“A language is a flash of the human spirit. It’s a vehicle through which the soul of each particular culture comes into the material world. ”
“語言是人類靈魂的神來一筆。是透過它，每個獨特的文化精神，才得以在物質世界體現。”
“Every language is an old-growth forest of the mind, a watershed, a thought, an ecosystem of spiritual possibilities.”
“每種語言，都是一座古老的思想森林，也是一種意識和生命可能性的生態體系。”
Wade Davis : Dreams from endangered culture
“Identity” is tightly related to “humanity”. Probably human is the only species, among all the creatures in the world, who construct the societies by giving identities to theirs members. Complex information is encoded in identities, we can observe the relationships between oneself and the others, the interaction between people and societies or the natural environment, as well as the history of mankind. Because I am a Taiwanese, let’s start from the story of Taiwan.
「稱呼」，似乎是一門相當「人」味的領域，因為生靈萬物中，好像只有人類透過「稱呼」，構建出一套社會倫理和意義。從「稱呼」中，我們能夠窺探人和他人、人與（社會或自然）大環境的關係、以及人類滾動的歷史樣貌。又，筆者為臺灣人，所以先說臺灣的故事。
As a non-Han person, I am fascinated by the strict kinship structure and the anthroponymy which often relates to the stars and the nature. By understanding how Han people react to titles within kinships, and what matters on a process of name creating, I eager to explore what “Han” identity is and the “core value” of being a Han person.
誠如漢文化圈嚴謹的家庭稱謂、和與天地相依而生的姓名學，牽引著身為非漢文化圈的筆者，帶著著迷的心，探究這個「稱謂」結構所道出的漢文化面貌，並從中試著了解漢文化圈民族所中意的人生核心為何。
Apart from the main-stream Han culture in Taiwan, there are more than 16 ethnic groups also living on this island. These ethnic minorities represent the ancient aboriginal groups. Before the colonizers came to this island, the local populations have their own group names and the names to call the neighboring groups. Most of the self-proclaim names mean “of the X”, the X can describe the landscape of the dwellings, or simply means “mankind”. For example, my ethnic background is “Drekai”, it is “alpine cold area” in my language, so the meaning of my group is “people of the alpine cold area”. Another example is Ataayal group, “Ataayal” is “mankind” in their language.
別於漢這主流文化，臺灣島上還有十六種（以上）非主流，但相當古老的原住民族群。這些族群，在外來殖民勢力進來之前，有自己對自己的稱呼，有對其鄰近民族的稱呼。從其「自稱」的說法當中，最終大多表示「是…的人」，而在這種模式的自稱中，有以「描述所居住環境」為主的說法，如筆者所屬的 「Drekai」，也有直接說「是人」的說法，如「Ataayal」等等。筆者所屬的 「Drekai」，其意為「高山寒冷區」，所以「Drekai」是「高山寒冷區的人」。「Ataayal」，其意為「人」，即泰雅族人的自稱。
Following the above argument, the self-proclaims also present the “self-identity: it is the “self-image” that the person and the group recognize themselves. As the example that I mentioned, the meanings of the ethnic group names of the indigenous people in Taiwan all refer to “mankind” in the end. In this time of postmodernism, people rethink the “colonization” and “globalization” profoundly, the concept of “localization” is thus raising. What is the true meaning of localization? Maybe the perspective of self-proclaim names of oneself could provide an important angle to the topic of “localization”.
承上，「自稱」進一步表彰出得意義是「自我認同」，即個人或族群所認定的「自我形象」，例如臺灣島上的原住民族群自我認同，其終極意境大都是「人」。而「自稱」這種從「自我」出發的思想角度，在反思「殖民」、反思「全球化」、尋求「在地化」的後現代時空中，當中的自我詮釋精神，突顯了這個時代意義。
Mei-Shin Wu.
TDRP