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Wikipedia / 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 . 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 .

Pronouns

The Kavalan personal pronouns below are from .

Affixes

The Kavalan affixes below are from .

  1. Prefixes

  2. i-: stative, having to do with location

  3. kar-: rapid motion; defective, not perfect

  4. ki-, qi-: pluck, pick

  5. kin-: number of humans

  6. lu-: flat

  7. luq(e)-: bumpy, rough (used with stative verbs)

  8. m-, -m-, mu-, -u-, -um-: agent-focus

  9. ma-, m-: stative

  10. maq-: where from

  11. mar-: sine kind of shape

  12. mi-: discharge something from the body

  13. mri-: settle down; to shrink, huddle up

  14. mrim-: a division of (a numeral)

  15. nan-: two people (kinship); distributive numeral

  16. ni-, n-, -in-, -n-: past, perfective

  17. pa-: causative (used with active verbs)

  18. pa- -an: agentive

  19. pa-ti: personal marker for the dead

  20. paq-, paqa-: causative (used with stative verbs)

  21. paq-: get on (a boat)

  22. pa-qi-: cause to become

  23. pat-: make a change

  24. pi-: put into, put away; do something to protect a body part; every (time)

  25. qa-: immediate future; ride, take (means of transportation)

  26. qa- -an: place of/for

  27. qaRu-: become, transform into; transformable into

  28. qi-: pick, gather, get

  29. qna-: nominaizer (used with stative verbs; -an is used with active verbs)

  30. Ra-: to transform into

  31. Ra-CV-: light color of

  32. Ri-: catch, get

  33. Ru-: just now; for the first time

  34. sa-: have the event (natural phenomena); do, make, produce, have; secrete (body fluid); tool

  35. sam-CV-: pretend

  36. saqa-: ordinal (numeral)

  37. si-: wear, own, possess

  38. sia-: go towards (place/direction); go to the side (often euphemistic for urinating/defecating)

  39. sim-: reciprocal

  40. siqa-: (number of) times

  41. smu-: finger

  42. sna-: model of, copy of

  43. su-: remove; move downwards, upside down, slanting

  44. su-CV-: stink or smell of

  45. tan-: speak the language

  46. taRi-: position, people in such a position

  47. ti-: instrumental-focus; to take each other (?)

  48. ti- (-an): beneficiary-focus

  49. tRi-CV(C)- (-an): discharge (body discharge) with control

  50. u-: agent-focus; non-human numeral

  51. Suffixes

  52. -a: irrealis patient-focus marker

  53. -an: locative-focus marker, nominalizer

  54. -i: irrealis non-agent-focus imperative

  55. Infixes

  56. -m-, -um-: agent-focus

  57. -n-, -in-, ni-: perfective

References

Notes

General references