Congratulations!
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I think from classifying Austronesian languages, you could make an analogy that ten siblings living in Formosa, nine stay, while one leaving out to ocean-nowhere.
The nine that stays becomes the nine families of Formosan aborigine languages, while the one leaving diversify further into Malay, Polynesian and Oceanic languages. (From Madagascar, Malay peninsula &archipelago, Polynesia, Micronesia, Papua, Maori, Hawaii, but not Australian Aborigine).
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It’s probably much more complicated than that. There are technically just 4 main sub families in Taiwan: Saisiyat, Luilang, Pazeh and Kulon, plus Pituish. Everything else falls under Pituish, and the family that finally left Taiwan already incorporated most of the innovations from Limaish, Enemish, Walu-Siwaish, Puluqish and Souther Austronesian.
- Saisiyat
- Luilang
- Pazeh, Kulon
These 4 languages from Northern Taiwan don’t share any of the innovations to PAN compare to other Austronesian languages. They are also not very closely related to one another.
- Pituish (languages that uses pitu for 7, which is an abbreviation of *RaCepituSa, ‘five-and-two’). This is a huge group, which includes:
Limaish, where five *RaCep is replaced by the word for hand, *lima, but doesn’t include other innovations. Languages in this group mostly fall into Thao-Atayalic.
Enemish, in addition to 5, the number six, which used to be ‘five-and-one’ or ‘twice-three’ was also replaced by repeating 3 twice, *Nem-Nem > *emnem. Siraya falls into this group.
Walu-Siwaish, in addition to 5 and 6, the number eight and nine are formed as *RaCepat(e)lu ‘five-and-three’ and *RaCepiSepat ‘five-and-four’. Western plain languages such as Papora, and Hoanya are examples for this sub family. Central Western plain languages such as Bunun and Rukai–Tsouic also fall into this category.
East Central Plain, in addition to all of the above the number ten is formed as *baCaq-an. Kavalanic falls into this category.
Puluqish, the number ten is formed as *sa-puluq, from *sa- ‘one’ + ‘separate, set aside’. Ami-Puyuma, and Paiwan fall into this group.
Southern Austronesian, includes all of the innovations mentioned above, and added lexical innovations such as *baqbaq ‘mouth’, *qa-sáuŋ ‘canine tooth’, *qi(d)zúR ‘saliva’, *píntu ‘door’, *-ŋel ‘deaf’). Kradai and Malayo-Polynesian fall into this group.
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I know @FloodResearcher is done with his research, but just saw a couple of well done animation for kids on the subject.
Bunun flood myth
Tsou flood myth, unfortunately only Mandarin track is available.
Anyone known the story behind the island called Agincourt?
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That’s what people today call 彭佳嶼 (Phînn-ka-sū), which was recorded in 1527 by 陳侃 (Tân Khán), the Ming envoy to Ryukyu, as 平嘉嶼 (Pînn-ka-sū). So that name stayed the same for almost 500 years now. It was also often referred to as 大嶼 (Tāi-sū), the big island.
It was named Agincourt along with Pinnacle (花瓶嶼) and Crag island (棉花嶼) by Charles J. Bullock, Captain of the HMS Serpent sometime in the 1860s on his assignment to Japan when the British were allied with the Japanese to contain Russia.
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Wow! Thank you so much.