The Tsouic languages are three 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...

, Tsou

Tsou language

Tsou is a divergent Austronesian language spoken by the Tsou people of Taiwan.-Classification:Tsou has traditionally been considered part of a Tsouic branch of Austronesian...

 proper and the Southern languages Kanakanabu

Kanakanabu language

Kanakanabu is a Southern Tsouic language is spoken by the Kanakanabu, an indigenous people of Taiwan . It is a Formosan language of the Austronesian family....

 and Saaroa

Saaroa language

Saaroa is a Southern Tsouic language is spoken by the Saaroa, a tribe of indigenous people on Taiwan . It is a Formosan language of the Austronesian family.-Language evolution:...

. The Southern Tsouic languages of Kanakanabu and Saaroa have the smallest phonemic inventories out of all the Formosan languages, with each language having only 13 consonants and 4 vowels (Blust 2009:165). These two languages are highly endangered, as many Southern Tsouic speakers are shifting to Bunun

Bunun language

The Bunun language is spoken by the Bunun people of Taiwan. It is one of the Formosan languages, a geographic group of Austronesian languages, and is subdivided in five dialects: Isbukun, Takbunuaz, Takivatan, Takibaka and Takituduh. Isbukun, the dominant dialect, is mainly spoken in the south of...

 and Mandarin Chinese.

The Proto-Tsouic language was reconstructed by Japanese linguist Shigeru Tsichida in 1976, and is supported by Blust (1999) and Li (2008). However, Chang (2006) and Ross (2009) deny that Tsouic is a valid group; Ross places Southern Tsouic within Nuclear Austronesian (the family of the various proto-Austronesian reconstructions), but the Tsou language

Tsou language

Tsou is a divergent Austronesian language spoken by the Tsou people of Taiwan.-Classification:Tsou has traditionally been considered part of a Tsouic branch of Austronesian...

 as a more divergent branch.

Classification

• Tsou
  Tsou language
  Tsou is a divergent Austronesian language spoken by the Tsou people of Taiwan.-Classification:Tsou has traditionally been considered part of a Tsouic branch of Austronesian...
  
  
• Southern Tsouic
  • Kanakanabu
    Kanakanabu language
    Kanakanabu is a Southern Tsouic language is spoken by the Kanakanabu, an indigenous people of Taiwan . It is a Formosan language of the Austronesian family....
    
    
  • Saaroa
    Saaroa language
    Saaroa is a Southern Tsouic language is spoken by the Saaroa, a tribe of indigenous people on Taiwan . It is a Formosan language of the Austronesian family.-Language evolution:...
    
    

Sound changes

The following sound changes from Proto-Austronesian

Proto-Austronesian language

The Proto-Austronesian language is the reconstructed ancestor of the Austronesian languages, one of the world's major language families. However, Ross notes that what may be the most divergent languages, Tsou, Rukai, and Puyuma, are not addressed by the reconstructions, which therefore cannot...

occurred in the Tsouic languages (Li 2008:215).

• *C, *d > c
• *y > Proto-Tsouic *z
• *R > r

Further reading

• Tsuchida, S. (1976). Reconstruction of Proto-Tsouic phonology. [Tokyo: Institute for the Study of Languages and Cultures of Asia and Africa, Tokyo Gaikokugo Daigaku.
• Chang, Henry Yungli (2006). "Rethinking the Tsouic Subgroup Hypothesis: A Morphosyntactic Perspective." In Chang, H., Huang, L. M., Ho, D. (eds.). Streams converging into an ocean: Festschrift in honor of Professor Paul Jen-Kuei Li on his 70th birthday. Taipei: Institute of Linguistics, Academia Sinica.