Formosan languages

Not to be confused with Languages of Taiwan or the constructed Formosan language invented by George Psalmanazar.
"Paiwanic languages" redirects here. Not to be confused with Paiwan language.
Formosan
(geographic)
EthnicityTaiwanese Aborigines (Formosan people)
Geographic
distribution		Taiwan Taiwan
Linguistic classificationAustronesian
  • Formosan
Subdivisions
Language codes
ISO 639-5fox
GlottologNone
Families of Formosan languages before Chinese colonization, per Blust (1999). Malayo-Polynesian (red) may lie within Eastern Formosan (purple). The white section is unattested; some maps fill it in with Luiyang, Kulon or as generic 'Ketagalan'.[1]

The Formosan languages are a geographic grouping comprising the languages of the indigenous peoples of Taiwan, all of which are Austronesian. They do not form a single subfamily of Austronesian but rather up to nine separate primary subfamilies. The Taiwanese indigenous peoples recognized by the government are about 2.3% of the island's population. However, only 35% speak their ancestral language, due to centuries of language shift.[2] Of the approximately 26 languages of the Taiwanese indigenous peoples, at least ten are extinct, another four (perhaps five) are moribund,[3][4] and all others are to some degree endangered. They are national languages of Taiwan.[5]

The aboriginal languages of Taiwan have great significance in historical linguistics since, in all likelihood, Taiwan is the place of origin of the entire Austronesian language family. According to American linguist Robert Blust, the Formosan languages form nine of the ten principal branches of the family,[6] while the one remaining principal branch, Malayo-Polynesian, contains nearly 1,200 Austronesian languages found outside Taiwan.[7] Although some other linguists disagree with some details of Blust's analysis, a broad consensus has coalesced around the conclusion that the Austronesian languages originated in Taiwan,[8] and the theory has been strengthened by recent studies in human population genetics.[9]

  1. ^ "Táiwān yuánzhùmín píngpǔ zúqún bǎinián fēnlèi shǐ xìliè dìtú" 臺灣原住民平埔族群百年分類史系列地圖 (A history of the classification of Plains Taiwanese tribes over the past century). blog.xuite.net (in Chinese). 2009-08-06. Retrieved 2017-03-04.
  2. ^ Sui, Cindy (2010-07-14). "Taiwan Seeks to Save Indigenous Languages". BBC News.
  3. ^ Zeitoun, Elizabeth; Yu, Ching-Hua (2005). "The Formosan Language Archive: Linguistic Analysis and Language Processing". International Journal of Computational Linguistics and Chinese Language Processing. 10 (2): 167–200. doi:10.30019/ijclclp.200507.0002. S2CID 17976898.
  4. ^ Li, Paul Jen-kuei; Tsuchida, Shigeru (2006). Kavalan Dictionary (PDF) (in English and Chinese). Taipei: Institute of Linguistics, Academia Sinica. ISBN 9789860069938. Archived from the original (PDF) on 2021-05-03.
  5. ^ "Indigenous Languages Development Act". law.moj.gov.tw. Archived from the original on 13 February 2019. Retrieved 22 May 2019.
  6. ^ Blust, Robert (1999). "Subgrouping, Circularity and Extinction: Some Issues in Austronesian Comparative Linguistics". In Zeitoun, Elizabeth; Li, Jen-kuei (eds.). Selected Papers from the Eighth International Conference on Austronesian Linguistics. Taipei: Academia Sinica. ISBN 9789576716324.
  7. ^ Diamond, Jared M. (2000). "Taiwan's Gift to the World". Nature. 403 (6771): 709–710. Bibcode:2000Natur.403..709D. doi:10.1038/35001685. PMID 10693781. S2CID 4379227.
  8. ^ Fox, James (19–20 August 2004). Current Developments in Comparative Austronesian Studies. Symposium Austronesia, Pascasarjana Linguististik dan Kajian Budaya Universitas Udayana. ANU Research Publications. Bali. OCLC 677432806.
  9. ^ Trejaut, Jean A; Kivisild, Toomas; Loo, Jun Hun; et al. (2005). "Traces of Archaic Mitochondrial Lineages Persist in Austronesian-Speaking Formosan Populations". PLOS Biology. 3 (8): e247. doi:10.1371/journal.pbio.0030247. PMC 1166350. PMID 15984912.