Visiting the Thao Tribe

On September 20, 2008, the week after Typhoon Sinlaku hit Taiwan I headed south from Taipei to visit the Thao (邵族). According to Ethnologue this language had 5-6 speakers in 2000 and 248 ethnic members of the tribe. I went to find out whether any speakers were still living. Making this trip just a little more challenging is that Ethnologue lists that the Thao have a negative attitude towards the language. We would see how this goes.

If you look at it another way, trying to find a single person in a country of 23 million would seem quite hard. In this case, I would have to head up into the mountains to this small tribe on the shore of Sun Moon Lake. That’s actually not very hard but finding a speaker might be.

I took the high speed rail and got to Taichung station in exactly one hour. I had no idea which way to go, so I asked a girl at information whether there was a bus to Puli or Sun Moon Lake. She said go down the escalator. I came out a door and a man was taking tickets to get on a coach. I was the last to board and not even a minute later we were getting on the freeway.

An hour later we were on a road next
to a river that appears to have done
some damage in the typhoon from last
week. Parts of the highway had been
swept away into the river.

The bus dropped me off in the small tourist town
of Sun Moon Lake and I had to figure out how to
get around to the other side. As it happened another
woman was headed the same direction as I so we
shared a taxi. She happens to be Miss Yu, the head
of the foreign languages department at Chengchi
University, so during the ride we talked about languages.

I arrived at the Thao cultural center where I met a girl making tea and discovered a freshly cut set of antlers on the counter (茸) — I now regret not having gotten a picture of that. I mentioned I was looking for speakers of Thao and they claimed there were many. I felt better, but confused. They indicated I was just in time for the festivities and lead me across the main street where the woman said there were people to meet. I don’t remember her introducing me to anybody in particular or remember who I was supposed to meet, but I think now after the fact it had nothing to do with my mission in particular.

When I asked people about their
language competence most responded
that they know Thao and the children
even learn it in school. However, I
still had my doubts about fluency.

When I explained that I came to research
the language they suddenly became a little
defensive and said I had to ask the elders
but they were not available because of the
festivities. As you can see in the picture,
the elders hardly number half a dozen.

I met one elderly woman who claims to be 93 years old. She converses entirely in Southern Min (as this seems to be the most prevalent language in the village) and she does not understand any Mandarin. When asked to say something in Thao it seemed as if she were struggling to do so. Maybe it’s just been a really long time since she’s used it or it’s because of her age and memory.

Everybody started singing and dancing. They
still know how to sing songs in Thao and I
believe this will be one of the only lasting
legacies of the language, besides a passive
knowledge among children who learn it in school.

Finally walking down the main street looking
for a meal I met Darma who became an
informant. This is the man whose voice
you hear in the recordings on this site.
His health is in pretty bad shape and this
may have been one of the last chances
to get him recorded.

The next day I also found a woman as I was getting ready to leave who can be my informant next time. She displayed a strong ability in the language.

Now that I think back on the trip, I’m wondering how many people I’d find who can still speak the language if I went door to door. Perhaps the Ethnologue estimate is a little bit low, or none of them have passed on since the 2000 census. However, I think the number is quite accurate — you’d be hard pressed to find a dozen people who can speak this language and it would be interesting to see whether they actually use it in dialogue with each other any more — a challenge for the next trip.

Videos coming soon.