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When Taiwanese author Naomi Sim first began writing in Tâi-gí, or Taiwanese Hokkien, she found herself with no readers. “Writing in Tâi-gí was very lonely,” she recalled. “Because you have no readers. The only reader is the judge from the literature world.”
Today, Sim is a celebrated voice in the revival of Taiwan’s mother tongue. A two-time winner of the Tâi-gí Literature Award, her works appear in Tâigael, a new anthology linking authors in Taiwan and Scotland writing in their heritage languages, Tâi-gí and Gaelic.
“My story is about a fictional Matsu or má-tsóo in Tâi-gí,” Sim explained. “I made up a fictional má-tsóo and I’m trying to tell a story about the history of the language Tâi-gí. It has gone through, uh, the one language policy after KMT arrived in Taiwan. And then I kind of also play around with the religious… how the religion and how the rituals, um, has an impact on our Taiwanese.”
The book translates each story into four languages — English, Mandarin, Tâi-gí, and Gaelic — exposing readers to the challenges of preserving meaning across tongues. Sim noted, “In my original text, I wrote about two old men playing chess in front of the temple under a big tree. So in my mind, I pictured a big banyan tree and two old men playing Chinese chess. But when I read the English version… it’s actually maybe a big oak tree. And then two old men playing Western chess.”
Translation work also gave her a new window into Scottish culture. “Translation is like, um, a bridge between two cultures,” she said.
Despite growing up speaking Mandarin and English, Sim taught herself to write in Tâi-gí at age 18. “I self-taught myself to pick up these, uh, writing systems,” she said. “And then I wrote a lot stories in Tâi-gí and needed to ask my parents to do proofreading. They didn’t understand how to read Tâi-gí. So I had to read it out to them… I would say my works are collaborative with my parents.”
Sim acknowledges that earlier generations endured harsh repression for speaking their native tongue. “They used to experience hanging the sign of ‘I don’t speak Tâi-gí’ in schools, uh, as a punishment because they spoke Tâi-gí,” she said.
Younger generations, she believes, are turning to music, movies and drama to reclaim their roots. “The younger generations now want something to show their identity and Tâi-gí music, Tâi-gí movies, dramas are the easiest way for them to access to this kind of identity,” she said.
Sim hopes Tâigael will encourage readers everywhere to reconnect with their roots. “I hope the audience, um, can start to think about their mother tongue. And through this book, I would like the readers to know that any kind of language it is worth written down and passed down.”
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