Kanakanabu language

Kanakanavu
Native to	Taiwan
Region	Maya Village, Namasia District, Kaohsiung City
Ethnicity	250 (no date)[1]
Native speakers	4 (2012)[2]
Language family	Austronesian Tsouic ? Saaroa–Kanakanabu Kanakanavu; ; ;
Language codes
ISO 639-3	xnb
Glottolog	kana1286
ELP	Kanakanavu[3]

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.

The Kanakanavu live in the two villages of Manga and Takanua in Namasia District (formerly Sanmin Township), Kaohsiung.[4]

The language is considered to be moribund.[5]

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.[6]

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.[7]

Consonants

Kanakanabu consonants
	Labial	Alveolar	Retroflex	Palatal	Velar	Glottal
Nasal	m	n			ŋ ⟨ng⟩
Stop	p ɓ ⟨p⟩	t	ɖ ⟨l⟩	c	k	ʔ ⟨'⟩
Affricate
Fricative	f v	s z				h
Rhotic		ɽ
Approximant	w	ɫ ⟨hl⟩	ɭ	j ⟨y⟩

Vowels

Front: i, e, a

Central: ʉ, e/ə

Back: u, o

Orthography

Kanakanabu 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

Kanakanabu language at Ethnologue (15th ed., 2005)
Kanakanavu at Ethnologue (18th ed., 2015)
Endangered Languages Project data for Kanakanavu.
Zeitoun & Teng (2014), abstract.
"Did You Know Kanakanabu is Critically Endangered?". endangeredlanguages.com. Retrieved April 15, 2016.
"Ethnographic Setting". Kanakanavu: An Aboriginal Language on Taiwan. Archived from the original on 2016-09-20. Retrieved 2016-09-15.
"Phonology". Kanakanavu: An Aboriginal Language on Taiwan. Archived from the original on 2016-10-05. Retrieved 2016-09-26.

External links

Endangered Languages

This article is issued from Wikipedia. The text is licensed under Creative Commons - Attribution - Sharealike. Additional terms may apply for the media files.

[e15-1] Kanakanabu language at Ethnologue (15th ed., 2005)

[e18-2] Kanakanavu at Ethnologue (18th ed., 2015)

[ELP1-3] Endangered Languages Project data for Kanakanavu.

[FOOTNOTEZeitounTeng2014[httpiscll-14lingsinicaedutwfiles-pdfPapersSession6ZeitounTengpdf_abstract]-4] Zeitoun & Teng (2014), abstract.

[5] "Did You Know Kanakanabu is Critically Endangered?". endangeredlanguages.com. Retrieved April 15, 2016.

[6] "Ethnographic Setting". Kanakanavu: An Aboriginal Language on Taiwan. Archived from the original on 2016-09-20. Retrieved 2016-09-15.

[7] "Phonology". Kanakanavu: An Aboriginal Language on Taiwan. Archived from the original on 2016-10-05. Retrieved 2016-09-26.