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.
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.
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):
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.
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.
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