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Sino-Austronesian Languages
Sino-Austronesian or Sino-Tibetan-Austronesian is a proposed language family suggested by Laurent Sagart in 1990. Using reconstructions of Old Chinese, Sagart argued that the Austronesian languages are related to the Sinitic languages phonologically, lexically and morphologically. Sagart later accepted the Sino-Tibetan languages as a valid group and extended his proposal to include the rest of Sino-Tibetan. He also placed the Tai–Kadai languages within the Austronesian family as a sister branch of Malayo-Polynesian. The proposal is considered a minority view, and has been criticised by many other linguists who argue that the similarities between Austronesian and Sino-Tibetan more likely arose from contact rather than being genetic. Classification Sagart (2004) The classification below follows Sagart (2004). *Sino-Austronesian (Sino-Tibetan–Austronesian) **Sino-Tibetan ***Tibeto-Burman ***Sinitic ** Austronesian *** Luilang, Pazeh, Saisiat ***Pituish ****Atayalic, Thao, Fa ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
East Asia
East Asia is the eastern region of Asia, which is defined in both geographical and ethno-cultural terms. The modern states of East Asia include China, Japan, Mongolia, North Korea, South Korea, and Taiwan. China, North Korea, South Korea and Taiwan are all unrecognised by at least one other East Asian state due to severe ongoing political tensions in the region, specifically the division of Korea and the political status of Taiwan. Hong Kong and Macau, two small coastal quasi-dependent territories located in the south of China, are officially highly autonomous but are under Chinese sovereignty. Japan, Taiwan, South Korea, Mainland China, Hong Kong, and Macau are among the world's largest and most prosperous economies. East Asia borders Siberia and the Russian Far East to the north, Southeast Asia to the south, South Asia to the southwest, and Central Asia to the west. To the east is the Pacific Ocean and to the southeast is Micronesia (a Pacific Ocean island group, classifi ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Siraya Language
Siraya is a Formosan language spoken until the end of the 19th century by the indigenous Siraya people of Taiwan, derived from Proto-Siraya. Some scholars believe Taivoan and Makatao are two dialects of Siraya, but now more evidence shows that they should be classified as separate languages. Several Siraya communities have been involved in a Sirayan cultural and language revitalization movement for more than a decade. Through linguistic research and language teaching, the natives are 'awaking' their ancestors mother tongue that has been 'dormant' for a century. Today a group of Siraya children in Sinhua District of Tainan particularly in Kou-pei and Chiou Chen Lin area are able to speak and sing in the Siraya language. Dialects The Sirayaic languages were previously thought to include three languages or dialects: *Siraya proper — spoken in the coastal area of Tainan Plain. *Taivoan — spoken mostly in the inland of Tainan Plain to the north (just west of Southern Tsouic t ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Robert Blust
Robert A. Blust (; ; May 9, 1940 – January 5, 2022) was an American linguist who worked in several areas, including historical linguistics, lexicography and ethnology. He was Professor of Linguistics at the University of Hawaii at Mānoa. Blust specialized in the Austronesian languages and made major contributions to the field of Austronesian linguistics. Early life and career Blust was born in Cincinnati, Ohio on May 9, 1940, and raised in California. He received both a Bachelor of Arts in anthropology in 1967 and a PhD in linguistics in 1974 from the University of Hawaii at Mānoa. He taught at Leiden University in The Netherlands from 1976 to 1984, after which he returned to the Department of Linguistics at Mānoa for the rest of his career, serving as department chair from 2005 to 2008. He was a Fellow of the Linguistic Society of America. Austronesian languages Until 2018, he served as the review editor for ''Oceanic Linguistics'', an academic journal that covers the A ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Paul Jen-kuei Li
