Lo Seo-gim: an enthusiastic Hakka linguist


Hakka linguist Lo Seo-gim

Chinese Name
: 羅肇錦
Born: July 1, 1949
Birthplace: Miaoli County (Northern Taiwan)

Lo Seo-gim, a Hakka from Tongluo Township in Miaoli County, specializes in research into Hakka language in Taiwan. He was a participant in 1988’s Hakka Language Restoration Movement (還我客家話運動). When he was younger, his family circumstances forced him down the path of being a teacher but his ambition made him restless in this profession so he quit to pursue his own studies and was admitted to the Chinese department of Fu Jen Catholic University and National Taiwan Normal University’s Chinese research institute, setting him on a lifetime path of literature and language research.

While at university, he came to feel that the Hakka language had been suppressed in Taiwanese society; people at that time seemed ashamed to speak Hakka. He wondered why his own language could not be conveyed in schools or in the media. He thought he would certainly want to study and spread Hakka if there were an opportunity, so he wanted to write his master’s thesis on a topic related to Hakka. At that time, however, it was seen as heretical to write about something related to Taiwan.

Although there was no way to do Hakka research, he chose to cover Chinese dialects very close to Hakka. At that time he happened to encounter an army veteran who came to Taiwan from Ruijin (瑞金) in China’s Jiangxi Province. Lo did not know at that time that the language of Ruijin was Hakka, only that it was very close to Hakka. He thus did research into the Ruijin dialect and unexpectedly produced the earliest master’s thesis on Hakka.

At the time of 1988’s Hakka Language Restoration Movement, Lo Seo-gim was teaching at National Taiwan Normal University, where he recited a eulogy in Hakka to ROC founder Sun Yat-sen, recounting the tragedy of the Hakka people’s language being suppressed and lost. After that, he successfully secured the production of a show about Hakka culture entirely in Hakka, “Village Nostalgia.” The show initially consisted of Lo conversing with Hakka novelist Chung Chao-cheng (鍾肇政) and later with Hakka literary author Chen Yun-dong (陳運棟). He also did programs with cultural interviews in various places for eight or nine years.
 
Lo Seo-gim recited a eulogy in Hakka

Having researched the Hakka language for many years, Lo believes Hakka’s subjective nature must exist and that the Hakka language must have its characteristics, independence and differences from other languages for him to want to research it. Lo Seo-gim expects Hakka people themselves to have consciousness and, in striving for the revival of the Hakka language, to go from “restoring” the mother tongue to actively retrieving it. For the Hakka language to continue to be passed on requires everyone to work together. For his selfless dedication to the Hakka language, in 2017 Lo was given the Hakka Contribution Award.