Amis
'Amis or Pangcah
Pronunciation[paŋt͡saʜ]
Native toTaiwan
Ethnicity200,000 Amis (2014)[1]
Native speakers110,000 (2015)[2]
Language familyAustronesian
  • Formosan
    • East Formosan
      • Amis–Sakizaya
        • Amis
Writing systemLatin script
Language codes
ISO 639-3ami
Glottologamis1246
IETFami[3]
Distribution of Amis language (purple)
Amis is classified as Vulnerable by the UNESCO Atlas of the World's Languages in Danger

Amis (Sowal no 'Amis or Pangcah) is a Formosan language[4] of the Amis (or Ami), an indigenous people living along the east coast of Taiwan. Amis is the largest of the Formosan languages. It is spoken between Hualien in the north and Taitung in the south, with another population of speakers in the Hengchun Peninsula near the southern end of the island. The northern varieties are considered tobe separate languages.

Government services in counties where many Amis people live in Taiwan broadcast in Amis alongside Mandarin, such as the Hualien and Taitung railway stations. However, few Amis under the age of 20 in 1995 spoke the language. It is not known how many of the 200,000 ethnic Amis speak the language. A third of the aboriginal Taiwanese population speaks Amis.

Dialects

Amis is a dialect cluster. There are five dialects: Southern Amis, Tavalong-Vataan, Central Amis, Chengkung-Kwangshan, and Northern Amis (Nanshi Amis, which includes Nataoran).

Sakizaya is a moribund language spoken among the northernmost ethnic Amis. It is not mutually intelligible with the Northern Amis dialect.[5]

Phonology

The following discussion covers the central dialect of Amis.[6]

Consonants

Amis consonants
Labial Dental Alveolar Palatal Velar Epiglottal Glottal
Nasals m n̪ ⟨n⟩ ŋ ⟨ng⟩
Plosives and
affricate 		p t̪ ⟨t⟩ t͡s ⟨c⟩ k ʡ ~ ʢ ⟨ꞌ⟩ ʔ ⟨^⟩
Fricatives v ⟨f⟩ ð ~ ɮ̪ ⟨d⟩ s ⟨s⟩ (ɣ)1 ⟨g⟩ ʜ ⟨h⟩
Trill r ⟨r⟩
Lateral flap ɺ̠ ⟨l⟩
Approximants w ⟨w⟩ j ⟨y⟩
  1. The voiced velar fricative /ɣ/ only occurs in some loanwords, such as rigi /riˈɣiʔ/ 'ridge between sections of a rice field'.

The epiglottal consonants have proven difficult to describe, with some sources describing them as pharyngeal or even uvular as opposed to epiglottal. It is unclear if [h] is a separate phoneme from [ʜ] or if it's just an allophone of it. The voiceless pharyngeal fricative [ħ] is a word-final allophone of /ʜ/.[7]

The voiceless plosives /p t k ʡ/ and the affricate /t͡s/ are released in clusters, so that cecay "one" is pronounced [t͡sᵊt͡saj]; as is /s/: sepat "four" is [sᵊpatʰ]. The glottal stop is an exception, frequently having no audible release in final position. The voiced fricatives, /v ɮ ɣ/ (the latter found only in loanwords) are devoiced to [f ɬ x] in utterance-final and sometimes initial position. /ɮ/ may be interdental or post-dental. The sibilants, /t͡s s/, are optionally palatalized ([t͡ɕ ɕ]) before /i/. /j/ does not occur in word-initial position. /ɺ/ is often post-alveolar, and in final position it is released: [ʡuʡuɺ̠ᵊ] "fog".

/ɮ/ shows dramatic dialectal variation. In Fengbin, a town in the center of Amis territory, it is pronounced as a median dental fricative, [ð], whereas in the town of Kangko, only 15 km (9.3 mi) away, it is a lateral [ɮ̪]. In Northern Amis, it is a plosive [d̪], which may be laxed to [ð] intervocalically. The epiglottals are also reported to have different pronunciations in the north, but the descriptions are contradictory. In Central Amis, /ʜ/ is always voiceless and /ʡ/ is often accompanied by vibrations that suggest it involves an epiglottal trill [ʢ]. Edmondson and Elsing report that these are true epiglottals initially and medially, but in utterance-final position they are epiglotto–pharyngeal.

