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 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 (1985) notes that word lists collected from Lamkham 南崁 (Nankan) and Poting 埔頂 (Buding) are closest to Kavalan, while Li (2001) 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.

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 (written as R)
• *a into i (if adjacent to q) 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 (nouns) or presence of /a/ (verbs). Kavalan syllables take on the structure (C)(C)V(C)(C). Kavalan is also one of two Formosan languages to have geminating consonants.

Kavalan affixes include:

• m- (agent focus)
• -um-/-m- (agent focus)
• -in/-n- as variants of ni- (patient)
• -a (irrealis patient-focus marker)
• -an (locative-focus marker, nominalizer)
• -i (imperative, patient focus)
• pa- (causative)
• qa- (future)

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 Li & Tsuchida (2006:27).

Pronouns

The Kavalan Personal pronouns below are from Li & Tsuchida (2006:30).

Affixes

The Kavalan affixes below are from Li & Tsuchida (2006:14–24).

References

Notes

General references

External links

• Taiwan government publications: Kavalan dictionary (in Chinese)
• The Academy in Taipei press release: Kavalan dictionary published (in Chinese)
• Yuánzhùmínzú yǔyán xiànshàng cídiǎn 原住民族語言線上詞典 (in Chinese) – Kavalan search page at the "Aboriginal language online dictionary" website of the Foundation for the Research and Development of Indigenous Languages
• Kavalan teaching and leaning materials published by the Council of Indigenous Peoples of Taiwan Archived 2022-02-28 at the Wayback Machine (in Chinese)
• Kavalan translation of President Tsai Ing-wen's 2016 apology to indigenous people – published on the website of the presidential office