Saisiyat (sometimes spelled Saisiat) is the language of the Saisiyat, a Taiwanese indigenous people. It is a Formosan language of the

Austronesian Austronesian may refer to: *The Austronesian languages *The historical Austronesian peoples The Austronesian peoples, sometimes referred to as Austronesian-speaking peoples, are a large group of peoples in Taiwan, Maritime Southeast Asia, M ...

family. It has approximately 4,750 speakers.

Distribution

The language area of Saisiyat is small, situated in the northwest of the country between the

Hakka Chinese Hakka (, , ) forms a language group of varieties of Chinese, spoken natively by the Hakka people throughout Southern China and Taiwan and throughout the diaspora areas of East Asia, Southeast Asia and in overseas Chinese communities around th ...

and

Atayal Atayal may refer to: * Atayal people * Atayal language The Atayal language is spoken by the Atayal people of Taiwan. Squliq and C’uli’ (Ts’ole’) are two major dialects. Mayrinax and Pa’kuali’, two subdialects of C’uli’, are uniqu ...

regions in the mountains (

Wufeng, Hsinchu Wufeng Township () is a mountain indigenous township in Hsinchu County, Taiwan. It had an estimated population of 4,563 as of January 2017. The population is mainly of the indigenous Atayal people and Saisiyat people. Administrative divisio ...

; Nanchuang and Shitan, Miaoli). There are two main dialects: Ta'ai (North Saisiyat) and Tungho (South Saisiyat). Ta'ai is spoken in Hsinchu and Tungho is spoken in Miao-Li. Kulon, an extinct Formosan language, is closely related to Saisiyat but is considered by Taiwanese linguist

Paul Jen-kuei Li Paul Li, or Li Jen-kuei (; born 20 September 1936), is a research fellow at the Institute of Linguistics, Academia Sinica in Taipei, Taiwan. Li is a leading specialist on Formosan languages The Formosan languages are a geographic grouping c ...

to be a separate language.

Usage

Today, one thousand Saisiyat people do not use the Saisiyat language. Many young people use

Hakka The Hakka (), sometimes also referred to as Hakka Han, or Hakka Chinese, or Hakkas are a Han Chinese subgroup whose ancestral homes are chiefly in the Hakka-speaking provincial areas of Guangdong, Fujian, Jiangxi, Guangxi, Sichuan, Hun ...

instead, and few children speak Saisiyat.

speakers, Atayal speakers and Saisiyat speakers live more or less together. Many Saisiyat are able to speak Saisiyat, Hakka, Atayal,

Mandarin Mandarin or The Mandarin may refer to: Language * Mandarin Chinese, branch of Chinese originally spoken in northern parts of the country ** Standard Chinese or Modern Standard Mandarin, the official language of China ** Taiwanese Mandarin, Stand ...

, and, sometimes,

Min Nan Southern Min (), Minnan (Mandarin pronunciation: ) or Banlam (), is a group of linguistically similar and historically related Sinitic languages that form a branch of Min Chinese spoken in Fujian (especially the Minnan region), most of Taiwan ( ...

as well. Although Saisiyat has a relatively large number of speakers, the language is

endangered An endangered species is a species that is very likely to become extinct in the near future, either worldwide or in a particular political jurisdiction. Endangered species may be at risk due to factors such as habitat loss, poaching and inv ...

Orthography

* a - �* ae - �* b - �* e - �* ng - �* oe - �* s - /θ* S - �* y - * z - /ð* ' - � * aa/aː - ː* ee/eː - �ː* ii/iː - ː

Phonology

Consonants

Orthographic notes: * is a retroflex lateral approximant, while is a palato-alveolar fricative.

Vowels

Grammar

Syntax

Although it also allows for verb-initial constructions, Saisiyat is a strongly subject-initial language (i.e., SVO), and is shifting to an

accusative language The accusative case (abbreviated ) of a noun is the grammatical case used to mark the direct object of a transitive verb. In the English language, the only words that occur in the accusative case are pronouns: 'me,' 'him,' 'her,' 'us,' and ‘the ...

, while it still has many features of

split ergativity In linguistic typology, split ergativity is a feature of certain languages where some constructions use ergative syntax and morphology, but other constructions show another pattern, usually nominative–accusative. The conditions in which ergati ...

(Hsieh & Huang 2006:91). Pazeh and Thao, also Northern Formosan languages, are the only other

Formosan languages 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 nine separate subfamilies. The Taiwan ...

that allow for SVO constructions. Saisiyat's case-marking system distinguishes between personal and common nouns (Hsieh & Huang 2006:93).

Pronouns

Saisiyat has an elaborate pronominal system (Hsieh & Huang 2006:93).

Verbs

The following are verbal prefixes in Saisiyat (Hsieh & Huang 2006:93). Saisiyat verbs can be nominalized in the following ways.

References

Citations

Works cited

* *

External links

Yuánzhùmínzú yǔyán xiànshàng cídiǎn 原住民族語言線上詞典
– Saisiyat search page at the "Aboriginal language online dictionary" website of the Indigenous Languages Research and Development Foundation
Saisiyat teaching and leaning materials published by the Council of Indigenous Peoples of Taiwan

Saisiyat translation of President Tsai Ing-wen's 2016 apology to indigenous people
– published on the website of the presidential office {{DEFAULTSORT:Saisiyat Language Formosan languages Languages of Taiwan Endangered Austronesian languages Saisiyat people