Ang Ui-jin

Ang Ui-jin is a Taiwanese linguist. He was the chief architect of the Taiwanese Language Phonetic Alphabet and remains a scholar in the progressive reform and development of Taiwanese Hokkien.

Early life and education

Ang was born in Xigang District, Tainan, on June 16, 1946. He graduated from Chinese Culture University with a bachelor's degree in Chinese in 1969 and from National Taiwan Normal University with a master's degree in Chinese in 1973. In September 1973, he was persecuted during the White Terror and sentenced to life imprisonment for "crimes of rebellion". Later, he was granted amnesty and released from prison after 6 years and 8 months.
In 2003, Ang earned his Ph.D. in linguistics from National [Tsing Hua University]. His doctoral dissertation was titled, "The Motivation and Direction of Sound Change: On the Competition of Minnan Dialects Chang-chou and Chüan-chou and the Emergence of General Taiwanese".

Career

His research expertises include Min Nan phonetics, dialectology, Chinese phonology, and the sociology of language. He was once a full-time associate professor at Yuan Ze University. He became dean and full-time professor at the Department of Taiwanese Languages and Literature at National Taichung University in 2006.
He was the 6th President of the Taiwan Linguistics Society. In 1992 he founded Taiwanese Hokkien magazine Digest of the Taiwanese language.
Ang Ui-jin's oldest son is Mark Ang, the founder of the Formosa Festival of International Filmmaker Awards and an award-winning director in Taiwan.