Siraya is a Formosan language spoken until the end of the 19th century by the indigenous Siraya people of Taiwan, derived from Proto-Siraya. Some scholars believe Taivoan and Makatao are two dialects of Siraya, but now more evidence shows that they should be classified as separate languages. Several Siraya communities have been involved in a Sirayan cultural and language revitalization movement for more than a decade. Through linguistic research and language teaching, the natives are 'awaking' their ancestors mother tongue that has been 'dormant' for a century. Today a group of Siraya children in Sinhua District of Tainan particularly in Kou-pei and Chiou Chen Lin area are able to speak and sing in the Siraya language.
Dialects
The Sirayaic languages were previously thought to include three languages or dialects:
Siraya proper — spoken in the coastal area of Tainan Plain.
Taivoan — spoken mostly in the inland of Tainan Plain to the north.
Makatao — spoken in Kaohsiung and Pingtung Prefectures to the south.
However, more and more evidences have shown that Siraya, Taivoan, and Makatao are three different languages, rather than three dialects:
Documentary evidence
In "De Dagregisters van het Kasteel Zeelandia" written by the Dutch colonizers during 1629–1662, it was clearly said that when the Dutch people would like to speak to the chieftain of Cannacannavo, they needed to translate from Dutch to Sinckan, from Sinckan to Tarroequan, from Tarroequan to Taivoan, and from Taivoan to Cannacannavo.
"...... in Cannacannavo: Aloelavaos tot welcken de vertolckinge in Sinccans, Tarrocquans en Tevorangs geschiede, weder voor een jaer aengenomen" — "De Dagregisters van het Kasteel Zeelandia", pp.6-8
In 2009, further proved the relationship among the three languages, based on the latest linguistic observations below:
Siraya
Taivoan
Makatao
PA
Sound change
r
Ø~h
r
< *l
Sound change
l
l
n
< *N
Sound change
s
r, d
r, d
< *D, *d
Sound change
-k- -g-
Ø Ø
-k- ----
< *k < *S
Morphological change
-ali
-ah
-ani
-
Based on the discovery, Li attempted two classification trees: 1. Tree based on the number of phonological innovations
Sirayaic
*Taivoan
*Siraya–Makatao
**Siraya
**Makatao
2. Tree based on the relative chronology of sound changes
Sirayaic
*Siraya
*Taivoan–Makatao
**Taivoan
**Makatau
Li considers the second tree to be the somewhat more likely one. Lee regards that, when Siraya was a lingua franca among at least eight indigenous communities in southwestern Taiwan plain, Taivoan people from Tevorangh, who has been proved to have their own language in "De Dagregisters van het Kasteel Zeelandia", might still need the translation service from Wanli, a neighbor community that shared common hunting field and also a militarily alliance with Tevorangh.
Phonology
The phonological system of Siraya is speculated by Adelaar to have the following phonemes. Consonants Vowels
ma-: stative intransitive verbs; words with no apparent word-class affiliations
paka-: causative
pa-: transitive
ka-: expresses feeling, emotion, sensation
-ən, -an: undergoer focus / orientation
-a, -ey, -aw: irrealis
-ato: possibly a perfective marker
See also Proto-Austronesian language for a list of Proto-Austronesian verbal affixes. ;Classifiers Like Bunun and many other Formosan languages, Siraya has a rich set of verbal classifier prefixes.
mattäy- / pattäy-: "talking, saying"
smaki-: "throwing,casting"
sau-: "swearing, making an oath"
mu-, pu-: movement into a certain direction
mey- / pey-: high degree of physical involvement
sa-: movement through a narrow place
taw-: downward movement, a movement within a confined space
