Languages Of Taiwan
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Languages Of Taiwan
The languages of Taiwan consist of several varieties of languages under the families of Austronesian languages and Sino-Tibetan languages. The Formosan languages, a geographically designated branch of Austronesian languages, have been spoken by the Taiwanese indigenous peoples for thousands of years. Owing to the wide internal variety of the Formosan languages, research on historical linguistics recognizes Taiwan as the Urheimat (homeland) of the whole Austronesian languages family. In the last 400 years, several waves of Chinese emigration, Han emigrations brought several different Sinitic languages into Taiwan. These languages include Taiwanese Hokkien, Taiwanese Hakka, Hakka, and Taiwanese Mandarin, Mandarin, which have become the major languages spoken in present-day Taiwan. Formosan languages were the dominant language of Prehistory of Taiwan, prehistorical Taiwan. Taiwan's long colonial and immigration History of Taiwan, history brought in several languages such as Dutch lang ...
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Taiwanese Mandarin
Taiwanese Mandarin, frequently referred to as ''Guoyu'' () or ''Huayu'' (), is the variety of Mandarin Chinese spoken in Taiwan. A large majority of the Taiwanese population is fluent in Mandarin, though many also speak a variety of Min Chinese known as Taiwanese Hokkien, which has had a significant influence on the Mandarin spoken on the island. Mandarin was not a prevalent spoken language in Taiwan before the mid-20th century. Early Chinese immigrants who settled in Taiwan before Taiwan under Japanese rule, Japanese rule mainly spoke other varieties of Chinese languages, primarily Hakka language, Hakka and Hokkien. By contrast, Taiwanese indigenous peoples speak unrelated Austronesian languages. Japan Japanese invasion of Taiwan (1895), annexed Taiwan in 1895 and governed the island as a colony for the next 50 years, introducing Japanese language, Japanese in education, government, and public life. With the defeat of Imperial Japan in World War II, Taiwan was transferred to the ...
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Seediq Language
Seediq, also known as Sediq, Taroko, is an Atayalic language spoken in the mountains of Northern Taiwan by the Seediq and Taroko people. Subdivisions Seediq consists of three main dialects (Tsukida 2005). Members of each dialect group refer to themselves by the name of their dialect, while the Amis people call them "Taroko." #Truku (Truku) – 20,000 members including non-speakers. The Truku dialect, transcribed 德路固 in Chinese. #Toda (Tuuda) – 2,500 members including non-speakers. #Tgdaya (Tkdaya, Paran) – 2,500 members including non-speakers. Phonology In Seediq there are 19 consonant phonemes and 4 vowel phonemes. Among these, there are two velar fricatives, one voiceless and the other voiced, and a uvular stop. In both labial and alveolar plosive series, voice opposition is contrastive; velar and uvular series, however, only display voiceless sounds. The alveolar affricate has a marginal phonological status and is found in some interjections (such as ''teʼ ...
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Japanese Language
is the principal language of the Japonic languages, Japonic language family spoken by the Japanese people. It has around 123 million speakers, primarily in Japan, the only country where it is the national language, and within the Japanese diaspora worldwide. The Japonic family also includes the Ryukyuan languages and the variously classified Hachijō language. There have been many Classification of the Japonic languages, attempts to group the Japonic languages with other families such as Ainu languages, Ainu, Austronesian languages, Austronesian, Koreanic languages, Koreanic, and the now discredited Altaic languages, Altaic, but none of these proposals have gained any widespread acceptance. Little is known of the language's prehistory, or when it first appeared in Japan. Chinese documents from the 3rd century AD recorded a few Japanese words, but substantial Old Japanese texts did not appear until the 8th century. From the Heian period (794–1185), extensive waves of Sino-Ja ...
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English Language
English is a West Germanic language that developed in early medieval England and has since become a English as a lingua franca, global lingua franca. The namesake of the language is the Angles (tribe), Angles, one of the Germanic peoples that Anglo-Saxon settlement of Britain, migrated to Britain after its End of Roman rule in Britain, Roman occupiers left. English is the list of languages by total number of speakers, most spoken language in the world, primarily due to the global influences of the former British Empire (succeeded by the Commonwealth of Nations) and the United States. English is the list of languages by number of native speakers, third-most spoken native language, after Mandarin Chinese and Spanish language, Spanish; it is also the most widely learned second language in the world, with more second-language speakers than native speakers. English is either the official language or one of the official languages in list of countries and territories where English ...
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Malay Language
Malay ( , ; , Jawi alphabet, Jawi: ) is an Austronesian languages, Austronesian language spoken primarily by Malays (ethnic group), Malays in several islands of Maritime Southeast Asia and the Malay Peninsula on the mainland Asia. The language is an official language of Brunei, Malaysia, and Singapore. Indonesian language, Indonesian, a standardized variety of Malay, is the official language of Indonesia and one of the working languages of East Timor. Malay is also spoken as a regional language of Malays (ethnic group), ethnic Malays in Indonesia and the Thai Malays, southern part of Thailand. Altogether, it is spoken by 60 million people across Maritime Southeast Asia. The language is pluricentric and a ISO 639 macrolanguage, macrolanguage, i.e., a group of Mutual intelligibility, mutually intelligible speech varieties, or dialect continuum, that have no traditional name in common, and which may be considered distinct languages by their speakers. Several varieties of it ar ...
