Saaroa language

Saaroa
Spoken in	Taiwan
Region	west central Mountains of Taiwan, south and southeast of Minchuan, along the Laonung River
Ethnicity	300
Native speakers	6  (2000)
Language family	Austronesian Saaroa–Kanakanabu Saaroa
Language codes
ISO 639-3	sxr

Saaroa (autonym: ɬaʔalua) is a Southern Tsouic language is spoken by the Saaroa, a tribe of indigenous people on Taiwan (see Taiwanese aborigines). It is a Formosan language of the Austronesian family.

Language evolution

In 1990, Saaroa was nearly extinct. Few children speak the language. The Bunun language is becoming the main language of the Saaroa people, and many of the elders in the tribe speak Taiwanese. The shift to the Bunun language occurred when the Bunun tribe migrated into the area inhabited by the Saaroa people.

Saaroa has heavily borrowed from Mantauran Rukai, since the Saaraa and Rukai peoples are geographically adjacent to each other.

References

General references

• Gordon, Raymond G., Jr.(ed.) 2005. Ethnologue:Languages of the World, Fifteenth edition. Dallas: SIL International.