The Austronesian languages are a language family widely spoken throughout Maritime Southeast Asia, parts of Mainland Southeast Asia, Madagascar, the islands of the Pacific Ocean and Taiwan. They are spoken by about 328 million people. This makes it the fifth-largest language family by number of speakers. Major Austronesian languages include Malay, Javanese, Sundanese, Tagalog, Malagasy and Cebuano. According to some estimates, the family contains 1,257 languages, which is the second most of any language family.
The Formosan languages are a geographic grouping comprising the languages of the indigenous peoples of Taiwan, all of which are Austronesian. They do not form a single subfamily of Austronesian but rather up to nine separate primary subfamilies. The Taiwanese indigenous peoples recognized by the government are about 2.3% of the island's population. However, only 35% speak their ancestral language, due to centuries of language shift. Of the approximately 26 languages of the Taiwanese indigenous peoples, at least ten are extinct, another four are moribund, and all others are to some degree endangered. They are national languages of Taiwan.
Saisiyat is the language of the Saisiyat, a Taiwanese indigenous people. It is a Formosan language of the Austronesian family. It has approximately 4,750 speakers.
Kavalan 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.
Rukai is a Formosan language spoken by the Rukai people in Taiwan. It is a member of the Austronesian language family. The Rukai language comprises six dialects, which are Budai, Labuan, Maga, Mantauran, Tanan and Tona. The number of speakers of the six Rukai dialects is estimated to be about 10,000. Some of them are monolingual. There are varying degrees of mutual intelligibility among the Rukai dialects. Rukai is notable for its distinct grammatical voice system among the Formosan languages.
Pazeh and Kaxabu are dialects of an extinct language of the Pazeh and Kaxabu, neighboring Taiwanese indigenous peoples. The language was Formosan, of the Austronesian language family. The last remaining native speaker of the Pazeh dialect died in 2010.
The Qauqaut were a Taiwanese Indigenous people who lived primarily in the town of Su-ao in Yilan County. They spoke the Basay language, which is a Kavalanic language, an Austronesian language family of Taiwan. According to Japanese anthropologist Inō Kanori, the Qauqaut people had been assimilated by the Kavalan people by early 20th century. The Qauqaut people are not recognised by the government of Taiwan.
Proto-Austronesian is a proto-language. It is the reconstructed ancestor of the Austronesian languages, one of the world's major language families. Proto-Austronesian is assumed to have begun to diversify c. 4000 BCE – c. 3500 BCE in Taiwan.
Inō Kanori was a Japanese anthropologist and folklorist known for his studies in Taiwanese indigenous peoples. Ino was the first person who classified the aboriginal tribes into several groups, instead of the traditional classification which imprecisely recognized these aborigines only as "cooked/domesticated" or "raw/wild".
The Tsouic languages are three Formosan languages, Tsou proper and the Southern languages Kanakanavu and Saaroa. The Southern Tsouic languages of Kanakanavu and Saaroa have the smallest phonemic inventories out of all the Formosan languages, with each language having only 13 consonants and 4 vowels. These two languages are highly endangered, as many Southern Tsouic speakers are shifting to Bunun and Mandarin Chinese.
The Atayalic languages are a group of Formosan languages spoken in northern Taiwan. Robert Blust considers them to form a primary branch within the Austronesian language family, However, Paul Jen-kuei Li groups them into the Northern Formosan branch, which includes the Northwestern Formosan languages.
The East Formosan languages consist of various Formosan languages scattered across Taiwan, including Kavalan, Amis, and the extinct Siraya language. This grouping is supported by both Robert Blust and Paul Jen-kuei Li. Li considers the Siraya-speaking area in the southwestern plains of Taiwan to be the most likely homeland of the East Formosan speakers, where they then spread to the eastern coast of Taiwan and gradually migrated to the area of modern-day Taipei.
The Northern Formosan languages is a proposed grouping of Formosan languages that includes the Atayalic languages, the Western Plains languages, and the Northwest Formosan languages.
This article describes the personal pronoun systems of various Austronesian languages.
Favorlang is an extinct Formosan language closely related to Babuza.
Paul Li, or Li Jen-kuei, is a Taiwanese linguist. Li is a research fellow at the Institute of Linguistics, Academia Sinica in Taipei, Taiwan. Li is a leading specialist on Formosan languages and has published dictionaries on the Pazeh and Kavalan languages.
Luilang, or ambiguously Ketagalan, was a Formosan language spoken south of modern-day Taipei in northern Taiwan by one of several peoples that have been called Ketagalan. The language probably went extinct in the mid-20th century and it is very poorly attested.
Kulon is an extinct language of the Taiwanese aboriginal people that belonged to the Austronesian language family. Very little data is available for Kulon; the primary source is the 60 pages of Tsuchida (1985). Li (2008) follows Tsuchida in linking Kulon with Saisiyat, while Blust (1999) proposes it was more closely related to Pazeh.
Sirayaic languages is one of the sub-branches of the Formosan branch, under the Austronesian languages family. Both Blust (1999) and Li (2010) considers Proto-Siraya belongs to East Formosan languages, along with Kavalanic and Amis languages.
