Earliest Siraya Dialect Unidentified and Unused in Language Revitalisation

Gemini image of " White Chow-Chow roaming in an indigenous village of Taiwan in the 17th century and women weaver". Not bad at al!!

THE DOG

Dog-hair garments and ornaments Georgius Candidius observed and recorded in 1627 belonged to White Chow Chow. How important or how interesting is Chow Chow's hair to indigenous Taiwanese culture (weaving, fabric dyes, rituals and ornaments) over more than 200 years (17-19 century) ? VERY. Details HERE and HERE.

Georgius Candidius, in 1627, recorded 'ayam mamiang' (dog hair) spoken in local (Sinkang Tainan) dialect. ayam means dog is in the Philippines language. mamiang I am not sure, but could also be dog in the Malay language. OR something to do with 'hair' - long white-haired dog.

Point here - ayam means dog (Siraya dialect in 17th-century) is left unidentified and unused by Siraya language activists over some thirty years of language revitalisation.  Instead, ayam means bird/chicken (in the Malay language) is used and taught.

Details HERE and HERE.

"Using Historical Texts: the Case of Siraya" (International Journal of Taiwan Studies. Brill) HERE

The differences between ayam dog of 17th century and ayam bird of 21th is interesting

While I appreciate that there are occasions identifying, implementing and using 'old texts' may not be revitalization activists' immediate interest for there are many complex linguistic choices to make including producing modern vocabularies in reaching wider and younger groups - 

The differences between the two ayams 400 years apart, in my opinion, is interesting from cultural anthropology perspective. As it provides background information Siraya's contacts with the outside world BY 17th century, and a reflection of Candidius' personal journey and experience at the time of his arrival. Before arriving in Formosa in 1627 Candidius worked in Moluccas - the Spice Islands where West Papuan languages are spoken.

Texts example where my opinions are based 

(However, Huang does not describe in detail the differences between the Siraya in the seventeenth-century Dutch texts and the Siraya being revitalised in the twenty-first century.)

(The Austronesian linguist Alexander Adelaar has worked closely with Siraya revivalists and so in some sense has an insider’s view of their activities. In 2013, Adelaar (2013) published an article which analyses some of the linguistic choices that the revivalists needed to make in revitalising Siraya.)

(3 Dutch Missionary Texts in Siraya
The Dutch missionary linguists who wrote the texts that are now being used to revitalise Siraya worked for the Dutch East India Company. The first Dutch minister-missionary, Georgius Candidius, arrived in Taiwan in 1627. He soon moved to the nearby Siraya village of Sinkang, where he carried out missionary work.  He learned the local dialect of Siraya before undertaking its graphisation. He then taught the Siraya people the skills of reading and writing to allow them to read the texts that he wrote. Unfortunately, none of these texts has subsequently been identified (Campbell, [1903] 1992: 99–100) (Outdated information - I have identified ayam means dog from 1627 texts)) (**More see Update 9/2/2026)

The second Dutch minister-missionary in Taiwan, Robertus Junius, arrived in 1629 and left in 1643. Like Candidius, he learned the Sinkang dialect of Siraya, and wrote a catechism in it, which circulated in manuscript and was eventually published in Delft in 1645 (Junius, 1645). No copies of this catechism have been identified in recent times, but two fragments in Siraya, the Lord’s Prayer and the catechism’s title, were transcribed (Joby, 2023). To date, however, Siraya revivalists have made little use of these texts.

SOURCE 王溢嘉 HERE 

SOURCE 王溢嘉 HERE 

I first made some linguistic observations on these historical texts and translations I then found detailed and very useful explanations and analyses on Joby's article. A couple of notes here - 

(For example, ‘earth’ in the um is nay, but in the Gospels näy. Modern Siraya has nay ) - nay (land, earth, ground) I am pretty sure is from tanah HERE.

Horse - I am unclear Siraya revitalised word for 'horse' which appears on both panels above. It might be asi (ass - donkey). ayam as bird is used in the story to describe Cheng runs faster than horse (as in bird flies faster than horse runs)

On-foot  走 means Run. (Hokkien and Japanese)
sium - to run is 走標. Might have been developed from 走 (on foot) Hokkien written 'walk - on foot' but actually means RUN. Same with Japanese 走 (on foot)るHashiru means RUN.

**Update 9/2/2026

There is a very interesting fact I just discovered -

1903 Campbell collected (and donated to London) ‘dog-haired garment’ Candidius described in 1627/1628! 

More Taiwan Collections in London HERE