.ccu.edu.tw/~lngrau/Yami%20Bible%20Web/0809-mix.html

Excerpt: Rau, Victoria /Dong, Maa-neu/ Chang, Ann Hui-Huan / Rau, Danie lE. /Rau, Gerald A. (eds.). Rau, Victoria, Maa-neu Dong e Ann Hui-Huan Chang con Daniel E. Rau e Gerald A. Rau (Eds.). (2012). 達悟語詞典. National Taiwan University Press. Online: https://museum02.digitalarchives.tw/validUser?from=/teldap/2008/yamibow/index_TAO.htm

生命力. (2013, March 21). 攜手二十年‭ ‬達悟語詞典傳承不朽 [Video in Chinese]. YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7ENsJOMSPYc‬‬‬‬‬‬‬‬‬‬‬‬‬‬‬

1. References:: Rau, Victoria & Yang, Meng-chien. (2012). 「達悟語線上詞典」的故事 (‘The story behind Tao Online Dictionary’). En Taiwan Digital Archives Expansion Project. https://content.teldap.tw/index/blog/?p=3503 2. Photo: private correspondence.

U-Tong Sih

María Álvarez de la Granja