Language Revitalisation Using Historical Texts: the Case of Siraya

Abstract To achieve national recognition, Plains Indigenous people (aka Pingpu) in Taiwan need an ethnolect. The language of one Plains Indigenous group, the Siraya, was extinct for most of the twentieth century. However, one advantage they have over other Plains Indigenous groups seeking national recognition is that much of their language was written down by Dutch missionaries in the seventeenth century with the assistance of their Siraya forefathers. This has allowed Siraya language activists to revitalise their language by producing textbooks, songbooks, and other material for learning and using the language. This article analyses how Siraya language activists have used the Dutch texts to breathe new life into their language. It focuses on two features of the language, phonology and lexis, and examines the choices that the language activists have made, differences between the revitalised language and the language recorded in the Dutch texts resulting from these choices, and possible reasons for these differences.