ABSTRACT
Between 1624 and 1662, the Dutch East India Company (VOC) operated a trading post in Taiwan, engaging diplomatically with diverse actors: authorities of China's Fujian Province, the “merchant-prince” Koxinga, Spanish colonial authorities in northern Taiwan (1626–1642), and leaders of Austronesian ethnolinguistic groups. This chapter analyses the VOC's linguistic practices in these interactions, drawing on surviving sources and situating them in their historical context. Interpreters played a key role, and their identities and functions are examined. The study identifies languages used—Dutch, Portuguese, Spanish, Sinitic varieties, and Austronesian languages—and highlights cases where no common language existed, requiring non-verbal communication. The resulting picture shows the linguistic and cultural adaptability of Europeans in seventeenth-century diplomacy beyond Europe.
