投稿類別：英文寫作

篇名： Into the Language World of Sakizaya

作者： 卓興毅。新北市市立新北高級工業職業學校應用英文科。三年乙班 郭笠陽。新北市市立新北高級工業職業學校應用英文科。三年乙班 尤楷傑。新北市市立新北高級工業職業學校應用英文科。三年乙班

指導老師： 林信宏老師 宋祖睿老師

Into the Language World of Sakizaya I. Introduction

I.1. Background

Sakizaya is one of ’s ancient aborigines. According to historical records, it has a history of more than 300 years. Unfortunately, during the Qing dynasty, there were fierce conflicts between the Sakizaya people and the Qing army. The Qing army tried to annihilate these ethnic groups. To give a strong warning to this tribe, the Qing army sentenced the chieftain of Sakizaya and his wife to the death of línɡchí (凌遲) to set an example, which was known as the Kaleoan incident (加禮苑事件).

Survivors of Sakizaya chose to live incognito to avoid the persecution of the Qing army and they were integrated into the Amis (阿美族) tribes for more than 120 years. Until now, the population of Sakizya dwindled to about 1,000 people in 2020 and the Sakizaya language has been regarded as one of the endangered languages in Taiwan. The population distribution of Sakizaya people was shown in Figure 1.

Figure 1. The population distribution of Sakizaya people in Taiwan in May of 2020 (Data collected from https://gis.ris.gov.tw/dashboard.html?key=B10)

As Figure 1 showed, most of the Sakizaya people live in , and some of them live in northern Taiwan, such as Taipei City, New Taipei City, and Taoyuan County. However, most of them moved to urban areas to work or study, which makes them have fewer opportunities to speak in mother tongues.

Recently, the aboriginal issues have been put in the limelight in Taiwan. Starting from 1994, Aboriginal Recertification Movement has helped the cultural revival of indigenous Taiwanese. Since then, many aboriginal ethnic groups have regained their identities. For Sakizaya people, they also declared independence from Amis in January 2007, becoming the thirteenth distinct indigenous ethnic group of Taiwan. 1 Into the Language World of Sakizaya In 2017, Indigenous Languages Development Act (ILDA) was established. The government, aboriginal activists, and the Council of Indigenous Peoples worked together to preserve the language of indigenous people; of course, when it comes to Sakizaya, people need to double their efforts to preserve it because of the small population of Sakizaya people.

I.2. Motivation

Sakizaya belongs to one of the branches of Taiwanese Austronesian (“,” 2020). To our surprise, it is different from the languages we have learned. We are eager to explore the linguistic world of aboriginal languages. In our school, one of our seniors is Sakizaya. He and his grandma taught us some basic Sakizaya. Since then, we have developed an interest in Sakizaya, and want to learn more about its grammar, structure, and culture. In fact, there are few Sakizaya people in Taiwan and it is deemed as an endangered language. We want to make a little contribution to saving the dying language by doing this project.

In addition, there were some studies written in Chinese on Sakizaya in Taiwan; however, there were few English studies of it for foreigners to quickly get the gist of its grammar. Too help foreigners understand more of Sakizaya, we decided to make it the topic of our project. It is sincerely hoped that this project will make the public be more aware of the presence of the endangered language.

I.3. Methodology

I.3.1. Searching for online information

To initially explore and realize Sakizaya, we used the Internet. In this modern society, information searching becomes an easy thing for people. We took the indigenous people's website as a reference. The textbook of indigenous languages is available on-line for us to analyze the grammar of Sakizaya.

I.3.2. Conducting interviews

Sakizaya is an indigenous language. Learning it from a traditional Sakizaya people is an effective method. We interviewed a senior and his grandmother, both of whom are Sakizaya people. Through this interview, we learned the basic word orders, simple grammar, and daily conversation of it. We also realized some loan words and code-switching phenomena in Sakizaya. Moreover, we attended a Sakizaya language summer camp and harvest festival to make ourselves go deep into their language and culture.

2 Into the Language World of Sakizaya

Pic 1.Interview with Sakizaya people Pic 2.Interview with our senior and his grandma

Pic 3.Sakizaya harvest festival Pic 4.Sakizaya summer camp

I.3.3. Organizing linguistic materials and data analyzing

The project focused on the linguistic features of Sakizaya. Sakizaya languages were analyzed in terms of word order, voice, affirmative sentences, adverbs, interrogative sentences, negative sentences, function words, loan words, and code-switching. A short conclusion about its basic grammar was made.