Sakizaya, considered to be a separate language, contrasts a voiced /z/ with voiceless /s/.

In the practical orthography, /ts/ is written ⟨c⟩, /j/ ⟨y⟩, /ʡ/ ⟨ꞌ⟩, /ʔ/ ⟨^⟩, /ɮ/ ⟨d⟩, /ŋ/ ⟨ng⟩, and /ʜ/ ⟨x⟩.

Vowels

Amis vowels
Front Central Back
Close i u
Mid (ə̆)
Open a

Amis has three common vowels, /i a u/. Despite the fact that a great deal of latitude is afforded by only needing to distinguish three vowels, Amis vowels stay close to their cardinal values, though there is more movement of /a/ and /u/ toward each other (tending to the [o] range) than there is in front-vowel space (in the [e] range).

A voiceless epenthetic schwa optionally breaks up consonant clusters, as noted above. However, there are a small number of words where a short schwa (written e) may be phonemic. However, no contrast involving the schwa is known, and if it is also epenthetic, then Amis has words with no phonemic vowels at all. Examples of this e are malmes "sad", pronounced [maɺə̆mːə̆s], and ’nem "six", pronounced [ʡnə̆m] or [ʡə̆nə̆m].

Stress

Stress regularly falls on the final syllable.[6]

Grammar

Verbs in the Amis language have some inflections including existential clause, active voice, passive voice, disposal sentence, imperative mood, optative mood, and prohibitive mood.

Case markers

Cases are marked by case particles.

Neutral Nominative Accusative Genitive
Common o/u ko to no
Personal (singular) ci ci ci ... an ni
Personal (plural) ca ca ca ... an na

Syntax

There are two word orders in Amis called "General" Word Order and "Special" Word Order.

Below are some examples of Amis sentence:

"General" Word Order Sentence I : Verb–subject

Verb Subject
Verb, Adjective, etc. Preposition for Subjects + Nouns
Example

"General" Word Order Sentence II : Verb–subject–object

Verb Subject Object
Verb, Adjective, etc. Preposition for Subjects + Nouns Preposition for Objects + Nouns
Example

Vocabulary

  • lotong: monkey/ape
  • fafoy: pig
  • wacu: dog
  • cecay: one
  • tosa: two
  • tolo: three
  • sepat: four
  • lima: five
  • ꞌenem: six
  • pito: seven
  • falo: eight
  • siwa: nine
  • poloꞌ: ten

Comparison

Comparisons of Amis with English and other Austronesian languages
Amis English Tagalog Pangasinan Kapampangan Ilocano Javanese Sundanese Malay
cecay one isa sakey isa maysa siji hiji satu
tosa two dalawa dua adwa dua loro dua dua
tolo three tatlo talo atlo tallo telu tilu tiga
sepat four apat apat apat uppat papat opat empat
lima five lima lima lima lima lima lima lima
ꞌenem six anim anem anam inem enem genep enam
pito seven pito pito pitu/pito pito pitu tujuh tujuh
falo eight walo walo walu/walo walo wolu dalapan delapan
siwa nine siyam siyam siam siam sanga salapan sembilan
poloꞌ ten sampu samplo apulu/apulo sangapulo sepuluh sapuluh sepuluh

Toponyms

Sing ꞌOlam (2011:300–301) lists the following Amis names for villages and towns in Hualien County and Taitung County of eastern Taiwan.

Sample text

Article 1 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights translated into Pangcah:

References

Citations

  1. "Amis Remains Taiwan's Biggest Aboriginal Tribe at 37.1% of Total". Focus Taiwan. CNA. February 15, 2015.
  2. Amis at Ethnologue (26th ed., 2023)
  3. IANA language subtag registry. 29 July 2009 https://www.iana.org/assignments/language-subtag-registry/language-subtag-registry. {{cite web}}: Missing or empty |title= (help)
  4. Hammarström, Harald; Forkel, Robert; Haspelmath, Martin (eds.). "Amis". Glottolog . Jena, Germany: Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human History.
  5. Lo chi (2019-12-16). "Sakizaya added to Wikipedia as a language option". Taipei Times.
  6. Maddieson & Wright 1995.
  7. Maddieson & Wright 1995, pp. 45–65.

Sources

Amis edition of Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia