Tao language
Encyclopedia
Yami also known as Tao , is a variety of the Ivatan
dialect cluster spoken by the Tao people
of Taiwan
. It is spoken on Orchid Island
, 46 kilometers southeast of the main island of Taiwan
. Yami is known as ciriciring no Tao, or "human speech," by its native speakers (Rau 2006:79). Yami is the only language of Taiwanese aborigines
that does not fit in with the other Formosan languages
but instead shares linguistic similarities with the Ivatan language
spoken in the Batanes
of northern Philippines
.
Vowels
Iraralay Yami, spoken on the north coast, distinguishes between long and short consonants (e.g., opa 'thigh' vs. oppa 'hen' form one such minimal pair
) (Rau 2006:81).
Dynamic intransitive
Stative
Dynamic
Transitive
Stative functioning as transitive
Ivatan language
The Ivatan language, also known as Ibatan or Chirin nu Ibatan , is an Austronesian language spoken exclusively in the Batanes Islands...
dialect cluster spoken by the Tao people
Tao people
The Tao , originally recognized as Yami , are a Taiwanese aboriginal people, native to tiny outlying Orchid Island in Taiwan. The Tao are an Austronesian people linguistically and culturally closer to the Ivatan people of the Batanes islands in the Philippines than to other aboriginal peoples on...
of Taiwan
Taiwan
Taiwan , also known, especially in the past, as Formosa , is the largest island of the same-named island group of East Asia in the western Pacific Ocean and located off the southeastern coast of mainland China. The island forms over 99% of the current territory of the Republic of China following...
. It is spoken on Orchid Island
Orchid Island
Orchid Island is a 45-km² volcanic island off the southeastern coast of Taiwan island and separated from the Batanes of the Philippines by the Bashi Channel of the Luzon Strait. It is governed as Lanyu Township of Taitung County...
, 46 kilometers southeast of the main island of Taiwan
Taiwan
Taiwan , also known, especially in the past, as Formosa , is the largest island of the same-named island group of East Asia in the western Pacific Ocean and located off the southeastern coast of mainland China. The island forms over 99% of the current territory of the Republic of China following...
. Yami is known as ciriciring no Tao, or "human speech," by its native speakers (Rau 2006:79). Yami is the only language of Taiwanese aborigines
Taiwanese aborigines
Taiwanese aborigines is the term commonly applied in reference to the indigenous peoples of Taiwan. Although Taiwanese indigenous groups hold a variety of creation myths, recent research suggests their ancestors may have been living on the islands for approximately 8,000 years before major Han...
that does not fit in with the other Formosan languages
Formosan languages
The Formosan languages are the languages of the indigenous peoples of Taiwan. Taiwanese aborigines currently comprise about 2% of the island's population. However, far fewer can still speak their ancestral language, after centuries of language shift...
but instead shares linguistic similarities with the Ivatan language
Ivatan language
The Ivatan language, also known as Ibatan or Chirin nu Ibatan , is an Austronesian language spoken exclusively in the Batanes Islands...
spoken in the Batanes
Batanes
The Province of Batanes , also called the Batanes Islands, is a Philippine province comprising ten islands that are located in the Luzon Strait between the islands of Luzon and Taiwan...
of northern Philippines
Philippines
The Philippines , officially known as the Republic of the Philippines , is a country in Southeast Asia in the western Pacific Ocean. To its north across the Luzon Strait lies Taiwan. West across the South China Sea sits Vietnam...
.
Phonology
Yami has 20 consonants and 4 vowels, namely (Rau 2006:79-80):- Consonants (in Yami script)
- Stops: /p, b, t, d, k, g, '/
- Fricatives: /v, s, h/ (/s/ is a retroflex)
- Nasals: /m, n, ng/
- Liquids: /l, r/
- Affricates: /c, j/ (palatal affricates)
- Trills: /z/ (alveolar trillAlveolar trillThe alveolar trill is a type of consonantal sound, used in some spoken languages. The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents dental, alveolar, and postalveolar trills is , and the equivalent X-SAMPA symbol is r. It is commonly called the rolled R, rolling R, or trilled R...
) - Glides: /w, y/
Vowels
-
- /a, e, i, o/ (e is a mid-central vowel)
Iraralay Yami, spoken on the north coast, distinguishes between long and short consonants (e.g., opa 'thigh' vs. oppa 'hen' form one such minimal pair
Minimal pair
In phonology, minimal pairs are pairs of words or phrases in a particular language, which differ in only one phonological element, such as a phone, phoneme, toneme or chroneme and have distinct meanings...
) (Rau 2006:81).
Verbs
The following list of Yami verbal inflections is from Rau (2006:135).Dynamic intransitive
- -om-/om- (subjunctive: N-)
- mi-
- ma-
- maN-
- maka-
- maci-/masi-/macika-/macipa-
Stative
- ma- (subjunctive: a-)
- ka- ... -an (subjunctive: ka- ... -i)
Dynamic
- pi-
- pa-
- paN- (subjunctive: maN-)
- paka- (subjunctive: maka-)
- paci- (subjunctive: maci-)
Transitive
- -en (subjunctive: -a)
- -an (subjunctive: -i)
- i- (subjunctive: -an)
Stative functioning as transitive
- ma- (subjunctive: a- ... -a)
- ka- ... -an (subjunctive: a- ... -a)
Affixes
The following list of Yami affixes is from Rau (2006:135-136).- icia- 'fellows such and such who share the same features or fate'
- ikeyka- 'even more so'
- ika- 'feel such and such because...'
