Northern Formosan languages

Northern Formosan
(proposed)
Geographic
distribution
Taiwan
Linguistic classificationAustronesian
  • Northern Formosan
Language codes
Glottologwest2572  (Western Plains)
nort2899  (Northwestern)
atay1246  (Atayalic)
(orange) Li's Northern Formosan

The Northern Formosan languages is a proposed grouping of Formosan languages that includes the Atayalic languages, the Western Plains languages (Papora, Hoanya, Babuza, and Taokas), and the Northwest Formosan languages (Pazeh and Saisiyat; Li places Western Plains with this grouping).

The Northern Formosan subgroup was first proposed by Paul Jen-kuei Li in 1985.[1] Blust (1999) rejects the unity of the proposed Northern Formosan branch. A 2008 analysis of the Austronesian Basic Vocabulary Database, however, supports the unity of the Northern Formosan branch with a 97% confidence level (see Austronesian languages#Classification).

  1. ^ Li, Paul Jen-kuei (1985). "The position of Atayal in the Austronesian family." In Li, Paul Jen-kuei. 2004. Selected Papers on Formosan Languages, vol. 2. Taipei, Taiwan: Institute of Linguistics, Academia Sinica.