Kanakanavu language

Kanakanavu (also spelled Kanakanabu) is a Southern Tsouic language spoken by the Kanakanavu people, an indigenous people of Taiwan (see Taiwanese aborigines). It is a Formosan language of the Austronesian family.

Kanakanavu
Native toTaiwan
RegionMaya Village, Namasia District, Kaohsiung City
Ethnicity360 (2020)[1]
Native speakers
4 (2012)[1]
Language codes
ISO 639-3xnb
Glottologkana1286
ELPKanakanavu

The Kanakanavu live in the two villages of Manga and Takanua in Namasia District (formerly Sanmin Township), Kaohsiung.[2]

The language is moribund, with only 4 speakers (2012 census).[3]

History

The native Kanakanavu speakers were Taiwanese aboriginals living on the islands. Following the Dutch Colonial Period in the 17th century, Han-Chinese immigration began to dominate the islands population. The village of Takanua is a village assembled by Japanese rulers to relocate various aboriginal groups in order to establish easier dominion over these groups.[4]

Phonology

There are 14 different consonant phonemes, containing only voiceless plosives within Kanakanavu. Adequate descriptions of liquid consonants become a challenge within Kanakanavu. It also contains 6 vowels plus diphthongs and triphthongs. Vowel length is often not clear if distinctive or not, as well as speakers pronouncing vowel phonemes with variance. As most Austronesian and Formosan languages, Kanakanavu has a CV syllable structure (where C = consonant, V = vowel). Very few, even simple words, contain less than three to four syllables.[5]

Consonants
Kanakanavu consonants
LabialAlveolarRetroflexPalatalVelarGlottal
Nasal mnŋ ⟨ng⟩
Plosive pulmonic ptɖ ⟨l⟩ckʔ ⟨'⟩
implosive ɓ ⟨p⟩
Fricative voiceless fsh
voiceless vz
Rhotic ɽ
Approximant wɫ ⟨hl⟩ɭj ⟨y⟩

Vowels
Front Central Back
Close i ʉ u
Mid e e/ə o
Open a

Orthography

Kanakanavu is usually written with the Latin script. The following are often used to represent sounds in the language: A, C, E, I, K, L, M, N, Ng, O, P, R, S, T, U, Ʉ, V, ' /ʔ.

C represents the phoneme /c/.

L represents the phonemes /ɗ/ and /ɽ/.

P represents both /ɓ/ and /p/.

/ɫ/ is spelled as hl.

References
  1. Kanakanavu at Ethnologue (25th ed., 2022) closed access
  2. Zeitoun, Elizabeth; Teng, Stacy F. (2016). "Reassessing the Position of Kanakanavu and Saaroa among the Formosan Languages" (PDF). Oceanic Linguistics. 55 (1): 162–198. doi:10.1353/ol.2016.0001. S2CID 148368774. Archived from the original (PDF) on 2021-05-04 – via www.ling.sinica.edu.tw.
  3. "Did You Know Kanakanabu is Critically Endangered?". endangeredlanguages.com. Retrieved April 15, 2016.
  4. "Ethnographic Setting". Kanakanavu: An Aboriginal Language on Taiwan. Archived from the original on 2016-09-20. Retrieved 2016-09-15.
  5. "Phonology". Kanakanavu: An Aboriginal Language on Taiwan. Archived from the original on 2016-10-05. Retrieved 2016-09-26.

Further reading
Kanakanavu language test of Wikipedia at Wikimedia Incubator
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