The writing systems of the

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 Taiwa ...

are

Latin Latin (, or , ) is a classical language belonging to the Italic languages, Italic branch of the Indo-European languages. Latin was originally a dialect spoken in the lower Tiber area (then known as Latium) around present-day Rome, but through ...

-based alphabets. Currently, 16 languages (45 dialects) have been regulated. The alphabet was made official in 2005.

History

The

Sinckan Manuscripts The Sinkang Manuscripts (; also spelled ''Sinkang'' or ''Sinkan'') are a series of leases, mortgages, and other commerce contracts written in the Sinckan, Taivoan, and Makatao languages; they are commonly referred to as the "fanzi contracts" (). ...

are one of the earliest written materials of several Formosan languages, including Siraya. This writing system was developed by Dutch

missionaries A missionary is a member of a religious group which is sent into an area in order to promote its faith or provide services to people, such as education, literacy, social justice, health care, and economic development.Thomas Hale 'On Being a Mi ...

in the period of Dutch ruling (1624–1662). After 1947, with the need for translation of

Bible The Bible (from Koine Greek , , 'the books') is a collection of religious texts or scriptures that are held to be sacred in Christianity Christianity is an Abrahamic monotheistic religion based on the life and teachings of Jesus ...

, Latin scripts for Bunun, Paiwan, Taroko, Atayal, and Amis were created. Currently, all 16 Formosan languages are written with similar systems. The

Pe̍h-ōe-jī (; ; ), also sometimes known as the Church Romanization, is an orthography used to write variants of Southern Min Chinese, particularly Taiwanese and Amoy Hokkien. Developed by Western missionaries working among the Chinese diaspora in Sout ...

Taiwanese Hokkien Taiwanese Hokkien () (; Tâi-lô: ''Tâi-uân-uē''), also known as Taigi/Taigu (; Pe̍h-ōe-jī/ Tâi-lô: ''Tâi-gí / Tâi-gú''), Taiwanese, Taiwanese Minnan, Hoklo and Holo, is a variety of the Hokkien language spoken natively by about ...

and

Pha̍k-fa-sṳ Pha̍k-fa-sṳ is an orthography similar to Pe̍h-ōe-jī and used to write Hakka, a variety of Chinese. Hakka is a whole branch of Chinese, and Hakka dialects are not necessarily mutually intelligible with each other, considering the large geogr ...

Taiwanese Hakka Taiwanese Hakka is a language group consisting of Hakka dialects spoken in Taiwan, and mainly used by people of Hakka ancestry. Taiwanese Hakka is divided into five main dialects: Sixian, Hailu, Dabu, Raoping, and Zhao'an. The most widely ...

were also created with by the western missionaries. In 2005, standardized writing systems for the languages of Taiwan's 16 recognized indigenous peoples were established by the government.

Alphabets

The table shows how the letters and symbols are used to denote sounds in the 16 officially recognized

Spelling rules

Revision

Revision of the alphabets is under discussion. The table below is a summary of the proposals and decisions (made by the indigenous peoples and linguists). Revised January 2018. Revised March 2019. Symbols enclosed with angle brackets ‹› are letters, while those enclosed with square brackets [] are from the International Phonetic Alphabet. The names of dialects are written in Chinese.

References

External links

Taiwanese Indigenous Ebooks
This site provides open access ebooks for the indigenous languages. {{Formosan languages Taiwanese indigenous peoples Austronesian languages Languages of Taiwan Endangered Austronesian languages Latin alphabets Multilingual orthographies