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Kavalan
Kavalan
kbaran, kebalan (Kavalan)
Pronunciation	[kɨβaɾán]
Native to	Taiwan
Ethnicity	Kavalan
Native speakers	70 (2015)
Language family	Austronesian East Formosan Kavalanic Kavalan; ; ;
Language codes
ISO 639-3	ckv
Glottolog	kava1241
ELP	Kavalan
	(dark green, north) The Kavalanic languages: Basai, Ketagalan, and Kavalan
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Kavalan (also known as Kvalan, Kebalan or Kbalan) 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.

Kavalan is no longer spoken in its original area. As of 1930, it was used only as a home language. As of 1987, it was still spoken in Atayal territories. In 2000, this language was still reported to be spoken by 24 speakers but considered moribund.

In 2017, a study using the EDGE metric from species conservation found that Kavalan, although critically endangered, was among the most lexically distinct of Austronesian languages.^[3]

Dialects

Kavalan consists of the following speech communities ordered from north to south:^[4]

Kariawan (Jialiwan 加禮宛) – near Hualien, a formerly Sakizaya-speaking area
Patʀungan (Xinshe 新社) – located in Fungpin (豐濱鄉), Hualien
Kulis (Lide 立德)
Kralut (Zhangyuan 樟原)

These speech communities in eastern Taiwan were named after older settlements from the north, such as Kariawan, Sahut, and Tamayan, where the Kavalan people originally migrated from. Modern-day Kavalan speakers are surrounded by the Amis.

Tsuchida (1985) notes that word lists collected from Lamkham 南崁 (Nankan) and Poting 埔頂 (Buding) are closest to Kavalan,^[5] while Li (2001) counts them as 'Basaic' languages.^[6]

Many Kavalan can also speak Amis, Taiwanese, Mandarin, and Japanese.^[4]

Phonology

There are 15 consonants and 4 vowels in Kavalan.^[7]

Consonants
		Bilabial	Dental	Alveolar	Palatal	Velar	Uvular
Nasal		m	n			ŋ
Plosive	voiceless	p	t			k	q
Plosive	voiced	b
Fricative	voiceless		s
Fricative	voiced		z	ɮ [ɮ ~ d]			ʁ
Approximant				l [l ~ ɫ ~ ɾ]	j	w

Vowels
	Front	Central	Back
Close	i		u
Mid		ə
Open	a

In Kavalan, Proto-Austronesian phonemes have merged as follows:^[8]

*n, *N, *j, *ɲ as n
*t, *T, *c as t
*d, *D, *Z as z
*s, *S as s
*q, *ʔ, *H are deleted

The following Proto-Austronesian phonemes are split:

*k into q and k
*l into r and ʁ (written as R)
*a into i (if adjacent to q) and a

The Kavalan language is also notable for having a large inventory of consonant clusters. It is also one of the only two Formosan languages that has geminate consonants, with the other one being Basay.^[9] Consonant gemination is also common in the northern Philippine languages, but is non-existent in the Central Philippine languages except for Rinconada Bikol.^[10]

Grammar

Morphology

Kavalan nouns and verbs are distinguished by the lack of /a/ in the first syllable (nouns) or presence of /a/ (verbs).^[8] Kavalan syllables take on the structure (C)(C)V(C)(C).^[11] Kavalan is also one of two Formosan languages to have geminating consonants.

Kavalan affixes include:

m- (agent focus)
-um-/-m- (agent focus)
-in/-n- as variants of ni- (patient)
-a (irrealis patient-focus marker)
-an (locative-focus marker, nominalizer)
-i (imperative, patient focus)
pa- (causative)
qa- (future)

Unlike many other Formosan languages, there is no *-en suffix.

Syntax

Kavalan, like most other Formosan and Philippine languages, has many case markers.

Nominative: a/ya
Oblique: ta, tu
Genitive: na, ni
Locative: sa, ta- -an

Types of focus in Kavalan include:^[12]

Agent
Patient
Locative
Instrumental
Beneficiary

The Kavalan case markers below are from Li & Tsuchida (2006:27).

Kavalan Case Markers
Case	Nominative	Oblique	Genitive	Locative
Common	a, ya	tu	na	sa, ta- -an
Personal	a, ya	ta	ni	–

Pronouns

The Kavalan Personal pronouns below are from Li & Tsuchida (2006:30).

Kavalan Personal Pronouns
			Nominative	Genitive	Oblique	Locative
1st person	singular		aiku, =iku	zaku, -ku	timaiku	tamaikuan
	plural	excl.	aimi, =imi	zanyaq, -nyaq	timaimi	tamaimian
	plural	incl.	aita, =ita	zata, -ta, -kita	timaita	tamaitan
2nd person	singular		aisu, =isu	zasu, -su	timaisuanzen	tamaisuan
2nd person	plural		aimu, =imu	zanumi, -numi	timaimu	tamaimuan
3rd person	singular		aizipna tiyau	zana, -na	timaizipna tiyau	tamaizipan tiyauan
3rd person	plural		qaniyau	zana, -na	qaniyau	taqaniyauan

Affixes

The Kavalan affixes below are from Li & Tsuchida (2006:14–24).

