Kavalan language


Kavalan was formerly spoken in the Northeast coast area of Taiwan by the Kavalan people. It is an East Formosan language of the Austronesian family.
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.
In 2017, a study using the EDGE metric from species conservation found that Kavalan, although critically endangered, was among the most lexically distinct of Austronesian languages.

Dialects

Kavalan consists of the following speech communities ordered from north to south:
  • Kariawan – near Hualien, a formerly Sakizaya-speaking area
  • Patʀungan – located in Fungpin, Hualien
  • Kulis
  • Kralut
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.
Tsuchida notes that word lists collected from Lamkham 南崁 and Poting 埔頂 are closest to Kavalan, while Li counts them as 'Basaic' languages.
Many Kavalan can also speak Amis, Taiwanese, Mandarin, and Japanese.

Phonology

There are 15 consonants and 4 vowels in Kavalan.
FrontCentralBack
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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 ʁ
  • *a into i 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. Consonant gemination is also common in the northern Philippine languages, but is non-existent in the Central Philippine languages except for Rinconada Bikol.

Grammar

Morphology

Kavalan nouns and verbs are distinguished by the lack of /a/ in the first syllable or presence of /a/. Kavalan syllables take on the structure. Kavalan is also one of two Formosan languages to have geminating consonants.
Kavalan affixes include:
  • m-
  • -um-/-m-
  • -in/-n- as variants of ni-
  • -a
  • -an
  • -i
  • pa-
  • qa-
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:
  1. Agent
  2. Patient
  3. Locative
  4. Instrumental
  5. Beneficiary
The Kavalan case markers below are from.
CaseNominativeObliqueGenitiveLocative
Commona, yatunasa, ta- -an
Personala, yatani–

Pronouns

The Kavalan personal pronouns below are from.

Affixes

The Kavalan affixes below are from.
;Prefixes
  • i-: stative, having to do with location
  • kar-: rapid motion; defective, not perfect
  • ki-, qi-: pluck, pick
  • kin-: number of humans
  • lu-: flat
  • luq-: bumpy, rough
  • m-, -m-, mu-, -u-, -um-: agent-focus
  • ma-, m-: stative
  • maq-: where from
  • mar-: sine kind of shape
  • mi-: discharge something from the body
  • mri-: settle down; to shrink, huddle up
  • mrim-: a division of
  • nan-: two people ; distributive numeral
  • ni-, n-, -in-, -n-: past, perfective
  • pa-: causative
  • pa- -an: agentive
  • pa-ti: personal marker for the dead
  • paq-, paqa-: causative
  • paq-: get on
  • pa-qi-: cause to become
  • pat-: make a change
  • pi-: put into, put away; do something to protect a body part; every
  • qa-: immediate future; ride, take
  • qa- -an: place of/for
  • qaRu-: become, transform into; transformable into
  • qi-: pick, gather, get
  • qna-: nominaizer
  • Ra-: to transform into
  • Ra-CV-: light color of
  • Ri-: catch, get
  • Ru-: just now; for the first time
  • sa-: have the event ; do, make, produce, have; secrete ; tool
  • sam-CV-: pretend
  • saqa-: ordinal
  • si-: wear, own, possess
  • sia-: go towards ; go to the side
  • sim-: reciprocal
  • siqa-: times
  • smu-: finger
  • sna-: model of, copy of
  • su-: remove; move downwards, upside down, slanting
  • su-CV-: stink or smell of
  • tan-: speak the language
  • taRi-: position, people in such a position
  • ti-: instrumental-focus; to take each other
  • ti- : beneficiary-focus
  • tRi-CV- : discharge with control
  • u-: agent-focus; non-human numeral
;Suffixes
  • -a: irrealis patient-focus marker
  • -an: locative-focus marker, nominalizer
  • -i: irrealis non-agent-focus imperative
;Infixes
  • -m-, -um-: agent-focus
  • -n-, -in-, ni-: perfective

    General references

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