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 Taiwan’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 Hualien County, 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 (“Formosan languages,” 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' Austronesian languages, 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.