Atayal language

This article is about the Atayal language. For the Atayal people, see Atayal people.

Atayal
Spoken in	north Taiwan
Ethnicity	Atayal people
Native speakers	<84,330  (date missing)
Language family	Austronesian Northern Formosan Atayalic Atayal
Writing system	Latin
Language codes
ISO 639-3	tay

The Atayal language is spoken by the Atayal people of Taiwan. Squliq and C’uli’ (or Ts’ole’, which includes the well-documented Mayrinax) are two major dialects. The Mayrinax and Paʔkualiʔ dialects of Atayal are unique for having separate male and female registers that have differing vocabulary.

Currently there is an Atayal-English dictionary by Søren Egerod as well as a several grammars (see References). In 2002, a Bible text was published. Atayal is written in the Latin script.

Orthography

The Atayal language is most commonly written in the Latin script. There is one digraph, ng, representing the velar nasal /ŋ/, and an apostrophe (') is used to represent the glottal stop.

The schwa /ə/ is normally omitted, often resulting in long strings consonants (e.g. pspngun /pəsəpəŋun/). With the exception of ng, when there are two consonants in a row, the existence of a schwa between them is implied. [Rau, D. V. (1992). "A Grammar of Atayal". Cornell University dissertation. pp. 22–23]

The pronunciations of certain letters differ from their IPA pronunciations. The letter b represents [β], c is [ts], g is [ɣ], y is [j], and z is [ʒ]. On the other hand, q represents the uvular stop [q] and x represents the velar fricative [x].

Phonology

Atayal people resides in central and northern Taiwan, along the Hsuehshan mountains. The image depicts two major dialect groups of Atayal language.

Vowels

	Front	Central	Back
High	i iː		u uː
Mid	e	ə	o
Low		a

Consonants

		Bilabial	Alveolar	Palatal	Velar	Uvular	Glottal
Stop		p	t		k	q	ʔ
Affricate			ts
Fricative	Voiceless		s		x		h
	Voiced	β			ɣ
Nasal		m	n		ŋ
Lateral			l
Flap			ɾ
Trill			r
Semivowel		w		j

Grammar

Verbs

Mayrinax Atayal (a Cʔuliʔ dialect spoken in Chinshui Village, Taian Hsiang [Township], Miaoli County) has 4 types of focus (Huang 2000b).

1. Agent focus (AF)
2. Patient focus (PF)
3. Locative focus (LF)
4. Instrumental/Beneficiary focus (IF/BF)

The following list of focus markers are used in Mayrinax Atayal.

• Agent focus (AF)
  • Realis: m-, -um- (more dynamic); ma-, ø (less dynamic / more stative)
  • Irrealis: m-, ma-, -um- ... -ay (projective/immediate); pa- (future)
• Patient focus (PF)
  • Realis: -un (neutral), ø (perfective)
  • Irrealis: -aw (projective/immediate); -un (future)
• Locative focus (LF)
  • Realis: -an
  • Irrealis: -ay (projective/immediate); -an (future)
• Instrumental/Beneficiary focus (IF/BF)
  • Realis: si-
  • Irrealis: -anay (projective/immediate); ø (future)

Aspect markers include:

• -in-: perfective
• pa-: irrealis (also serves as a causative marker)
• kiaʔ and haniʔan: progressive

Other verbal markers include:

• ka-: stative marker
• i-: locative marker
• ø- (null marker): agent-focus imperative

Dynamic and stative verbal prefixes run along a continuum. Here, they are listed from most dynamic to most stative.

1. m-, -um-
2. ma₁-, ø₁
3. ma-₂
4. ø₂

Case markers

Mayrinax Atayal has an elaborate case marking system. The Mayrinax case markers below are sourced from Huang (2002).

Mayrinax Atayal Case Markers

Case	Nominative	Accusative	Genitive/ Oblique	Comitative
Proper noun	ʔiʔ	ʔiʔ	niʔ	kiʔ
Common noun (referential)	kuʔ	ckuʔ	nkuʔ	-
Common noun (non-referential)	aʔ	cuʔ	naʔ	-

Wulai Atayal (a Squliq Atayal dialect spoken in Wulai District, New Taipei City) has a much simpler case-marking system (Huang 1995).