Prefixes

i-: stative, having to do with location
kar-: rapid motion; defective, not perfect
ki-, qi-: pluck, pick
kin-: number of humans
lu-: flat
luq(e)-: bumpy, rough (used with stative verbs)
m-, -m-, mu-, -u-, -um-: agent-focus
ma-, m-: stative
maq-: where from
mar-: sine kind of shape
mi-: discharge something from the body
mri-: settle down; to shrink, huddle up
mrim-: a division of (a numeral)
nan-: two people (kinship); distributive numeral
ni-, n-, -in-, -n-: past, perfective
pa-: causative (used with active verbs)
pa- -an: agentive
pa-ti: personal marker for the dead
paq-, paqa-: causative (used with stative verbs)
paq-: get on (a boat)
pa-qi-: cause to become
pat-: make a change
pi-: put into, put away; do something to protect a body part; every (time)
qa-: immediate future; ride, take (means of transportation)
qa- -an: place of/for
qaRu-: become, transform into; transformable into
qi-: pick, gather, get
qna-: nominaizer (used with stative verbs; -an is used with active verbs)
Ra-: to transform into
Ra-CV-: light color of
Ri-: catch, get
Ru-: just now; for the first time
sa-: have the event (natural phenomena); do, make, produce, have; secrete (body fluid); tool
sam-CV-: pretend
saqa-: ordinal (numeral)
si-: wear, own, possess
sia-: go towards (place/direction); go to the side (often euphemistic for urinating/defecating)
sim-: reciprocal
siqa-: (number of) times
smu-: finger
sna-: model of, copy of
su-: remove; move downwards, upside down, slanting
su-CV-: stink or smell of
tan-: speak the language
taRi-: position, people in such a position
ti-: instrumental-focus; to take each other (?)
ti- (-an): beneficiary-focus
tRi-CV(C)- (-an): discharge (body discharge) with control
u-: agent-focus; non-human numeral

Suffixes

-a: irrealis patient-focus marker
-an: locative-focus marker, nominalizer
-i: irrealis non-agent-focus imperative

Infixes

-m-, -um-: agent-focus
-n-, -in-, ni-: perfective

References

Notes

^ Yuanzhuminzu weiyuanhui, zuyu shuwei zhongxin 原住民族委員會, 族語數位中心. "Yuèdú shūxiě piān – Gámǎlányǔ dì 6 kè – zúyǔ E lèyuán" 閱讀書寫篇 – 噶瑪蘭語第6課 – 族語E樂園. Yuedu shuxie pian – zuyu E leyuan (in Chinese).
^ Kavalan at Ethnologue (24th ed., 2021)
^ Perrault, Nicolas; Farrell, Maxwell J.; Davies, T. Jonathan (2017). "Tongues on the EDGE: Language Preservation Priorities Based on Threat and Lexical Distinctiveness". Royal Society Open Science. 4 (12): 171218. Bibcode:2017RSOS....471218P. doi:10.1098/rsos.171218. PMC 5750020. PMID 29308253. S2CID 23970007.
^ ^a ^b Li & Tsuchida (2006), p. 1
^ Tsuchida, Shigeru. 1985. Kulon: Yet another Austronesian language in Taiwan?. Bulletin of the Institute of Ethnology, Academia Sinica 60. 1-59.
^ Li, Paul Jen-kuei (2001). "The Dispersal of the Formosan Aborigines in Taiwan" (PDF). Language and Linguistics / Yǔyán jì yǔyánxué. 2 (1): 271–278. Archived from the original (PDF) on 2020-08-08.
^ Moriguchi, Tsunekazu (1983). "An Inquiry into Kbalan Phonology" (PDF). Journal of Asian and African Studies. 26: 202–219.
^ ^a ^b Li & Tsuchida (2006)
^ Blust (2009), p. 642
^ Blust (2009), p. 220
^ Li & Tsuchida (2006), p. 5
^ Li & Tsuchida (2006), pp. 26–27

General references

Li, Paul Jen-kuei 李壬癸; Tsuchida, Shigeru 土田滋 (2006). Kavalan Dictionary (PDF). Language and Linguistics Monograph Series A-19. Taipei, Taiwan: Institute of Linguistics, Academia Sinica. ISBN 978-986-00-6993-8. Archived from the original (PDF) on 2020-07-16.
Blust, Robert (2009). The Austronesian Languages. Canberra: Pacific Linguistics, Research School of Pacific and Asian Studies, Australian National University. ISBN 978-0-85883-602-0. ISBN 978-0-85883-602-0
Chang, Yungli 張永利 (2000). Gámălányŭ cānkăo yŭfă 噶瑪蘭語參考語法 [A Reference Grammar of Kavalan] (in Chinese). Taibei Shi: Yuanliu chuban shiye yuxian gongsi. ISBN 957-32-3898-5.
Hsieh, Fuhui 謝富惠 (2018). Gámǎlányǔ yǔfǎ gàilùn 噶瑪蘭語語法概論 [Introduction to Kavalan Grammar] (in Chinese). Xinbei Shi: Yuanzhuminzu weiyuanhui. ISBN 978-986-05-5692-6. Archived from the original on 2022-02-28. Retrieved 2021-07-06 – via alilin.apc.gov.tw.