Luilang language explained

Luilang
Also Known As:Ketagalan
States:Taiwan
Region:Banqiao area, New Taipei City
Ethnicity:Ketagalan
Extinct:mid-20th century
Ref:e18
Familycolor:Austronesian
Fam2:(unclassified)
Iso3:kae
Linglist:kae.html
Glotto:keta1243
Glottorefname:Ketangalan
Map:Formosan languages Sagart 2021.png
Mapcaption:Luilang is the northernmost of the four red areas in the map.

Luilang, or ambiguously Ketagalan (Ketangalan, Tangalan;), was a Formosan language spoken south of modern-day Taipei in northern Taiwan by one of several peoples that have been called Ketagalan. The language probably went extinct in the mid-20th century and it is very poorly attested.

Location

According to oral tradition, the Luilang people originally inhabited four villages near Taipei: Luili (雷里, Leili), Siulang (秀朗, Xiulang), Bulisiat (務裡薛, Wulixue) and Liau-a (了阿, Liao'a). These merged under the combined name Luilang (雷朗, Leilang), and later migrated to their current location in Outer Oat-a (外挖仔庄, Waiwazizhuang) in the 18th century.

Name

The name 'Ketagalan' is used by Ethnologue and Glottolog for the Luilang language. However, that name is ambiguous, originally referring to all of plains tribes of northern Taiwan. There has been argument in the literature as to whether it is better applied to Luilang, to the south and west of Taipei, or to Basay, to the east. 'Luilang' is an ancestral village name, and so unambiguous for the language southwest of Taipei, whereas 'Basay' is the endonym of the language to the east, and also unambiguous.[1]

Numerals

The numerals of Luilang are rather divergent. For instance, the Basay language has numerals 5 - 10 that are cognate with Proto-Malayo-Polynesian, which Luilang does not. Forms recorded by Guérin (using French transcription), Ino (using Japanese transcription) and Ogawa are:[2] [3]

Luilang numerals!source!!1!!2!!3!!4!!5!!6!!7!!8!!9!!10
Xiulang? (Guérin 1868)sakatsusatoulousouvadlaleuptsoulouppatsouo-anapatoulounsateunaisit
Xiulang (Ino 1896)sakatsusatoorusmanarutsuroyinaitonaisatoronai
Xiulang (Ino 1897)sakatsusatoorusevarāruptserupsenaipatoorunaisatoorunaiirip
Luilang (Ogawa 1944)sa(ka)tsusatuḷusuva(na)lup(na)tsulupinnaipatulunaisatulunaiisit
Ketangalan[4] tsaLusatsʰu:špattsimaanumpituwatsusiwaLabatan

References

Notes and References

  1. Tsuchida, Shigeru. 1985. Kulon: Yet another Austronesian language in Taiwan?. Bulletin of the Institute of Ethnology, Academia Sinica 60. 1-59.
  2. Laurent Sagart (2004) The Higher Phylogeny of Austronesian and the Position of Tai-Kadai
  3. Li, Jen-kuei and Masayuki Toyoshima (eds). 2006. comparative vocabulary of Formosan languages and dialects, by Naoyoshi Ogawa. Asian and African lexicon series 49. Institute for Languages and cultures of Asia and Africa, Tokyo University of Foreign Studies.
  4. https://www.zompist.com/numbers.shtml