Thao language
| Thao | |
|---|---|
| Native to | Taiwan |
| Ethnicity | 300 Thao (2007) |
|
Native speakers
|
5–6 (2000) |
| Dialects |
|
| Language codes | |
| ISO 639-3 | |
| Glottolog | thao1240 |
Thao (Thao: Thaw a lalawa), pronunciation [θau], also known as Sao, is the language of the Thao people, a tribe of Taiwanese aborigines in the region of Sun Moon Lake in central Taiwan. In 2000, there were 5 or 6 speakers living in Ita Thaw (伊達邵) village (traditionally called Barawbaw), all but one of whom were over the age of sixty. Two elderly native speakers died December 2014 including chief Tarma (袁明智), age 75.
Thao is a Formosan language of the Austronesian family; Barawbaw and Shtafari are dialects.
Orthographic notes:
Notes:
Notes:
Thao has two or arguably three patterns of reduplication: Ca-reduplication, full reduplication, and rightward reduplication (which is sometimes considered to be a form of full reduplication).
Thao verbs have the following types of focus (Blust 2003:239).
Thao word order can be both SVO and VSO, although the former is derived from Taiwanese (Blust 2003:228).
The Thao personal marker is "ti" (Blust 2003:228). Negatives include "ani" and "antu"; "ata tu" is used in "don't" constructions. The perfect is marked by "iza", the past by an infix just after the primary onset consonant "-in-" and the future by the prefix "a-". Imperatives are marked by "-í" and softer imperatives or requests roughly translated as "please" by "-uan" sometimes spelled "-wan" which can co-occur with "-í".
The Thao personal pronouns below are from Blust (2003:207). Note that there is only 1 form each for "we (exclusive)," "you (plural)" and "they."
Other pronouns include:
The following affixes are sourced from Blust (2003:92-188) and adjusted to the modern spelling.
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