Puyuma language

The Puyuma language or Pinuyumayan (), is the language of the Puyuma, an indigenous people of Taiwan. It is a divergent Formosan language of the Austronesian family. Most speakers are older adults.

Puyuma is one of the more divergent of the Austronesian languages and falls outside reconstructions of Proto-Austronesian.

Dialects

The internal classification of Puyuma dialects below is from . Nanwang Puyuma is considered to be the relatively phonologically conservative but grammatically innovative, as in it preserves proto-Puyuma voiced plosives but syncretizes the use of both oblique and genitive case.

*Proto-Puyuma
**Nanwang
**(''Main branch'')
***Pinaski–Ulivelivek
****Pinaski
****Ulivelivek
***Rikavung
***Kasavakan–Katipul
****Kasavakan
****Katipul

Puyuma-speaking villages are:

;Puyuma cluster ('born of the bamboo')
* Puyuma ()
* Apapulu ()

;Katipul cluster ('born of a stone')
* Alipai ()
* Pinaski (); 2 km north of Puyuma/Nanwang, and maintains close relations with it
* Pankiu ()
* Kasavakan ()
* Katratripul ()
* Likavung ()
* Tamalakaw ()
* Ulivelivek ()

Phonology

Puyuma has 18 consonants and 4 vowels:

Note that Teng uses for and for , unlike in official version. The official orthography is used in this article.

Grammar

Morphology

Puyuma verbs have four types of focus:
#Actor focus: Ø (no mark), -em-, -en- (after labials), me-, meʔ-, ma-
#Object focus: -aw
#Referent focus: -ay
#Instrumental focus: -anay

There are three verbal aspects:
#Perfect
#Imperfect
#Future

There are two modes:
#Imperative
#Hortative future

Affixes include:
*Perfect: Ø (no mark)
*Imperfect: Reduplication; -a-
*Future: Reduplication, sometimes only -a-
*Hortative future: -a-
*Imperative mode: Ø (no mark)

Syntax

Puyuma has a verb-initial word order.

Articles include:
*i – singular personal
*a – singular non-personal
*na – plural (personal and non-personal)

Pronouns

The Puyuma personal pronouns are:

Affixes

The Puyuma affixes are:

;Prefixes
*ika-: the shape of; forming; shaping
*ka-: stative marker
*kara-: collective, to do something together
*kare-: the number of times
*ki-: to get something
*kir-: to go against (voluntarily)
*kitu-: to become
*kur-: be exposed to; be together (passively)
*m-, ma-: actor voice affix/intransitive affix
*maka-: along; to face against
*mara-: comparative/superlative marker
*mar(e)-: reciprocal; plurality of relations
*mi-: to have; to use
*mu-: anticausative marker
*mutu-: to become, to transform into
*pa-/p-: causative marker
*pu-: put
*puka-: ordinal numeral marker
*piya-: to face a certain direction
*si-: to pretend to
*tara-: to use (an instrument), to speak (a language)
*tinu-: to simulate
*tua-: to make, to form
*u-: to go
*ya-: to belong to; nominalizer

;Suffixes
*-a: perfective marker; numeral classifier
*-an: nominalizer; collective/plural marker
*-anay: conveyance voice affix/transitive affix
*-aw: patient voice affix/transitive affix
*-ay: locative voice affix/transitive affix
*-i, -u: imperative transitive marker

;Infixes
*-in-: perfective marker
*-em-: actor voice affix/intransitive affix

;Circumfixes
*-in-anan: the members of
*ka- -an: a period of time
*muri- -an: the way one is doing something; the way something was done
*sa- -an: people doing things together
*sa- -enan: people belonging to the same community
*si- -an: nominalizer
*Ca- -an, CVCV- -an: collectivity, plurality

Notes

References

*
*
*
*
*
*
*

External links

Yuánzhùmínzú yǔyán xiànshàng cídiǎn 原住民族語言線上詞典
– Puyuma search page at the "Aboriginal language online dictionary" website of the Indigenous Languages Research and Development Foundation

Puyuma teaching and leaning materials published by the Council of Indigenous Peoples of Taiwan


Puyuma translation of President Tsai Ing-wen's 2016 apology to indigenous people
– published on the website of the presidential office

{{DEFAULTSORT:Puyuma Language
Formosan languages
Languages of Taiwan
Puyuma people