Paul Li, or Li Jen-kuei (; born 20 September 1936), is a research fellow at the Institute of Linguistics, Academia Sinica in Taipei, Taiwan. Li is a leading specialist on Formosan languages and has published dictionaries on the Pazeh and Kavalan language Kavalan (also known as Kvalan, Kebalan or Kbalan) was formerly spoken in the Northeast coast area of Taiwan by the Kavalan people (噶瑪蘭). It is an East Formosan language of the Austronesian family. Kavalan is no longer spoken in its orig ...s. References *Chang, Henry Yungli, Lillian Mei-chin Huang, and Dah-an Ho (eds.). ''Streams converging into an ocean: festschrift in honor of Professor Paul Jen-kuei Li on his 70th birthday 川匯海: 李壬癸先生七秩壽慶論文集'. Taipei: Institute of Linguistics, Academia Sinica, 2006.Curriculum Vitae External links 1936 births Linguists of Austronesian languages Linguists of Formosan languages Linguists from Taiwan People from Yilan County, Taiwan Living peopl ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Hmong–Mien Languages
The Hmong–Mien languages (also known as Miao–Yao and rarely as Yangtzean) are a highly tonal language family of southern China and northern Southeast Asia. They are spoken in mountainous areas of southern China, including Guizhou, Hunan, Yunnan, Sichuan, Guangxi, and Hubei provinces; the speakers of these languages are predominantly "hill people", in contrast to the neighboring Han Chinese, who have settled the more fertile river valleys. Relationships Hmong (Miao) and Mien (Yao) are closely related, but clearly distinct. For internal classifications, see Hmongic languages and Mienic languages. The largest differences are due to divergent developments in their phonological systems. The Hmongic languages appear to have kept the large set of initial consonants featured in the protolanguage but greatly reduced the distinctions in the syllable finals, in particular losing all glides and stop codas. The Mienic languages, on the other hand, have largely preserved syllable finals ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Austroasiatic Languages
The Austroasiatic languages , , are a large language family in Mainland Southeast Asia and South Asia. These languages are scattered throughout parts of Thailand, Laos, India, Myanmar, Malaysia, Bangladesh, Nepal, and southern China and are the majority languages of Vietnam and Cambodia. There are around 117 million speakers of Austroasiatic languages. Of these languages, only Vietnamese, Khmer, and Mon have a long-established recorded history. Only two have official status as modern national languages: Vietnamese in Vietnam and Khmer in Cambodia. The Mon language is a recognized indigenous language in Myanmar and Thailand. In Myanmar, the Wa language is the de facto official language of Wa State. Santali is one of the 22 scheduled languages of India. The rest of the languages are spoken by minority groups and have no official status. '' Ethnologue'' identifies 168 Austroasiatic languages. These form thirteen established families (plus perhaps Shompen, which is poorly atte ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Foxtail Millet
Foxtail millet, scientific name ''Setaria italica'' (synonym ''Panicum italicum'' L.), is an annual grass grown for human food. It is the second-most widely planted species of millet, and the most grown millet species in Asia. The oldest evidence of foxtail millet cultivation was found along the ancient course of the Yellow River in Cishan, China, carbon dated to be from around 8,000 years before present. Foxtail millet has also been grown in India since antiquity. Other names for the species include dwarf setaria, foxtail bristle-grass, giant setaria, green foxtail, Italian millet, German millet, and Hungarian millet. Description Foxtail millet is an annual grass with slim, vertical, leafy stems which can reach a height of . The seedhead is a dense, hairy panicle long. The small seeds, around in diameter, are encased in a thin, papery hull which is easily removed in threshing. Seed color varies greatly between varieties. File:Food grain foxtail millet.jpg, Seeds of foxt ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Middle Chinese
