Thao young man of Sun Moon Lake, Nantou, Taiwan ca 1904

The Thao (Chinese: 邵族) are a small group of Taiwanese aborigines who have lived near Sun Moon Lake (Lake Candidius) in central Taiwan for at least a century, and probably since the time of the Qing dynasty. In the year 2000 the Thao tribe numbered only 281, making them the smallest of all aboriginal tribes in Taiwan.^[1] Image File history File links Information: Thao of Sun Moon Lake, Nantou, Taiwan/ Original photographer unknonw/ 1904 Information in Chinese: 居住於日月潭的卲族原住民，準備外出打獵的情形/ 原攝影者不詳/ 1904å¹´ Source: [1] File links The following pages link to this file: Thao ... Image File history File links Information: Thao of Sun Moon Lake, Nantou, Taiwan/ Original photographer unknonw/ 1904 Information in Chinese: 居住於日月潭的卲族原住民，準備外出打獵的情形/ 原攝影者不詳/ 1904å¹´ Source: [1] File links The following pages link to this file: Thao ... Dock of Sun Moon Lake/ Nantou, Taiwan/ taken by geoffroy/ 2003 Sun Moon Lake (Chinese: 日月潭, Pinyin: rìyuètán, Zintun in the Thao language) is the largest lake in Taiwan as well as a popular tourist attraction. ... Nantou is the name of several places: Nantou County (南投縣) of Taiwan Nantou City (南投市) a city in Nantou County Nantou, Guangdong (南头镇) a town in the Guangdong province This is a disambiguation page — a navigational aid which lists other pages that might... A Rukai village Chief visiting the Department of Anthropology in Tokyo Imperial University during the Japanese rule. ... Dock of Sun Moon Lake/ Nantou, Taiwan/ taken by geoffroy/ 2003 Sun Moon Lake (Chinese: 日月潭, Pinyin: rìyuètán, Zintun in the Thao language) is the largest lake in Taiwan as well as a popular tourist attraction. ... The Qing Dynasty (Chinese: ; Pinyin: QÄ«ng cháo; Wade-Giles: Ching chao; Manchu: daicing gurun), occasionally known as the Manchu Dynasty, is a Chinese term for the Empire of the Great Qing (Traditional Chinese: ; pinyin: dàqÄ«ngguó), founded by the Manchu clan Aisin Gioro, in what...

They are the smallest of the Taiwanese aborigine group in terms of population and the smallest ethnic group in Taiwan. Despite their small group size, the Thao have retained their customs, beliefs and traditional culture and language up until now, though they have been assimilated into mainstream Chinese culture as well. Most of the members of this ethnic group work today as menial workers, cooks and vendors in the tourism industry at Sun Moon Lake. The Chi-Chi earthquake of 1999 damaged or destroyed 80% of the houses of the Thao tribe and made many of them lose employment. This is the current collaboration of the week! Please help improve it to featured article standard. ... A servant is a person who is hired to provide regular household or other duties, and receives compensation. ... Tourists at Oahu island, Hawaii Tourism is the act of travel for predominantly recreational or leisure purposes, and also refers to the provision of services in support of this act. ... The Chi-Chi earthquake (also known as 921 earthquake) occurred on September 21, 1999 in central Taiwan at 1:47 am local time (September 20 17:47 GMT) and measured 7. ... 1999 (MCMXCIX) was a common year starting on Friday, and was designated the International Year of Older Persons by the United Nations. ...

Language

The Thao people have their own language, which is nearly extinct and spoken by only a few, mostly elders, of the (already small) Thao ethnic population. The language has been sinicized. Most people who speak Thao are bilingual or trilingual and can speak Mandarin Chinese and/or Taiwanese as well. The Thao language is classified as a Paiwanic language, a subgroup of the Formosan language family which is a subgroup of the much larger Austronesian language family. The Thao language has loanwords from the Bunun language, spoken by the Bunun ethnic group of which the Thao tribe cooperated with as well as intermarried. An endangered language is a language with so few surviving speakers that it is in danger of falling out of use. ... Sinicization, or less commonly Sinification, is to make things Chinese. ... This article is on all of the Northern Chinese dialects. ... Template:Dablick Taiwanese (Traditional Chinese: 台語, 台灣話; Pinyin: Táiyǔ, Táiwānhuà; Taiwanese Pe̍h-oē-jī: Tâi-gí or Tâi-oân-oē) is a dialect of Min Nan spoken by about 70% of the Taiwanese population. ... Paiwan is the native language of Taiwan. ... The Formosan languages are a group of Austronesian languages spoken 2% of the population of Taiwan, almost exclusively aboriginals. ... The Austronesian languages are a language family widely dispersed throughout the islands of Southeast Asia and the Pacific ( with a few members spoken on continental Asia). ... A loanword (or loan word) is a word directly taken into one language from another with little or no translation. ... The Bunun language (布農話) is spoken by the Bunun people of Taiwan. ... Bunun people of Taiwan, in formal attire. ...

Official recognition

On 15 August 2001, the Executive Yuan (Council) of Taiwan officially recognized the Thao tribe as the tenth ethnic group among Taiwan's indigenous peoples. The Thao have been mistakenly regarded as the ‘Tsou’ tribe (a separate and different ethnic group of aborigines) since the time of Japanese occupation. The error was caused by both a misunderstanding of the legend saying that "the ancestors of Thao were from the mountain Alishan (Mountain A Li)" and the similar pronunciation of ‘Thao’ and ‘Tsou’. Thus, the domain of the Thaos had been registered as "Tsous from the flatlands of the mountains" under the nine ethnic groups of Taiwan’s indigenous peoples. The Executive Yuan (行政院; literally executive court) is the executive branch of the government of the Republic of China. ... Tsou youth, pre-1945 The Tsou (also spelled Cou) are an indigenous people of Taiwan. ... The Alishan National Scenic Area (阿里山國家風景區) is a mountain resort and natural preserve located in the mountains of Chiayi County in Taiwan. ...

References

External links

Wikimedia Commons has media related to:

Thao

• Thao Homepage
• 'Home at last!' The Thao return to their ancestral homeland.