As the government moves to rectify the devastating past suppression of languages such as Hoklo (also known as Taiwanese), Hakka and the various Aboriginal tongues, it has become common to read news reports in which people question such policies and the importance of learning such languages.
Just months after National Taiwan University professors shut down a student representative who spoke Hoklo at a university cooperative shop board meeting, oddly comparing speaking Hoklo to smoking cigarettes, controversy erupted again last week.