II. Body – The Linguistic Features of Sakizaya

II.1. The Word Order of Sakizaya

Languages are considered to be a carrier for thoughts, knowledge, and emotions. The main elements of a sentence usually contain a subject (S), object (O), and verb (V). According to WALS Online (2020), there are six main types of word order. They are SVO, SOV, SVO, VSO, VOS, OVS, and OSV. Take Chinese and English for example, they belong to the SVO structure. As for Japanese and Korean, they are referred to as SOV. As for Formosan languages, which can be deemed as the branches' , they use the VSO structure.

II.2. Function Words of Sakizaya ( ku / nu / tu / ni / ci )

There are many function words in Sakizaya. They don’t have substantial meaning and they cannot be used without content words. Those function words are used to describe the relationship between nouns. We take “ku”, “tu”,”ci” and “nu” for example.

3 Into the Language World of Sakizaya The function of “ku” is to mark the subject in a sentence while “tu” refers to the object. The word “ci” is to indicate the name of a person or relatives. The words “ni” and “nu” stand for the genitive case in Sakizaya. It is similar to “of” in English. It describes that something belongs to someone or something.

II.3. Affirmative Sentences of Sakizaya

The basic sentence structure of Sakizaya could be classified into two forms: the verb before the subject (VSO), the object before the subject (VOS). Both forms are used for high frequency in communication. The examples are shown as follows.

Table 1.1 Affirmative Sentences of Sakizaya 1 V + S Sakizaya manamuh mimali kaku ( I like to play ball.) English like play ball I (You can also say, “manamuh kaku mi mali”)

Table 1.2 Affirmative Sentences of Sakizaya 2 V + S + O Sakizaya mangalay kaku tu mali ( I want a ball.) English want I fw ball fw: functional words.

As shown in above, Sakizaya speakers use the V S O structure. According to our interview, you can say “manamuh kaku mimali” or “manamuh mimali kaku.” Both ways are acceptable. As for sentences with be-verbs in English, they don’t have be-verbs and articles. So it will be N + N. As shown in the table below, “saydan kaku” means “I am a teacher.”, and “Akim kaku” means “I am Akim.” “Ci” is a function word that shows the following word is a name.

Table 1.3 Affirmative Sentences of Sakizaya 3 N + N (SC + S) Sakizaya saydan kaku (I am a teacher.) English teacher I

Table 1.4 Affirmative Sentences of Sakizaya 4 N + N (SC + S) Sakizaya ci Akim kaku (I am Akim.) English name maker Akim I

II.4. Voice of Sakizaya

Sakizaya can express active and passive voice. They don’t have be-verbs and they don’t swap the order of subject and object. They add affixes to form new words to express passive or active voice. For example, “tiik” means hit, “mitiik” means make somebody or something is hit”, and 4 Into the Language World of Sakizaya “tiikan” means “already hit”. In the above-mentioned examples, the prefix “mi” refers to make; the suffix “an” stands for action already done.

Table 2.1 Voice of Sakizaya 1 Active voice ( I hit him.) Sakizaya mitiik kaku cinizaan English hit I him or her Passive voice (I was hit by him.) Sakizaya tiikan aku ciniza English was hit my he or she

Table 2.2 Voice of Sakizaya 2 Active voice (I killed him.) Sakizaya mipatay kaku cinizaan English killed I him or her Passive voice (I was killed by him.) Sakizaya patayan aku ciniza English was killed my he or she

II.5. Adjective of Sakizaya

Sakizaya people mainly use adjectives before the noun. According to our interview, you can also put the adjective after the noun. Both of the ways are okay. The examples are shown as follows.

Table 3 Adjective of Sakizaya 1 Adj. + N Sakizaya bangcal kina tatayna (This girl is beautiful.) English beautiful this girl Sakizaya malakapahay kina wawa (This child is handsome.) English handsome this child

II.6. Adverb of Sakizaya

Similar to English, Sakizaya has an adverb of place and time. They are put in front of the sentence or at the end of the sentence. Besides, tense is essential in English to tell the readers or listeners about the time information. However, Sakizaya doesn’t have inflectional endings like English such as “ed” or “ing”; instead, it adds affix to form new words or uses adverb of time to show the reader or listeners the time.

The following examples show us how the adverb of the place is used in Sakizaya. In those sentences, “i,” is a preposition in Sakizaya, which means in, on, or at. “i” can’t be used singly. It must be combined with a noun to form an adverb of place. Applied in a sentence, the place of adverb is showed in two ways. It is usually placed at the end of the sentence or sometimes at the 5 Into the Language World of Sakizaya beginning of the sentence.

