Hakka is a living language. The HPCF operates the first national Hakka radio station in Taiwan. Since its launch on June 23, 2017, it has played more than 30,000 hours of Hakka program audio files. We share the sound memories from the land, and plan to build a Hakka sound bank that collects local stories, folk songs and proverbs, and try to create database and release these Hakka sound sources from ownership to the good public. The arousal of the public’s attention and participation in such issues as the openness of Hakka materials and cross-domain collaboration, we have called for Hakka partners since Dec. in 2020, review and organize the first-hand and second-hand field data accumulated in the local area, and use the equipment by following user manual to form a new Hakka open community. The community has successively uploaded the historical data of Hakka voices on the Chinese Wiki platform. In the process, it was discovered that Hakka characters and pinyin such as First-person perspective vocabulary “𠊎” (it means “I” ) are displayed on cross-platform, "I write down what I say”. The issue such as the development of the new generation Hakka cross-platform input method and phonetic system also need to be solved and valued urgently.
For the aspect of media democracy in digital communication field, we focus on the public function of communication, the facilitation of communication in Hakka, and the transparency and sharing of the information. Related issues are like: how to integrate huge amount of local historical and cultural resources, how to build digital database of collected documents, and even the challenge of Hakka language writing and pinyin system. For the latter, until now, we still cannot type and show the Hakka word ‘I’ on the mobile devices. We hope there will be a better cross-platform Hakka typing system for the public in the future.
Therefore, through the interdisciplinary presentation this time, we look forward to letting open source community, COSCUP community, experts from industry, academia, and the government, and the general public be aware of the issues we mentioned. From this point forward, we can open up more opportunities and routes for further participation, discussion, communication and engagement. Together, we hope to increase the use of Hakka communication in daily digital life and provide better user experience.
Hakka is recognized as a national language of Taiwan (R.O.C) in the Hakka Basic Act. The Hakka Public Communication Foundation (HPCF), as a public service media, is dedicated to promote Hakka language and culture. To practice the right of media access, we produce and broadcast the programs in multiple Hakka accents (Sixian, Hailu, Dapu, Raoping, Zhoan,) through Hakka Radio and operate Hakka new media ; these all make Hakka naturally become a part of everyday life.
About Chen,Pang-Chen, the president of HPCF
Chen,Pang-Chen
The current president of HPCF, also an experienced worker of cultural affairs who has been engaging in preservation of local cultures and community movements in Taiwan for years. He focuses on contemporary development of Hakka language and culture.
About Frank Hsu
A senior radio presenter who has been awarded Golden Bell Awards for radio broadcasting. He is currently the general manager of HPCF as well as the president of Hakka Radio.