Abstract
This article depicts how Dutch language developed in the colonies and settlements of the Dutch East India Company (VOC) through its linguistic policies during the Early Modern Era when the company started commercial and colonial expansions in the region of Monsoon Asia. The authour then focuses on Dutch learning in the context of missionary and educational activities, among the Taiwan Indigenous Peoples from the central to southern Taiwan. The Company's domain under discussion includes the Moluccas and Java in Island Southeast Asia, as well as Ceylon in South Asia where the Company set governors as the chair of offices; additionally, Japan stood for the example of learning Dutch in an economically important factory. The former represented the unsuccessful ending of the promotion of Dutch language under local linguistic surroundings with must more often used lingua franca, Malay and Portuguese. The latter provided an active model motivated by the practical necessity of commerce and the prerequisite of the fact that the Dutch as the only cultural mediators when Japan isolated itself from the world. The Shogun ordered scholars to learn Dutch. However, Dutch learning also attracted other intellectuals interested in new knowledge spread from Europe, and they finally found the study of rangaku leading to the opening of country in the nineteenth century. Taiwan had been seen as the most outstanding case of Dutch learning compared to other areas where the Company operated its policies of Dutch education for the local people, though Formosan language situation was not simple at that time. By analyzing extant indigenous orthographic materials, the author investigates lexical borrowing and its historical connection by language contact. The study reveals the following phenomena: First, the influence of Tagalog and Malay in Siraya. Second, the Minan Dialect as a foreign language can be the most frequently adopted and bastardized in both Siraya and Favorlang during the Dutch period of Taiwan. Third, even though the Dutch had not established a school in Paiwanese region, it was possible for the Paiwanese to preserve more Dutch linguistic elements due to their own social-cultural institutions as a hierarchical society. The last, one example of "pa" concerning tax-farms introduced by the Company showed the adoption of Dutch words in Minan Dialect and Paiwanese language. Furthermore, its idea of meaning and even related activities continued in present-day southern Taiwan, which may be perceived as the part of Dutch legacy in Formosa.