Paiwan variants are seen divided into the following dialect zones by Ferrell.[3]
A1 – southern and central
Kuɬaɬau (Kulalao) _ used in Ferrell's 1982Paiwan Dictionary due to its widespread intelligibility and preservation of various phonemic distinctions; also spoken in Tjuabar Village,Taitung County, where Tjariḍik and "Tjuabar" (closely related to Tjavuaɬi) are also spoken.
Kapaiwanan (Su-Paiwan)
Tjuaqatsiɬay (Kachirai) – southernmost dialect
A2 – central
Ɬarəkrək (Riki-riki)
Patjavaɬ (Ta-niao-wan)
B1 – northernmost
Tjukuvuɬ (Tokubun)
Kaviangan (Kapiyan)
B2 – northwestern
Tjaɬakavus (Chalaabus, Lai-yi)
Makazayazaya (Ma-chia)
B3 – east-central
Tjariḍik (Charilik)
B4 – eastern
Tjavuaɬi (Taimali)
Tjakuvukuvuɬ (Naibon, Chaoboobol)
This classification were thought to be corrected by Cheng 2016 as below:[full citation needed]
Note: A village unnoted of Vuculj/Ravar is by default placed under Vuculj here.
Kuljaljau Paiwan has 23–24 consonants (/h/ is found only in loanwords, and/ʔ/ is uncommon) and 4 vowels.[4] Unlike many otherFormosan languages that have merged many Proto-Austronesian phonemes, Paiwan preserves most Proto-Austronesian phonemes and is thus highly important for reconstruction purposes.
The four Paiwan vowels are/iəau/./ə/ is written⟨e⟩ in the literature.
In Northern Paiwan thepalatal consonants have been lost, though this is recent and a few conservative speakers maintain them as allophonic variants (not as distinct phonemes)./ʔ/ is robust, unlike in other Paiwan dialects where its status is uncertain, as it derives from *q.
Younger speakers tend to pronounce/ʎ/ as[l]. Fricative[ɣ] is characteristic of Mudan village; elsewhere in Southern Paiwan it tends to be a trill[r], though it still varies[r~ɣ~ʁ~h]. Word-initial *k has become/ʔ/.
-ɬ: things in sequence; groupings; durations of time
The following affixes are from the Tjuabar dialect of Paiwan, spoken in the northwest areas of Paiwan-occupied territory (Comparative Austronesian Dictionary 1995).
Nouns
-aḷ-, -alʸ- 'tiny things'
-in- 'things made from plant roots'
-an 'place' (always used with another affix)
mar(ə)- 'a pair of' (used for humans only)
pu- 'rich'
ḳay- 'vegetation'
sə- 'inhabitants'
cua- 'name of a tribe'
Verbs
-aŋa 'already done'
ka- 'to complete'
kə- 'to do something oneself'
ki- 'to do something to oneself'
kisu- 'to get rid of'
kicu- 'to do something separately'
maCa- 'to do something reciprocally' (where C indicates the initial consonant of the stem)
Yuánzhùmínzú yǔyán xiànshàng cídiǎn 原住民族語言線上詞典(in Chinese) – Paiwan search page at the "Aboriginal language online dictionary" website of the Indigenous Languages Research and Development Foundation
Taiwan[2]
