Resources for Learning Aboriginal Languages?

Atayal?

SVO or SOV? “The word order can be predicate followed by subject or subject followed by predicate.” - Rau

Modifier + N or N + modifier? “A common noun may be preceded or followed by an adjective modifier.” - Rau

What are the syllables like? (CV)(CV)CV©. No consonant clusters, though the orthography makes it appear as if there are. (e.g. the town of Smangus is /sə ma 'ŋus/) Words may end with syllable-final consonants, including -s, -h, -q and -x.

How many syllables in a word? Mostly polysyllabic.

What’s the morphology like? Complex system of prefixes, infixes and suffixes, with some accompanying vowel and consonant changes.

Any strange consonants? Uvular stop /q/, unvoiced velar fricative /x/, glottal stop, voiced velar fricative represented by “g”, voiced bilabial fricative represented by “b”.

Tones? No, not in the semantic sense that characterize languages like Chinese and Thai.

Cool – thanks Chris!

It looks like 政大 has done a bit of work on publishing learning materials. I’ll be there tomorrow and see if I can find anything. I’ll let you know of any interesting resources I find.

“The word order can be predicate followed by subject or subject followed by predicate.”
–What’s the general order within the predicate? V - O or O - V?

Seems fairly straightforward phonetically speaking. Mandarin distinguishes the velar fricative , so we have that down! Voicing it [ɣ] is easy. and [h] are contrastive! The uvular stop [q] isn’t so bad – you can hear it on the many interactive IPA sites. No voiced plosives! Only one affricate [ts] according to wiki. I’m guessing there are a set of aspirated and unaspirated plosives – [th] vs [t]; [ph] vs [p]. Wiki doesn’t go into that much detail, though. As for vowels, it couldn’t be easier:

i i:-------------u u:
e-----schwa------o
a

I’m sure this is a phonemic inventory and the set of vowels as they are realized is a bit more complex.

Mandarin’s phonetic inventory for comparison:

i y-----------------u
ɛ------------------ɔ
e-----schwa----ɣ o
a/ae--------------ɑ

I bet the morphosyntax is difficult as the above poster alluded to.

[quote=“archylgp”]“The word order can be predicate followed by subject or subject followed by predicate.”
–What’s the general order within the predicate? V - O or O - V?[/quote]
Seems most of the time it’s V-O.

“th” is an allophone of “t”, etc.

Seems so. From Rau:

qilis (a wound); pqlisan (to wound sth.)
qaniq (to eat); nniqun (foods)
huwaw (to shout); hmwaga (shout [subjunctive], used in sentences like “Let’s shout”)

There’s a phonological rule that a syllable can only have two “full” vowels, so if a suffix or prefix is added to a root word, only the last two vowels are pronounced, the rest are reduced to “schwa” so (this is also represented orthographically by not writing the vowel), actually when you see stuff like “nn” there is actually a “schwa” in between them, its just not necessary to write it. Also, some funky stuff happens with the vowels around “q” so words like “qaniq” actually sounds like “qañaq”.

The word “qaniq” (eat) is funny because if you say it to a Chinese speaker, they’ll think you’re cussing at them. It sounds even more insulting if you follow it by “nbuw” (drink)!

No wonder the Chinese didn’t get along with the Aborigines!! “But we were just inviting you to eat and drink…”

YouTuber Glossika has recently been posting a series of Aboriginal language lessons. So far: Seediq, Thao, Atayal, Saisiyat. Eventually he’ll do 18 of them, if I’m not mistaken. NB: he’s teaching them in Chinese rather than English.

Here are a couple:

Thao

Atayal (Squliq dialect)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=44M1Uf9Jf0U

That sounds absolutely beautiful

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_0DmngqPDqY

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=phN7q4CcmIc

5 Likes

Has anyone who is not aboriginal taken up and learned one or more of the languages?

When I lived in Hualian the guy I was dating was Taroko tribe and taught me some Truku words. Unfortunately, I’ve forgotten them all since moving back to Taoyuan. I miss listening to him speak Truku with his family members.

Mike Campbell (Glossika) mentioned above has. According to his bio:

I have studied most of the northern languages in depth (Thao, Seediq/Truku, Atayal, Saisiyat, Pazeh, Bunun, Amis, Sakizaya, Kavalan) and have limited understanding of the southern languages (Tsou, Rukai, Paiwan, Puyuma). My best speaking ability and range of vocabulary is in Thao…The man (and his wife) I learned the language from were both 94 years old last year when they passed away within months of each other…Every child and adult can take proficiency tests in any of the languages. I took the Thao test during the first few years it was available and scored over 90% fluency level…

His reasons for learning Thao are interesting, including…

I wanted to know what it would feel like to speak and understand a language on the verge of death, and by having this ability, would it ever come in use at some future date…Thao and Saisiyat make up the top-most archaic branches of Austronesian (according to linguist Sagart), with a supposed timeline of ~7000 years, making it one of the oldest languages on earth. If you would like to know more about the history of Malay, Tagalog, Hawaiian, Maori, or other languages in the family, so knowing Thao is like knowing Proto-Indo-European for your Sanskrit-Latin-Greek studies.

2 Likes

I have one Amis song firmly under my belt. One other I can sing but I look at the romanized lyrics. I know bits and pieces of a number of other tunes. Here’s an Amis song that counts repeatedly from 1-5 (the video above made me think of it):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mcGsWnE89go

Edit: This is actually not all that unique for foreigners here with an aborigine wife. I see videos being shared on fb from time to time with a laowai husband belting out an aboriginal tune.

2 Likes

This is fascinating. One word that is pervasive across communities in the the South Pacific is “pitu”, seven (7). It is the same in my wife’s Javanese dialect.

Lima also no?

Lima (5) and also variations of empat (4), batu/watu (stone) and kuning (yellow).

1 Like

Tao / Yami:

http://yamiproject.cs.pu.edu.tw/elearn/

1 Like

Here’s a post of mine from 2015 about learning a bit of Truku: Learning Seediq (with roman alphabet and kana)

Looking back, how could I forget snagan (hangover)? I attended some aboriginal social events while I lived in Hualian, including a wedding party, and that word came in very handy :woozy_face:

2 Likes

“marasan” means drunk!

3 Likes

I have several of Suming’s Amis songs under my belt. I have less difficulty with the slower ones, such as this one:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gzuEvkk-eg8

the benefit of learning this song is that it’s available at the KTVs. You call queue this one up and stump everyone else.

1 Like

From the indigenous music / groups / bands one of my favourites at the moment is Boxing.

To add to the mix they are naturally very funny and don’t take themselves to seriously.

https://youtu.be/vumM9IZmWnE

3 Likes

I like the group. Feel free to share in the aboriginal songs thread.