在荷蘭時期，就有相當多的荷蘭傳教士，進入臺灣傳播基督宗教。當這些神職人員面對原住民傳教時，便面臨語言使用的問題。宗教改革後的歐洲，新教的國家大致以自己的母語來閱讀聖經，而初期傳教士來到臺灣，也是使用原住民的語言來認識基督教義。然而，隨著荷屬東印度公司不願花大筆金錢於傳教工作上，對原住民實施荷蘭語教學，成為省錢且可提昇教育效果的手段。於是，在傳教語言的使用上，呈現「本土化」與「荷蘭化」之間的拉扯。最後，不見「荷蘭化」有何具體的成果，但傳教士所引進的羅馬拼音，卻成為原住民的一種書寫工具。荷蘭統治臺灣期間傳教與教育語言使用上的利益爭執與權力衝突，是這段殖民時期最具影響力的教育史實，也正是本文所要探討的核心議題。

Hundreds of years ago there were many Dutch priests coming to Taiwan to spread Christianity. When the missionaries preached to the island’s aborigines there was a problem. Although people from Protestant Christian nations read the Bible in their native languages, the Dutch priests taught the aborigines to read their catechism in their own indigenous languages. However, the United East India Company did not intend to invest too much money in Christianity: if the aborigines were taught the Christian religion in the Dutch language, the Dutch government would be able to save quite a lot. Thus we can see the conflict between the Dutch and native Taiwanese aboriginal languages here as a conflict between linguistic practices. Finally there was no sign of any deep effect of the Dutch language on the indigenous languages, but the aborigines did use the Roman spelling, which had been imported by Dutch priests.