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Vietnamese Language
Vietnamese () is an Austroasiatic languages, Austroasiatic language Speech, spoken primarily in Vietnam where it is the official language. It belongs to the Vietic languages, Vietic subgroup of the Austroasiatic language family. Vietnamese is spoken natively by around 86 million people, and as a second language by 11 million people, several times as many as the rest of the Austroasiatic family combined. It is the native language of Vietnamese people, ethnic Vietnamese (Kinh), as well as the second language, second or First language, first language for List of ethnic groups in Vietnam, other ethnicities of Vietnam, and used by Overseas Vietnamese, Vietnamese diaspora in the world. Like many languages in Southeast Asia and East Asia, Vietnamese is highly analytic language, analytic and is tone (linguistics), tonal. It has head-initial directionality, with subject–verb–object order and modifiers following the words they modify. It also uses noun classifier (linguistics), classi ...
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Thai Language
Thai,In or Central Thai (historically Siamese;Although "Thai" and "Central Thai" have become more common, the older term, "Siamese", is still used by linguists, especially when it is being distinguished from other Tai languages (Diller 2008:6). "Proto-Thai" is, for example, the ancestor of all of Southwestern Tai, not just Siamese (Rischel 1998). ), is a Tai language of the Kra–Dai language family spoken by the Central Thai, Mon, Lao Wiang, Phuan people in Central Thailand and the vast majority of Thai Chinese enclaves throughout the country. It is the sole official language of Thailand. Thai is the most spoken of over 60 languages of Thailand by both number of native and overall speakers. Over half of its vocabulary is derived from or borrowed from Pali, Sanskrit, Mon and Old Khmer. It is a tonal and analytic language. Thai has a complex orthography and system of relational markers. Spoken Thai, depending on standard sociolinguistic factors such as age, gender ...
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Filipino Language
Filipino ( ; , ) is the national language of the Philippines, the main lingua franca, and one of the two official languages of the country, along with Philippine English, English. It is only a ''de facto'' and not a ''de jure'' standard language, standardized form of the Tagalog language, as spoken and written in Metro Manila, the National Capital Region, and in other urban centers of the archipelago. The Constitution of the Philippines, 1987 Constitution mandates that Filipino be further enriched and developed by the other languages of the Philippines. Filipino, like other Austronesian languages, commonly uses Verb–subject–object, verb-subject-object order, but can also use subject-verb-object order. Filipino follows the Symmetrical voice, trigger system of morphosyntactic alignment that is common among Philippine languages. It has Head-directionality parameter, head-initial directionality. It is an agglutinative language but can also display inflection. It is not a Tone ...
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Tagalog Language
Tagalog ( ,According to the ''OED'' anMerriam-Webster Online Dictionary ; ''Baybayin'': ) is an Austronesian language spoken as a first language by the ethnic Tagalog people, who make up a quarter of the population of the Philippines, and as a second language by the majority, mostly as or through Filipino language, Filipino. Its de facto Standard language, standardized and codified form, officially named ''Filipino'', is the national language of the Philippines, and is one of the nation's two official languages, alongside Philippine English, English. Tagalog, like the other and as one of the regional languages of the Philippines, which majority are Austronesian languages, Austronesian, is one of the auxiliary official languages of the Philippines in the regions and also one of the auxiliary media of instruction therein. Tagalog is closely related to other Philippine languages, such as the Bikol languages, the Bisayan languages, Ilocano language, Ilocano, Kapampangan language, ...
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Indonesian Language
Indonesian (; ) is the official language, official and national language of Indonesia. It is a standard language, standardized variety (linguistics), variety of Malay language, Malay, an Austronesian languages, Austronesian language that has been used as a lingua franca in the multilingual Indonesian archipelago for centuries. With over 280 million inhabitants, Indonesia ranks as the list of countries by population, fourth-most populous nation globally. According to the 2020 census, over 97% of Indonesians are fluent in Indonesian, making it the largest language by number of speakers in Southeast Asia and one of the List of languages by total number of speakers, most widely spoken languages in the world.James Neil Sneddon. ''The Indonesian Language: Its History and Role in Modern Society''. UNSW Press, 2004. Indonesian vocabulary has been influenced by various native regional languages such as Javanese language, Javanese, Sundanese language, Sundanese, Minangkabau language, Min ...
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Yami Language
The Yami language (), also known as Tao (), is a Malayo-Polynesian and Philippine language spoken by the Tao people of Orchid Island, 46 kilometers southeast of Taiwan. It is a member of the Ivatan dialect continuum A dialect continuum or dialect chain is a series of Variety (linguistics), language varieties spoken across some geographical area such that neighboring varieties are Mutual intelligibility, mutually intelligible, but the differences accumulat .... Yami is known as 'human speech' by its native speakers. Native speakers prefer the 'Tao' name. Classification Yami is the only native language of Taiwanese indigenous peoples that is not a member of the Formosan languages, Formosan grouping of Austronesian; it is one of the Batanic languages also found in Batanes province of northern Philippines, and as such is part of the Malayo-Polynesian branch of Austronesian. Phonology Yami has 20 consonants and 4 vowels: Vowels * can be heard as after labial stop cons ...
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Philippine Languages
The Philippine languages or Philippinic are a proposed group by R. David Paul Zorc (1986) and Robert Blust (1991; 2005; 2019) that include all the languages of the Philippines and northern Sulawesi, Indonesia—except Sama–Bajaw (languages of the "Sea Gypsies") and the Molbog language (disputed)—and form a subfamily of Austronesian languages. Although the Philippines is near the center of Austronesian expansion from Taiwan, there is relatively little linguistic diversity among the approximately 150 Philippine languages, suggesting that earlier diversity has been erased by the spread of the ancestor of the modern Philippine languages. Classification History and criticism One of the first explicit classifications of a "Philippine" grouping based on genetic affiliation was in 1906 by Frank Blake, who placed them as a subdivision of the "Malay branch" within Malayo-Polynesian (MP), which at that time was considered as a family. Blake however encompasses every language ...
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