Wulai Atayal Case Markers

Case	Nominative	Instrumental	Genitive	Comitative	Locative
Markers	quʔ	naʔ	naʔ, nquʔ	kiʔ	te, squʔ, sa

Pronouns

The Mayrinax and Wulai Atayal personal pronouns below are sourced from Huang (1995). In both varieties, the nominative and genitive forms are bound while the neutral and locative ones are free (unbound).

Mayrinax Atayal Personal Pronouns

Type of Pronoun	Nominative	Genitive	Locative	Neutral
1s.	sakuʔ, kuʔ	makuʔ, mu, kuʔ	knan	kuzing, kun
2s.	suʔ	suʔ	sunan	isuʔ
3s.	-	nyaʔ	hiyan	hiyaʔ
1p. (incl.)	taʔ	taʔ	itan	itaʔ
1p. (excl.)	sami	myan	sminan	sami
2p.	simu	mamu	smunan	simu
3p.	-	nhaʔ	hgan	hgaʔ

Wulai Atayal Personal Pronouns

Type of Pronoun	Nominative	Genitive	Neutral
1s.	cu, ciʔ	mu, miʔ	kuing
2s.	suʔ, siʔ	suʔ	isuʔ
3s.	-	niaʔ	hiyaʔ
1p. (incl.)	taʔ, tiʔ	taʔ, tiʔ	itaʔ
1p. (excl.)	cami	niam	cami
2p.	cimu	mamu	cimu
3p.	-	nhaʔ	nhaʔ

Affixes

The following list of Mayrinax Atayal affixes is sourced from the Comparative Austronesian Dictionary (1995).

• Note: Some affixes are unglossed.

Verbal prefixes

• ma- 'stative'
• ma- 'active'
• man-
• mana-
• maɣ-
• ma-ša- 'reciprocal, mutual'
• ma-ši 'natural release or movement'
• pana-
• ma-ti-
• ʔi-
• pa- 'causative'
• ši- 'benefactive'
• ga- 'verbalizer'
• kan- + RED + N (body parts) 'body movement'
• ma-ka- 'mutual, reciprocal'
• maki- 'active verb'
• mat- 'to turn'
• mi-
• paš-
• ta- ... -an 'location'
• tiɣi- 'to release gas'
• tu- 'for some to...'

Verbal infixes

• -um- 'agent focus'
• -in- 'completive'

Verbal suffixes

• -an 'locative focus'
• -un 'object focus'
• -i 'imperative'
• -aw 'future or mild request'
• -ani 'polite request'

Nominal affixes

• -in- 'nominalizer'
• -in- ... -an 'nominalizer to indicate a completed action'

• Male affixes (i.e., male forms of speech in Mayrinax Atayal) include (Comparative Austronesian Dictionary): -niḳ, -iḳ, -ʔiŋ, -hiŋ, -iŋ, -tiŋ, -riʔ, -ḳiʔ, -niʔ, -nux, -ux, -hu, -u, -al, -liʔ, -kaʔ, -ha, -il, -in-, -il-, -i-, -a-, -na-.

References

• Huang, Lillian M. (1995). The syntactic structure of Wulai and Mayrinax Atayal: a comparison. Bull. National Taiwan Normal University, Vol. 40, pp. 261–294.
• Rau, D. V. (1992). "A grammar of Atayal". Cornell University dissertation. Describes Squliq Atayal.
• Valle, G. D. (1963). Handbook of Atayal, as it is spoken in Wufeng (Hsinchu hsien). Taichung: Kuangchi Press

Mayrinax Atayal

• Huang, Lillian (2000a). "泰雅語參考語法" [Atayal language reference grammar]. Taipei: Yuanliou. Describes Mayrinax Atayal.
• Huang, Lillian M. (2000b). Verb Classification in Mayrinax Atayal. Oceanic Linguistics, Vol. 39, No. 2 (Dec., 2000), pp. 364–390.
• Huang, Lillian M. (2001). Focus system of Mayrinax Atayal: a syntactic, semantic and pragmatic perspective. Journal of Taiwan Normal University: Humanities and Social Science. 2001, 46(1,2), pp. 51–69.
• Huang, Lillian M. (2002). Nominalization in Mayrinax Atayal. Taipei: National Taiwan Normal University.
• Lu, Anne Yu-an (2005). Order and Interaction of Prefixes in Mayrinax Atayal. Hsinchu, Taiwan: National Tsing Hua University.

External links

• Atayal language at Ethnologue (16th ed., 2009)
• Entry for Atayal at Rosetta Project
• Ci'uli Atayal Wordlist at the Austronesian Basic Vocabulary Database