{"id":4242,"date":"2012-10-08T10:56:14","date_gmt":"2012-10-08T15:56:14","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu\/nll\/?p=4242"},"modified":"2012-10-08T14:19:04","modified_gmt":"2012-10-08T19:19:04","slug":"cha-cha-cia-cia-the-last-dance","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu\/nll\/?p=4242","title":{"rendered":"Cha-cha Cia-cia:  the last dance"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>In previous posts, I chronicled the bizarre story of how the Hangeul  alphabet was chosen to be the \"official\" script for a language called  Cia-Cia spoken by an obscure tribe in Indonesia:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><a href=\" http:\/\/languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu\/nll\/?p=1641\">\"The Hangeul Alphabet Moves beyond the Korean Peninsula\"<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu\/nll\/?p=1993\">\"Hangeul for Cia-Cia, part II\"<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu\/nll\/?p=2691\">\"Hangeul for Cia-Cia, part III\"<\/a><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Because the whole proposition was so iffy (a lost cause from the very beginning), I think I gave up after that.<br \/>\n<!--more--><br \/>\nNow, in an article by Yi Whan-woo from the <em>Korea Times<\/em>, we read:\u00a0 <a href=\" http:\/\/www.koreatimes.co.kr\/www\/news\/nation\/2012\/10\/113_121766.html\">\"Sejong Institute withdrawal to leave Cia-Cia out in cold\"<\/a>.<br \/>\n<span><br \/>\nHere are the opening paragraphs (one sentence each):<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 30px;\"><span style=\"color: #000080;\">A Korean teaching institute in Indonesia that taught the Korean alphabet  or Hangeul to a small tribe using an aboriginal language has shut down.<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 30px;\"><span style=\"color: #000080;\">The King Sejong Institute said Monday that it withdrew from Bau-Bau, a  city located on the island of Buton, after a year-long operation.<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 30px;\"><span style=\"color: #000080;\">The decision raises concerns that the Cia-Cia, an Indonesian ethnic  minority that adopted the Korean alphabet to transcribe its native  language, may suffer from the lack of a proper writing system.<\/span><\/p>\n<p>I don't see why there should be any concerns about the lack of a proper  writing system for Cia-Cia.\u00a0 According to a <a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Cia-Cia\">stipulation in Indonesia's Basic Law<\/a>,  \"all tribal languages must be recorded in Roman letters to preserve  national unity.\"<\/p>\n<p>It is apparent from <a href=\"http:\/\/upload.wikimedia.org\/wikipedia\/en\/c\/c2\/Cia-Cia_road_sign.jpg\">this sign<\/a> that Roman letters have already been used  for Cia-Cia, and that the Hangeul is but a Johnny-come-lately add-on.<\/p>\n<p>It was actually illegal for Hangeul to be used as the official writing  system for Cia-Cia, thus it was doomed to failure from the start.<\/p>\n<p>Lord knows I should by now be able to say \"Cia-Cia\" &#8212; having written  four Language Log posts about it and having fretted mightily over the  <a href=\" http:\/\/languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu\/nll\/?p=4237\">first syllable of my current favorite breakfast bread<\/a> &#8212; but I must confess that I do not know how one should pronounce  Cia-Cia in an Austronesian way.\u00a0 I'm proud to declare, however, that I  do know how to say \"ciao!\" as the Austrians do!<\/p>\n<p>[A tip of the hat to Michael Rank]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>In previous posts, I chronicled the bizarre story of how the Hangeul alphabet was chosen to be the \"official\" script for a language called Cia-Cia spoken by an obscure tribe in Indonesia: \"The Hangeul Alphabet Moves beyond the Korean Peninsula\" \"Hangeul for Cia-Cia, part II\" \"Hangeul for Cia-Cia, part III\" Because the whole proposition was [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":13,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[194,18],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4242","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-borrowing","category-writing-systems"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu\/nll\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4242","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu\/nll\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu\/nll\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu\/nll\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/13"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu\/nll\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=4242"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu\/nll\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4242\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu\/nll\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=4242"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu\/nll\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=4242"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu\/nll\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=4242"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}