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Jian shui lan. Ali Shan de guniang mei ru shui ya, Ali Shan de shaonian zhuang ru shan. Gao shan chang qing, Jian shui chang lan. Guniang he na shaonian yong bu fen na, Bi shui chang weizhe qing shan zhuan. |
Blue is the mountain stream The girl of Ali Mountain is pretty as the water The youth of Ali Mountain is strong as the mountain Mountain forever green Water forever blue The girl and that youth never will be parted - like the blue water flows around the green mountain |
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The girl belongs to one of the tribes which
inhabited Taiwan before the Chinese arrived. They are still there, a minority
people of Malay origin, living in the mountainous region of central Taiwan.
Mt. Ali is in the Central Mountain Range. (Ed P.) The comments above are not quite correct: In fact, the Malays, and all other Austronesian peoples from Easter Island to Madagascar, and from Hawaii to New Sealand, descend from the Taiwan aborigines; for the mountains of Taiwan are the place where the greatest diversity of Austronesian languages (diverse from other Austronesian languages and from each other) is still found. This leads many anthropologists and liguists to conclude that Taiwan is the original home of the Austronesian language family. Also, it is a misnomer to speak of Bunun, Tayal, Amis, Paiwan, Taroko, Drukai, Tsou, and the like as belonging to the "Malay" language family. These languages of Upland Taiwan are as different from Malay as Pashtun or Kashmiri are from English or German. By the way, the name Ali Shan seems to be taken from the word "Alit", which in several Taiwan Indigene languages means "ancestor mountain". Also, the Siraya, a tribe of Taiwan Indigenes who lived near present-day Tainan and Kaohsiung, were among the first non-European and non-Mideastern peoples to have portions of the Scriptures translated into their language (by Dutch Reformed missionaries between 1627 and 1662). However, due to Chinese settlement and intermarriage, the Siraya language became extinct early in the 20th century. (Peter H.) |
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