Table 4.1 Adverb of Place in Sakizaya V + S + Adv. Sakizaya malabi kaku i luma English eat dinner I at home

As for the adverb of time, it is usually placed in front of the sentence or sometimes at the end of the sentence. They use “azya” to represent now or today, “auncila” means tomorrow, and “nacila” means yesterday. The examples are listed below.

Table 4.2 Adverb of Time in Sakizaya Adv. + V + S Sakizaya aunchila mibuting kaku English tomorrow catch fish I Sakizaya ayza malabi kaku English now eat dinner I Sakizaya limaay ku tuki malanan tu kaku English five o’clock eat breakfast subject marker I (You can also say, “mibuting kaku aunchila.”)

Table 4.3 Adverb of Time and Place in Sakizaya Adv. + V + S + Adv. Sakizaya nacila malahuk kaku i luma English yesterday eat lunch I at home

For the above-mentioned sentence, you can also say, “iluma kaku nacila malahuk. However, when “iluma” was put in front of the sentence, that means the speaker wants to stress “at home,” which means usually I didn’t eat lunch at home, but yesterday I did.

II.7. Interrogative Sentences

An interrogative sentence is a sentence that is used to request or ask for an answer to the question. Unlike English, Sakizaya doesn’t have be-verbs and auxiliaries, so there are no such function words in Sakizaya questions. However, they use “saw” or “haw” in the questions, which serve as an interrogative particle-like “か” in Japanese or “嗎” in Chinese. There are two types of interrogative sentences in Sakizaya. They are yes-no questions and wh-questions.

As for yes-no questions, it uses the same word order as an affirmative question, but it raises the

6 Into the Language World of Sakizaya intonation at the end of the word. When the tone goes up, it has a meaning of asking or requesting something. In addition to the rising intonation, you can also put interrogative particle, “saw” or “haw” at the end of the question. According to our interview, “saw” and “haw” have different functions. “saw” is used to ask about things you have or ask for places while “haw” is used to ask about relationships or occupations. Examples are showed below.

Table 5.1 Interregative Sentences of Sakizaya 1 V + S + (saw / haw) ? Sakizaya mi mali tu kamu haw (Do you play ball already?) English play ball already you ip ip: interrogative particle

Table 5.2 Interregative Sentences of Sakizaya 2 N + (saw / haw) ? Sakizaya bangcal haw kina tatayna (Is this girl beautiful?) English beautiful ip this girl Sakizaya malakapahay kina wawa haw (Is this child handsome?) English handsome this child ip ip: interrogative particle

The wh- questions are based on the word order of Wh- + S, Wh + V + S, or Wh- + S + V. You also can add “haw” or “saw” at the end of the questions. We can see the examples in the following charts.

Table 5.3 Interregative Sentences of Sakizaya 3 Wh- + S ? Sakizaya cima kisu (Who are you?) English who you Sakizaya cima ku ngangan isu (What’s your name?) English who subject marker name your

Table 5.4 Interregative Sentences of Sakizaya 4 Wh- + S + V ? Sakizaya cima ku cabay nu misu mimali (Which friend do you English who subject friend of you play ball play ball with?) marker Sakizaya icuwa kisu mimali (Where do you play English where you play ball ball?) Sakizaya na yaan kisu malanam (When do you eat English when you eat breakfast breakfast?) Sakizaya kay caay kisu mimali (Why don’t you play English why not you play ball ball?) (For “cabay nu misu”, you can also say, “cabay isu”.) 7 Into the Language World of Sakizaya The application of “How” and “What” is quite different from the other wh-words in Sakizaya. “hica” can be defined as “how” or “what”. With different prefixes and suffixes, they have different meanings. “mahica” and “enhica” represent how, and “mihica” represent “what does sb. do”. “a hicaen” means how “will” you do it and “hicaan” means how “did” you do it. You can refer to the following examples.

Table 5.5 Interregative Sentences of Sakizaya 5 Wh- + S ? Sakizaya mihica tu kisu (What do you do?) English how subject marker you

Table 5.6 Interregative Sentences of Sakizaya 6 Wh- + S + V ? Sakizaya hicaen isu tataypak saw (how do you go to Taipei?) English how you go to Taipei ip Sakizaya mihica kisu i tiza (what do you do here?) English waht you at here Sakizaya a hicaen isu misalami’ ku buting saw (how do you English how you cook sm fish ip cook fish?) ip: interrogative particle sm: subject marker

II.8. Negative Sentences of Sakizaya

In the negative sentence, “caay”, nayay”, and “amana” can be commonly seen. Based on the sentence pattern of Sakizaya, negative words would be at the beginning of the negative sentence. “caay”, is often applied to declarative sentences to express “no” or “not”, and it is also used widely in collocations. “nayay” has a meaning of denying the fact of existence, in other words, it means “there is/are not” or “don’t / doesn’t have”. “Amana” is used in an imperative sentence, which means to warn or inhibit someone from doing something. You can see the examples below.