- ika- 'ordinal number'
- ipi- 'multiple number'
- ji a- 'negation or emphatic'
- ka- 'company, as ... as, abstract noun'
- ka- 'and then, just now, only'
- ka- 'stative verb prefix reappearing in forming transitive verbs'
- ka- (reduplicated root) 'very'
- ka- (reduplicated root) 'animals named after certain features'
- ka- ... -an 'common noun'
- ma- ... -en 'love to do such and such'
- mapaka- 'pretend to be such and such'
- mapi- 'do such and such as an occupation'
- mi-/mala- 'kinship relationships in a group of two or three'
- mika-/mapika-/ipika- 'all, gradually, one by one'
- mala- 'taste or look like...'
- mipa- 'getting more and more...'
- mipipa- 'even more...'
- mapi-/mapa-/pa- ... -en/ipa- 'causative verb affixes'
- ni- 'perfective'
- ni- ... na 'superlative'
- noka- 'past'
- noma- 'future (remote)'
- sicia- 'present'
- sima- 'future (proximal)'
- tey- 'direction'
- tey- 'very, too'
- tey- (reduplicated root) 'amount allocated to each unit
Cognates with Tagalog
| English | Yami | Filipino/Ilokano Ilokano language Ilokano or Ilocano is the third most-spoken language of the Republic of the Philippines.... /Tagalog Tagalog language Tagalog is an Austronesian language spoken as a first language by a third of the population of the Philippines and as a second language by most of the rest. It is the first language of the Philippine region IV and of Metro Manila... etc |
|---|---|---|
| Person | tao | tao |
| Mother | ina | ina |
| Father | ama | ama |
| Head | oo | ulo |
| Yes | nohon | oho (opo) |
| Friend | kagagan | kaibigan |
| who | sino | sino |
| they | sira | sila |
| their | nira | nila |
| offspring | anak | anak |
| I (pronoun) | ko | ako, siak (Ilokano) |
| you | ka | ikaw, ka (Cebuano Cebuano language Cebuano, referred to by most of its speakers as Bisaya , is an Austronesian language spoken in the Philippines by about 20 million people mostly in the Central Visayas. It is the most widely spoken of the languages within the so-named Bisayan subgroup and is closely related to other Filipino... ), sika (Ilokano) |
| day | araw | araw, aldaw (Ilokano) |
| eat | kanen | kumain, kanen (Ilokano) |
| drink | inomen | inomin, inomen (Ilokano) |
| and | aka | saka |
| ouch | Ananay | Aray, Araray (Cebuano), Anay (Ilokano) |
| home | vahay | bahay, balay (Ilokano, Cebuano) |
| pig | viik | biik (piglet) |
| goat | kadling | kambing, kanding (Cebuano), kalding (Ilokano) |
| stone | vato | bato |
| one | ása | isa, maysa (Ilokano) |
| two | dóa (raroa) | dalawa, duha (Cebuano), dua (Ilokano) |
| three | tílo | tatlo, tulo (Cebuano), talo (Ilokano) |
| four | ápat | apat, upat (Ilokano, Cebuano) |
| five | líma | lima |
| six | ánem | anim, inem (Ilokano), unom (Cebuano) |
| seven | píto | pito |
| eight | wáo | walo |
| nine | síam | siyam |
| ten | póo | sampo, sangapulo (Ilokano) |
Japanese loanwords
| English | Yami | Japanese |
|---|---|---|
| Airplane | sikoki | hikouki (飛行機) |
| Alcohol | saki | sake (酒) |
| Battleship | gengkang | gunkan (軍艦) |
| Bible | seysio | seisho (聖書) |
| Christ | Kizisto | kirisuto (キリスト) |
| Doctor | koysang | o-isha-san? (お医者さん) |
| Flashlight | dingki | denki (電気) |
| Holy Spirit | seyzi | seirei (聖霊) |
| Key | kagi | kagi (鍵) |
| Medicine | kosozi | kusuri (薬) |
| Motorcycle | otobay | ootobai (オートバイ; auto bike) |
| Police | kisat | keisatsu (警察) |
| School | gako | gakkō (学校) |
| School bag | kabang | kaban (鞄) |
| Teacher | sinsi | sensei (先生) |
| Ticket | kipo | kippu (切符) |
| Truck | tozako | torakku (トラック; truck) |
Chinese loanwords
| English | Yami | Mandarin Chinese |
|---|---|---|
| Wine | potaw cio | pútáojǐu (葡萄酒) |
See also
- Languages of TaiwanLanguages of TaiwanThe language with the most native speakers in Taiwan is Taiwanese Hokkien, or "Taiwanese" for short. Hokkien is a topolect of the Chinese family of languages originating in southern Fujian and is spoken by many overseas Chinese throughout Southeast Asia...
- Taiwanese aboriginesTaiwanese aboriginesTaiwanese aborigines is the term commonly applied in reference to the indigenous peoples of Taiwan. Although Taiwanese indigenous groups hold a variety of creation myths, recent research suggests their ancestors may have been living on the islands for approximately 8,000 years before major Han...
- Tao peopleTao peopleThe Tao , originally recognized as Yami , are a Taiwanese aboriginal people, native to tiny outlying Orchid Island in Taiwan. The Tao are an Austronesian people linguistically and culturally closer to the Ivatan people of the Batanes islands in the Philippines than to other aboriginal peoples on...
- Batanic languagesBatanic languagesThe Batanic languages are a dialect cluster which form a group of the Philippine branch of the Austronesian language family...
- Ivatan languageIvatan languageThe Ivatan language, also known as Ibatan or Chirin nu Ibatan , is an Austronesian language spoken exclusively in the Batanes Islands...
External links
- Yami wordlists at the Austronesian Basic Vocabulary Database: 1, 2
- Online Yami language course, Providence University, Taiwan http://yamiproject.cs.pu.edu.tw/elearn/
- Yami Language Documentation Project Website: http://yamiproject.cs.pu.edu.tw/yami_a.htm/