Saisiyat language

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Saisiyat
Spoken in: Taiwan
Total speakers: 4750 (2002)
Language family: Austronesian
 Northwest Formosan
  Saisiyat
Language codes
ISO 639-1: none
ISO 639-2: –
ISO 639-3: xsy
Note: This page may contain IPA phonetic symbols in Unicode.

Saisiyat is the language of the Saisiyat, a tribe of indigenous people on Taiwan (see Taiwanese aborigines). It is a Formosan language of the Austronesian family. It has approximately 4,750 speakers.

Contents

[edit] Classification

[edit] Language area

The language area of Saisiyat is small, situated in the northwest of the country between the Hakka Chinese and Atayal regions in the mountains (Wufeng-hsiang, Hsinchu, Nanchuang-hsiang, Miaoli).

[edit] Usage

Today, one thousand Saisiyat people do not use the Saisiyat language. Many young people use Hakka or Atayal instead, and few children speak Saisiyat. Hakka Chinese speakers, Atayal speakers and Saisiyat speakers live more or less together. Many Saisiyat are able to speak Saisiyat, Hakka, Atayal, Mandarin, and, sometimes, Min Nan as well. Although Saisiyat has a relatively large number of speakers, the language is endangered.

[edit] Dialects

  • Taai
  • Tungho
Languages