Middle Chinese (formerly known as Ancient Chinese) or the Qieyun system (QYS) is the historical variety of Chinese recorded in the '' Qieyun'', a rime dictionary first published in 601 and followed by several revised and expanded editions. The Swedish linguist Bernard Karlgren believed that the dictionary recorded a speech standard of the capital Chang'an of the Sui and Tang dynasties. However, based on the more recently recovered preface of the ''Qieyun'', most scholars now believe that it records a compromise between northern and southern reading and poetic traditions from the late Northern and Southern dynasties period. This composite system contains important information for the reconstruction of the preceding system of Old Chinese phonology (early 1st millennium BC). The ''fanqie'' method used to indicate pronunciation in these dictionaries, though an improvement on earlier methods, proved awkward in practice. The mid-12th-century ''Yunjing'' and other rime tables incorp ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Proto-Austronesian Language
Proto-Austronesian (commonly abbreviated as PAN or PAn) is a proto-language. It is the reconstructed ancestor of the Austronesian languages, one of the world's major language families. Proto-Austronesian is assumed to have begun to diversify 3,500–4,000 BCE on Taiwan. Lower-level reconstructions have also been made, and include Proto-Malayo-Polynesian, Proto-Oceanic, and Proto-Polynesian. Recently, linguists such as Malcolm Ross and Andrew Pawley have built large lexicons for Proto-Oceanic and Proto-Polynesian. Phonology Proto-Austronesian is reconstructed by constructing sets of correspondences among consonants in the various Austronesian languages, according to the comparative method. Although in theory the result should be unambiguous, in practice given the large number of languages there are numerous disagreements, with various scholars differing significantly on the number and nature of the phonemes in Proto-Austronesian. In the past, some disagreements concerned ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Kavalan Language
Kavalan (also known as Kvalan, Kebalan or Kbalan) was formerly spoken in the Northeast coast area of Taiwan by the Kavalan people (噶瑪蘭). 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 (Jialiwan 加禮宛) – near Hualien, a formerly Sakizaya-speaking area *Patʀungan (Xinshe 新社) – located in Fungpin (豐濱鄉), Hualien *Kulis (Lide 立德) *Kralut (Zhangyuan 樟原) These speech communities in eastern Taiwan were named a ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Bunun Language
The Bunun language () is spoken by the Bunun people of Taiwan. It is one of the Formosan languages, a geographic group of Austronesian languages, and is subdivided in five dialects: Isbukun, Takbunuaz, Takivatan, Takibaka and Takituduh. Isbukun, the dominant dialect, is mainly spoken in the south of Taiwan. Takbunuaz and Takivatan are mainly spoken in the center of the country. Takibaka and Takituduh both are northern dialects. A sixth dialect, Takipulan, became extinct in the 1970s. The Saaroa and Kanakanavu, two smaller minority groups who share their territory with an Isbukun Bunun group, have also adopted Bunun as their vernacular. Name The name ''Bunun'' literally means "human" or "man". Dialects Bunun is currently subdivided into five dialects: Isbukun, Takbunuaz, Takivatan, Takibaka and Takituduh. Li (1988) splits these dialects into three main branches — Northern, Central, and Isbukun (also classified as Southern Bunun).Li, Paul Jen-kuei. 1988. A Comparative Study o ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Amis Language
Amis ( or ) is a Formosan language of the Amis (or Ami), an indigenous people living along the east coast of Taiwan. Currently the largest of the Formosan languages, it is spoken from Hualien in the north to Taitung in the south, with another population in the Hengchun Peninisula near the southern end of the island, though the northern varieties are considered to be separate languages. Government services in counties where many Amis people live in Taiwan, such as the Hualien and Taitung railway stations, broadcast in Amis alongside Mandarin. However, few Amis under the age of 20 in 1995 spoke the language. It is not known how many of the 200,000 ethnic Amis speak the language, but overall a third of the aboriginal Taiwanese population do. Dialects Amis is a dialect cluster. There are five dialects: Southern Amis, Tavalong-Vataan, Central Amis, Chengkung-Kwangshan, and Northern Amis (Nanshi Amis, which includes Nataoran). Sakizaya is a moribund language spoken among the nort ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
