contracts. Although the Dutch only governed Taiwan for 38 years, they greatly influenced the development of indigenous culture. To take the Sinckan Manuscripts as an example, the latest extant documents in the Sinckan script date back to 1813 (more than 150 years after the Dutch left Taiwan in 1662). This is evidence to show that "the arts of reading and writing introduced by the Dutch were handed down from generation to generation by the people themselves." Origins Shortly after the founding of Taihoku Imperial University in 1928, one of the scholars in the linguistics department, , gathered together a number of old texts in Tainan. In 1931, edited and published them under the title The Sinckan Manuscripts. The compilation contained 109 "fanzi contracts," of which 87 were from the Sinckan settlement; 21 of those were bilingual in Han characters and Sinckan. Notes Bibliography Further reading External links 臺灣歷史辭典：新港文書 中央研究院民族學研究所數位典藏：新港文書 消失的「新港文書」，李壬癸，中時電子報，2004-08-29 Languages of Taiwan Formosan languages Dutch Formosa Earliest known manuscripts by language Chinese manuscripts Taivoan people