Taiwan’s Indigenous Languages (Language Learning Log) Language Learning Forum

Taiwan’s Indigenous Languages
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Language Learning Forum : Language Learning Log

glossika Super Polyglot Pro Member China english.glossika.com Joined 6534 days ago 45 posts - 72 votes Speaks: Mandarin, English*, German, Italian, Russian, Taiwanese, Shanghainese, Tok Pisin, Malay, French, Portuguese, Spanish, Cantonese, Japanese, Korean, Romanian, Croatian, Serbian, Icelandic, Georgian, Indonesian Studies: Czech, Vietnamese, Mongolian, Latvian, Persian, Arabic (Written) Personal Language Map	Message 1 of 2 11 March 2009 at 4:13pm \| IP Logged
	Four new languages to add to my list: Thao, Bunun, Seedeq, Atayal. These are not listed on this site. I know many languages that are not listed on this site. My specialty is in dialectology so many of you will find that I have a large number of languages listed. For my own studies, I don't treat them as separate languages per se, but rather as variants of each other and by doing so I can learn all the languages of a language branch at a time. I'm still writing extensively on how we can greatly enhance the working memory through the use of our muscles and hippocampal stimulation, along with applying spatial intelligence in what I call geographic "planes" of knowledge to map sounds and grammars between languages. I have used these same techniques to achieve high proficiency levels in many other subjects including science, sports, and music. You can visit my website English.glossika.com or visit my profile on tagged, I'm listed as ! Mike ! in Taiwan.) In the fall of 2008, I started active study of several indigenous languages of Taiwan. I visited with chiefs, recorded several thousand sentences, read through grammars and started holding basic conversations with the local people. These languages are Austronesian in structure, similar to Indonesian and Tagalog, and I have identified vocabulary roots cognate with Hawaiian (Polynesian branch of Austronesian). I studied Malay, Toba Batak, and Indonesian extensively before and am very familiar with the grammatical structure. Most of the indigenous Formosan languages, for example, use ma- as a verbal prefix, so you'll find words like "eat", i.e. ma-kan, almost identical with Malay and Indonesian. One of the primary languages on my list to tackle was Thao, a (severely) moribund language. I could only find 3 people still able to use the language fluently and I worked with the youngest of them, a >60-year-old man "Darma", also the chief of Dehuashe village, the only place where the language still exists. None of the villagers use the language anymore and communicate with each other 98% of the time in Southern Min (Taiwanese). Their command of Mandarin is spotty. Most intermarry with the neighboring Bunun of Xinyi county so over several generations of Bunun-speaking mothers, Thao-speaking fathers, the families adopted Taiwanese as a lingua franca really impacting the use of the language in the household. While working with Darma, his eldest son suddenly passed away from a heart attack at the age of 39 in early October, a man I'd already become acquainted with, and so I stopped my visits to allow the family some time to deal with it. I also met with and studied Bunun, Seedeq, and Atayal. Since I reside in Taipei, I return to central Taiwan's highlands for further analysis and recording every 2-3 weeks. 2 persons have voted this message useful
shadowcalm Triglot Newbie Taiwan Joined 5973 days ago 29 posts - 39 votes Speaks: English*, German, French Studies: Latin, Ancient Greek, Dutch, Mandarin, Esperanto	Message 2 of 2 04 August 2009 at 11:28am \| IP Logged
	Glossika, you've undertaken an important study. Although a number of basic textbooks have been published in recent years, a great deal of work remains to be done on all the indigenous languages of Taiwan. I have collected materials and done fieldwork on Tao (Yami), the language of Lanyu (Orchid Island) and am also very interested in Atayal. Maybe we can compare notes sometime. Please keep up the good work! 1 person has voted this message useful

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