Taiwanese aborigines are the indigenous peoples of Taiwan. Although each group holds a variety of creation stories, contemporary research suggests their ancestors may have been living on the islands for approximately 8,000 years before major Han Chinese immigration began in the 1600s. The Taiwanese Aborigines are Austronesian peoples, with linguistic and genetic ties to other Austronesian ethnic groups, such as peoples of the Philippines, Malaysia, Indonesia, and Oceania. For centuries Taiwan's Aboriginal peoples experienced economic competition and military conflict with a series of conquering peoples. Centralized government policies designed to foster language shift and cultural assimilation, as well as continued contact with the colonizers through trade, intermarriage and other dispassionate intercultural processes, have resulted in varying degrees of language death and loss of original cultural identity. The bulk of contemporary Taiwanese Aborigines reside in the mountains and the cities. Many Aboriginal groups are actively seeking a higher degree of political self-determination and economic development since the early 1980s.
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_______________________________ Today's selected anniversaries:
350: Roman usurper Nepotianus of the Constantinian dynasty proclaimed himself Roman Emperor, entering Rome with a group of gladiators. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nepotianus)
1940: World War II: The remaining Allied forces protecting the Dunkirk evacuation surrendered, giving the Germans a tactical victory in the Battle of Dunkirk. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunkirk_evacuation)
1992: The High Court of Australia delivered its landmark legal decision in Mabo v Queensland, recognising the land rights of the Aborigines. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mabo_v_Queensland)
1998: An InterCityExpress high-speed train derailed near Eschede, Lower Saxony, Germany, causing 101 deaths and 100 injuries. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eschede_train_disaster)
2006: Montenegro declared its independence, ending the union of Serbia and Montenegro. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Montenegro)
_____________________ Wikiquote of the day:
We are on the cusp of this time where I can say, "I speak as a citizen of the world" without others saying, "God, what a nut." -- Lawrence Lessig (http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Lawrence_Lessig)