On Thursday, the right to use one’s mother tongue made headlines when academics and language advocates stood up against two National Taiwan University professors who on July 30 shut down a student representative who spoke Hoklo (also known as Taiwanese) in a university Cooperative Shop board meeting.
The professors insisted that only Mandarin be used and in a previous meeting motioned that people using any other language would not be allowed to speak, and their words would not be recorded in the minutes.