Missionary linguistics in seventeenth-century Taiwan

Abstract

Missionary linguistics in seventeenth-century Taiwan
In the Age of European Expansion, Dutch Reformed and Spanish Catholic missionaries attempted to win the souls of Indigenous Formosans in Taiwan. One way they did this was by writing texts in Formosan languages with the assistance of Formosan informants. The texts included translations of the books of the Bible, catechisms, sermons, prayers, and songs. Texts in two Formosan languages, Siraya and Favorlang (an earlier form of Babuza) by Dutch Reformed missionary linguists survive. These te~ts manifest dialectal variation. Furthermore, we have information about written texts in Basay by Spanish Catholic missionary linguists. In this lecture, Professor Christopher Joby draws on examples in his new book, "Christian mission in seventeenth-century Taiwan" and other examples by Austronesian linguists such as Sander Adelaar and Paul J. Li to illustrate how the missionary linguists tried to overcome the gap between their own languages and cultures and those of the Formosans to communicate their mode of Christianity to the Formosans.
This lecture will introduce Professor Joby's new book "Christian mission in seventeenth-centuryTaiwan: A Reception History of Texts, Beliefs, and Practices" (Brill, 2025). Professor Christopher Joby PhD, hab., FRHistS is a Research Associate, Centre of Taiwan Studies, SOAS, University of London and Honorary Research Fellow and Associate Tutor, School of History, University of East Anglia.'