Table 6.1 Negative Sentences of Sakizaya 1 caay + Adj. + N caay + V + S + (O) Sakizaya caay ka kizemu ciniza (He / she is not fat.) English not fw fat he / she Sakizaya caay katayni kya ci Panay ( Panay will not English not come that nm Panay come.) Sakizaya caay knanamuh ci Kaniw tu wacu ( Kaniw doesn’t English not like nm Kaniw fw dog like the dog.) nm: name marker fw: function words

8 Into the Language World of Sakizaya Table 6.2 Negative Sentences of Sakizaya 2 nay + N Sakizaya nay ku pida nu babalaki ( The old man has no English no sm money of oldman money)

Table 6.3 Negative Sentences of Sakizaya 3 amana + V Sakizaya amana angic ( Don’t cry.) English don’t cry

II.9. Loan Words and Code-switching in Sakizaya

In Sakizaya’s history, they have faced many challenges, and their language was affected by other languages. That is to say, they have a couple of borrow words from Chinese (Mandarin), Japanese, and Taiwanese (Hokkien). The specific examples can be checked in the following charts.

Table 7. Loan Words in Sakizaya Sakizaya English Originated from characters spelling siwni nun Chinese 修女 xiu-niu pinsiang refrigerator Chinese 冰箱 binxiang tinnaw computer Chinese 電腦 diang-nao hawsu mouse Chinese 滑鼠 hwa-shu kama tangerine Taiwanese 柑子 kam-á sabun soap Taiwanese 雪文 sap-bûn lumawataw hoodlum Taiwanese 流氓 lôo-muâ hulintaw peas Taiwanese 荷蘭豆 huê-liân-tāu tailing policeman Taiwanese 大人 tai-lîn zo elephant Japanese 象 zo hinuki cypress Japanese 檜 hinoki sakula cherry flower Japanese 桜 sakura doku tools Japanese 道具 douku basu bus Japanese / English バス (bus) basu tawiw soy bean Taiwanese 豆油 tāu-iû ninzin carrots Japanese 人参 ninjin mugi wheat Japanese 麦 mugi

In addition to loan words, code-switching is a common phenomenon in Sakizaya. In daily conversations, some of the words in modern society can’t be described in Sakizaya, such as shui- diang-fei (水電費 electricity bill and water bill). Influenced by Han culture, Mandarin becomes a part of their life. They usually use words in Mandarin during chatting when they run into this kind of problem.

9 Into the Language World of Sakizaya III. Conclusion

As a whole, according to our study, the basic word order of Sakizaya is “Adverbs of time + V S + Adverbs of place” for affirmative sentences. You can use VSO or VOS structure. Both of them are okay in daily conversations; however, in the grammar book, VSO is more commonly seen. For negative sentences, it uses “caay”, “nay”, and “amana”. Unlike English, it doesn’t have be-verbs and auxiliaries. Besides, it has functional words used to mark the case or names, such as “ku”, “tu”, “nu”, “ni” and “ci”, and it has some affixes adding meanings to the word. For example, “mi” means make, “en” means “have not done”, and “an” means “have been done”. Like Chinese and Japanese, it uses interrogative particles.

IV. References

沈文琦 (2018)。撒奇萊雅語語法概論。新北市：原住民族委員會。

原住民族語言學習補充教材句型篇【撒奇萊雅語】國中版。原住民族委員會。2020 年 5 月 17 日取自於，http://lokahsu.org.tw/resource/book/junior/43_junior_book.pdf

原住民族參考語法。原住民族語言研究發展中心。2020 年 5 月 22 日取自於， http://ilrdc.tw/grammar/index.php?l=14&p=2R

族語學習詞表。原住民族語研究發展中心。2020 年 9 月 20 日取自於， http://ilrdc.tw/research/athousand/pdf/lan13_1.pdf

Dryer. M. S. (2013). Order of Subject, Object, and Verb. Retrieved Aug. 1st, 2020 from https://wals.info/chapter/81

Formosan languages. In Wikipedia. Retrieved July 31, 2020, from Wikipedia. Retrieved July 23, 2020, from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Formosan_languages

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