Samiksha Jaiswal (Editor)

Kavalan language

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Native to
  
Taiwan

Native speakers
  
24 (2000)

Glottolog
  
kava1241

Ethnicity
  
Kavalan

ISO 639-3
  
ckv

Kavalan language

Language family
  
AustronesianEast FormosanKavalanicKavalan

Kavalan (Kebalan/kbalan) was formerly spoken in the Northeast coast area of Taiwan by the Kavalan people (噶瑪蘭). It is an East Formosan language of the Austronesian family.

Contents

Kavalan is no longer spoken in its original area. As of 1930, it was used only as a home language. As of 1987, it was still spoken in Atayal territories. In 2000, this language was still reported to be spoken by 24 speakers but considered moribund.

Dialects

Kavalan consists of the following speech communities ordered from north to south (Li 2006:1):

  • Kariawan (Jialiwan 加禮宛) - near Hualien, a formerly Sakizaya-speaking area
  • Patʀungan (Xinshe 新社) - located in Fungpin (豐濱鄉), Hualien
  • Kulis (Lide 立德)
  • Kralut (Zhangyuan 樟原)

    • These speech communities in eastern Taiwan were named after older settlements from the north, such as Kariawan, Sahut, and Tamayan, where the Kavalan people originally migrated from. Modern-day Kavalan speakers are surrounded by the Amis.

    Many Kavalan can also speak Amis, Taiwanese, Mandarin, and Japanese (Li 2006:1).

    Phonology

    In Kavalan, Proto-Austronesian phonemes have merged as follows:

  • *n, *N, *j, *ɲ as n
  • *t, *T, *c as t
  • *d, *D, *Z as z
  • *s, *S as s
  • *q, *ʔ, *H are deleted

    • The following Proto-Austronesian phonemes are split:

  • *k into q and k
  • *l into r and ʀ
  • *a into i (if adjacent to q) and a

    • The Kavalan language is also notable for having a large inventory of consonant clusters. It is also one of the only two Formosan languages that has geminate consonants, with the other one being Basay (Blust 2009:642). Consonant gemination is also common in the northern Philippine languages, but is non-existent in the Central Philippine languages except for Rinconada Bikol (Blust 2009:220).

    Morphology

    The Kavalan phonemic inventory is as follows (Li 2006:3):

  • True consonants: /p, t, k, q, s, z, b, ʀ, m, n, ng, l, r/
  • Semivowels: /w, y/
  • Glottal stop: /'/
  • Vowels: /i, u, e, a/

    • In total, there are 16 consonants and 4 vowels.

    Kavalan nouns and verbs are distinguished by the lack of /a/ in the first syllable (nouns) or presence of /a/ (verbs). Kavalan syllables take on the structure (C)(C)V(C)(C) (Li 2006:5). Kavalan is also one of two Formosan languages to have geminating consonants.

    Kavalan affixes include:

  • m- (agent focus)
  • -um-/-m- (agent focus)
  • -in/-n- as variants of ni- (patient)
  • -a (irrealis patient-focus marker)
  • -an (locative-focus marker, nominalizer)
  • -i (imperative, patient focus)
  • pa- (causative)
  • qa- (future)

    • Unlike many other Formosan languages, there is no *-en suffix.

    Syntax

    Kavalan, like most other Formosan and Philippine languages, has many case markers.

  • Nominative: a/ya
  • Oblique: ta, tu
  • Genitive: na, ni
  • Locative: sa, ta- -an

    • Types of focus in Kavalan include (Li 2006:26-27):

    1. Agent
    2. Patient
    3. Locative
    4. Instrumental
    5. Beneficiary

    The Kavalan case markers below are from Li (2006:27).

    Pronouns

    The Kavalan Personal pronouns below are from Li (2006:30).

    Affixes

    The Kavalan affixes below are from Li (2006:14-24).

    References

    Kavalan language Wikipedia
    (Text) CC BY-SA


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