Northern Formosan | |
---|---|
(proposed) | |
Geographic distribution | Taiwan |
Linguistic classification | Austronesian
|
Glottolog | west2572 (Western Plains) nort2899 (Northwestern) atay1246 (Atayalic) |
![]() (orange) Li's Northern Formosan |
The Northern Formosan languages is a proposed grouping of Formosan languages that includes the Atayalic languages, the Western Plains languages (Papora, Hoanya, Babuza, and Taokas), and the Northwest Formosan languages (Pazeh and Saisiyat; Li places Western Plains with this grouping).
The Northern Formosan subgroup was first proposed by Paul 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 (see Austronesian languages#Classification).