Girish Mahajan (Editor)

Atayal language

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Region
  
north Taiwan

Native speakers
  
84,000 (2002)

ISO 639-3
  
tay

Ethnicity
  
Atayal people

Writing system
  
Latin

Atayal language

Language family
  
AustronesianNorthern FormosanAtayalicAtayal

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 unique among Atayal dialects in having male and female register distinctions in their vocabulary.

Contents

The language is recorded in an Atayal–English dictionary by Søren Egerod and several reference grammars (see References). The Bible has been translated into Atayal and was published in 2002. Atayal is written in the Latin script. Atayal was one of the source languages of Yilan Creole Japanese.

Orthography

The Atayal language is most commonly written in the Latin script. ⟨ng⟩ represents the velar nasal /ŋ/, and the apostrophe ⟨'⟩ represents the glottal stop. In some literature, ⟨ḳ⟩ is used to represent /q/ and ⟨č š ž⟩ are used to represent /tʃ ʃ ʒ/.

In some dialects but not all, schwa /ə/ is frequently omitted in writing, resulting in long consonant clusters on the surface (e.g. pspngun /pəsəpəŋun/).

The pronunciation of certain letters differs from the IPA conventions. The letter ⟨b⟩ represents /β/, ⟨c⟩ is /ts/, ⟨g⟩ is /ɣ/, ⟨y⟩ is /j/, and ⟨z⟩ is /ʒ/.

Verbs

Mayrinax Atayal (a Cʔuliʔ dialect spoken in Tai'an Hsiang Township, Miaoli County) has a four-way focus system (Huang 2000b).

  1. Agent focus (AF)
  2. Patient focus (PF)
  3. Locative focus (LF)
  4. Instrumental/Beneficiary focus (IF/BF)

The following list of focus markers are used in Mayrinax Atayal.

  • Agent focus (AF)
  • Realis: m-, -um- (more dynamic); ma-, ø (less dynamic / more stative)
  • Irrealis: m-, ma-, -um- ... -ay (projective/immediate); pa- (future)
  • Patient focus (PF)
  • Realis: -un (neutral), ø (perfective)
  • Irrealis: -aw (projective/immediate); -un (future)
  • Locative focus (LF)
  • Realis: -an
  • Irrealis: -ay (projective/immediate); -an (future)
  • Instrumental/Beneficiary focus (IF/BF)
  • Realis: si-
  • Irrealis: -anay (projective/immediate); ø (future)

    • Aspect markers include:

  • -in-: perfective
  • pa-: irrealis (also serves as a causative marker)
  • kiaʔ and haniʔan: progressive

    • Other verbal markers include:

  • ka-: stative marker
  • i-: locative marker
  • ø- (null marker): agent-focus imperative

    • Dynamic and stative verbal prefixes run along a continuum. Here, they are listed from most dynamic to most stative.

    1. m-, -um-
    2. ma1-, ø1
    3. ma-2
    4. ø2

    Case markers

    Mayrinax Atayal has an elaborate case marking system. The Mayrinax case markers below are sourced from Huang (2002).

    Wulai Atayal (a Squliq Atayal dialect spoken in Wulai District, New Taipei City) has a much simpler case-marking system (Huang 1995).

    Pronouns

    The Mayrinax and Wulai Atayal personal pronouns below are sourced from Huang (1995). In both varieties, the nominative and genitive forms are bound while the neutral and locative ones are free (unbound).

    Affixes

    The following list of Mayrinax Atayal affixes is sourced from the Comparative Austronesian Dictionary (1995).

  • Note: Some affixes are unglossed.
  • Male affixes (i.e., male forms of speech in Mayrinax Atayal) include (Comparative Austronesian Dictionary): -niḳ, -iḳ, -ʔiŋ, -hiŋ, -iŋ, -tiŋ, -riʔ, -ḳiʔ, -niʔ, -nux, -ux, -hu, -u, -al, -liʔ, -kaʔ, -ha, -il, -in-, -il-, -i-, -a-, -na-.

    • References

    Atayal language Wikipedia
    (Text) CC BY-SA


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