| Northern Formosan | |
|---|---|
| (proposed) | |
| Geographic distribution | Taiwan |
| Linguistic classification | Austronesian
|
| Subdivisions | |
| Language codes | |
| Glottolog | west2572 (Western Plains)nort2899 (Northwestern) atay1246 (Atayalic) |
 (orange) Li's Northern Formosan | |
TheNorthern Formosan languages is a proposed grouping ofFormosan languages that includes theAtayalic languages, theWestern Plains languages (Papora, Hoanya, Babuza, and Taokas), and theNorthwest Formosan languages (Pazeh andSaisiyat; Li placesWestern Plains with this grouping).
The Northern Formosan subgroup was first proposed byPaul Jen-kuei Li in 1985.[1]Blust (1999) rejects the unity of the proposed Northern Formosan branch. A 2008 analysis of the Austronesian Basic Vocabulary Database, however, supports the unity of the Northern Formosan branch with a 97% confidence level (seeAustronesian languages#Classification).
The following sound changes fromProto-Austronesian occurred in the Northern Formosan languages (Li 2008:215).[2]
Also,Pazeh,Saisiyat, andThao are onlyFormosan languages that allow for SVO constructions, although this may be due to intensive contact withTaiwanese.[3]
Also, the Atayal, Seediq, and Pazeh languages have devoiced final consonants that were present in theProto-Austronesian (Blust 2009:616).
Li (2003, 2008) concludes the six western Plains languages split off from Proto-Northwestern Formosan. The classification is as follows.
The four coastal languages ofTaokas,Babuza,Papora, andHoanya share the following innovations (Li 2003).
Thao shares the following innovations with the four coastal languages (Li 2003).
Pazih has undergone the following two sound changes.
Li (2003) does not consider Pazih to be very closely related toSaisiyat (Li 2003:946).
However, Shibata (2022) argues that the "Western Plains" languages in fact form a convergence area orlinguistic area rather than a true subgroup.[4]