Summary
Kanakanavu (also spelled Kanakanabu) is a Southern Tsouic language spoken by the Kanakanavu people, an indigenous people of Taiwan (see Taiwanese aborigines). It is a Formosan language of the Austronesian family.
| Kanakanavu | |
|---|---|
| Native to | Taiwan |
| Region | Maya Village, Namasia District, Kaohsiung City |
| Ethnicity | 360 (2020)[1] |
Native speakers | 4 (2012)[1] |
Austronesian
| |
| Language codes | |
| ISO 639-3 | xnb |
| Glottolog | kana1286 |
| ELP | Kanakanavu |
The Kanakanavu live in the two villages of Manga and Takanua in Namasia District (formerly Sanmin Township), Kaohsiung.[2]
The language is moribund, with only 4 speakers (2012 census).[3]
History edit
The native Kanakanavu speakers were Taiwanese aboriginals living on the islands. Following the Dutch Colonial Period in the 17th century, Han-Chinese immigration began to dominate the islands population. The village of Takanua is a village assembled by Japanese rulers to relocate various aboriginal groups in order to establish easier dominion over these groups.[4]
Phonology edit
There are 14 different consonant phonemes, containing only voiceless plosives within Kanakanavu. Adequate descriptions of liquid consonants become a challenge within Kanakanavu. It also contains 6 vowels plus diphthongs and triphthongs. Vowel length is often not clear if distinctive or not, as well as speakers pronouncing vowel phonemes with variance. As most Austronesian and Formosan languages, Kanakanavu has a CV syllable structure (where C = consonant, V = vowel). Very few, even simple words, contain less than three to four syllables.[5]
Consonants edit
| Labial | Alveolar | Retroflex | Palatal | Velar | Glottal | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Nasal | m | n | ŋ ⟨ng⟩ | ||||
| Plosive | pulmonic | p | t | ɖ ⟨l⟩ | c | k | ʔ ⟨'⟩ |
| implosive | ɓ ⟨p⟩ | ||||||
| Fricative | voiceless | f | s | h | |||
| voiceless | v | z | |||||
| Rhotic | ɽ | ||||||
| Approximant | w | ɫ ⟨hl⟩ | ɭ | j ⟨y⟩ | |||
Vowels edit
| Front | Central | Back | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Close | i | ʉ | u |
| Mid | e | e/ə | o |
| Open | a |
Orthography edit
Kanakanavu is usually written with the Latin script. The following are often used to represent sounds in the language: A, C, E, I, K, L, M, N, Ng, O, P, R, S, T, U, Ʉ, V, ' /ʔ.
C represents the phoneme /c/.
L represents the phonemes /ɗ/ and /ɽ/.
P represents both /ɓ/ and /p/.
/ɫ/ is spelled as hl.
References edit
- ^ a b Kanakanavu at Ethnologue (25th ed., 2022)
- ^ Zeitoun, Elizabeth; Teng, Stacy F. (2016). "Reassessing the Position of Kanakanavu and Saaroa among the Formosan Languages" (PDF). Oceanic Linguistics. 55 (1): 162–198. doi:10.1353/ol.2016.0001. S2CID 148368774. Archived from the original (PDF) on 2021-05-04 – via www.ling.sinica.edu.tw.
- ^ "Did You Know Kanakanabu is Critically Endangered?". endangeredlanguages.com. Retrieved April 15, 2016.
- ^ "Ethnographic Setting". Kanakanavu: An Aboriginal Language on Taiwan. Archived from the original on 2016-09-20. Retrieved 2016-09-15.
- ^ "Phonology". Kanakanavu: An Aboriginal Language on Taiwan. Archived from the original on 2016-10-05. Retrieved 2016-09-26.
Further reading edit
- Adelaar, Alexander; Pawley, Andrew, eds. (2009). Austronesian Historical Linguistics and Culture History: A Festschrift for Robert Blust. Pacific Linguistics 601. Canberra: Pacific Linguistics. hdl:1885/34582. ISBN 978-0-85883-601-3.
- Dyen, Isidore (2005). "Some Notes on the Proto-Austronesian Words for 'Water'". Oceanic Linguistics. 44 (1): 1–11. doi:10.1353/ol.2005.0019. JSTOR 3623228. S2CID 144863141.
- Li, Paul Jen-Kuei (2004). "Basic Vocabulary for Formosan Languages and Dialects". Selected Papers on Formosan Languages (in English and Chinese). Taipei: Institute of Linguistics, Academia Sinica. ISBN 9789570184136.
- Pejros, I. (1994). "Some Problems of Austronesian Accent and *T ~ *C (Notes of an Outsider)". Oceanic Linguistics. 33 (1): 105–127. doi:10.2307/3623002. JSTOR 3623002.
- Ross, M. (2012). "In Defense of Nuclear Austronesian (and Against Tsouic)" (PDF). Language and Linguistics. 13 (6): 1253–1330. Archived from the original (PDF) on 2019-12-14.
- Song, Limei 宋麗梅 (2018). Kǎnàkǎnàfùyǔ yǔfǎ gàilùn 卡那卡那富語 語法概論 [Introduction to Kanakanavu Grammar] (in Chinese). Xinbei Shi: Yuanzhu minzu weiyuanhui. ISBN 978-986-05-5697-1 – via alilin.apc.gov.tw.
- Teng, Stacy F.; Zeitoun, Elizabeth (2016). "The Noun-Verb Distinction in Kanakanavu and Saaroa: Evidence from Pronouns" (PDF). Oceanic Linguistics. 55 (1): 134–161. doi:10.1353/ol.2016.0015. S2CID 147806280. Archived from the original (PDF) on 2021-05-04 – via www.ling.sinica.edu.tw.
- Tsuchida, Shigeru (1975). Reconstruction of Proto-Tsouic Phonology (Doctoral dissertation). Yale University.
- Tsuchida, Shigeru (1976). Reconstruction of Proto-Tsouic Phonology. Studies of Languages and Cultures of Asia and Africa: Monograph Series, 5. Tokyo: Institute for the Study of Languages and Cultures of Asia and Africa.
- Tsuchida, Shigeru (2003). Kanakanavu Texts (Austronesian Formosan) (Thesis). Endangered Languages of the Pacific Rim Publications Series, A3-014. Osaka: ELPR. hdl:10108/77962.
- Wild, Ilka (2018). Voice and Transitivity in Kanakanavu (PhD thesis). Universität Erfurt. urn:nbn:de:gbv:547-201800530.
External links edit
- www.kanakanavu.info – language documentation project website
- Yuánzhùmínzú yǔyán xiànshàng cídiǎn 原住民族語言線上詞典 (in Chinese) – Kanakanavu search page at the "Aboriginal language online dictionary" website of the Indigenous Languages Research and Development Foundation
- Endangered Languages
- Kanakanavu teaching and leaning materials published by the Council of Indigenous Peoples of Taiwan (in Chinese)
- Kanakanavu translation of President Tsai Ing-wen's 2016 apology to indigenous people – published on the website of the presidential office