Taiwan Church News
Front cover from April 2009
|
|
| Frequency | Weekly |
|---|---|
| Publisher | Taiwan Church Press |
| First issue | 1885 |
| Country | Taiwan |
| Based in | Tainan |
| Language | Mandarin Chinese, some sections in Taiwanese |
| Website | http://weekly.pctpress.org |
The Taiwan Church News (Chinese: 台灣教會公報; pinyin: Táiwān Jiàohuì Gōngbào; Pe̍h-ōe-jī: Tâi-oân Kàu-hoē Kong-pò) is a publication of the Presbyterian Church in Taiwan. It was first published in 1885 as the Tâi-oân-hú-siâⁿ Kàu-hōe-pò (臺灣府城教會報; Táiwān Fǔchéng Jiàohuì Bào; "Taiwan Prefecture City Church News") under the direction of missionary Thomas Barclay, and was Taiwan's first printed newspaper. This early edition was also notable for being printed in romanised Taiwanese using the Pe̍h-ōe-jī orthography. The publication was banned during the latter stages of Japanese rule and editions were also impounded on several occasions during the martial law era in post-war Taiwan for discussing forbidden subjects.
In Taiwan in the late 1800s (during Taiwan's Qing era), only the educated elite could read and write.Christian missionaries in southern Taiwan were anxious that their congregations should learn to read and write, and were convinced that romanised script (i.e. Pe̍h-ōe-jī) was easier to learn than Chinese characters.James Laidlaw Maxwell, a medical missionary, donated a small printing press to the church in 1880, but at the time nobody in Taiwan-fu (modern-day Tainan) knew how to operate it.
...
Wikipedia