The Bunun language () is spoken by the Bunun people of Taiwan. It is one of the Formosan languages, a geographic group of Austronesian languages, and is subdivided in five dialects: Isbukun, Takbunuaz, Takivatan, Takibaka and Takituduh. Isbukun, the dominant dialect, is mainly spoken in the south of Taiwan. Takbunuaz and Takivatan are mainly spoken in the center of the country. Takibaka and Takituduh both are northern dialects. A sixth dialect, Takipulan, became extinct in the 1970s.
The Saaroa and Kanakanavu, two smaller minority groups who share their territory with an Isbukun Bunun group, have also adopted Bunun as their vernacular.
Name The name Bunun literally means "human" or "man".
Dialects Bunun is currently subdivided into five dialects: Isbukun, Takbunuaz, Takivatan, Takibaka and Takituduh. Li (1988) splits these dialects into three main branches — Northern, Central, and Isbukun (also classified as Southern Bunun).Li, Paul Jen-kuei. 1988. A Comparative Study of Bunun Dialects. In Li, Paul Jen-kuei, 2004, Selected Papers on Formosan Languages. Taipei, Taiwan: Institute of Linguistics, Academia Sinica. Takipulan, a sixth dialect, became extinct in the 1970s. Isbukun, the prestige dialect, is also the most divergent dialect. The most conservative dialects are in the Northern branch.
Proto-Bunun Isbukun North-Central Northern Takituduh Takibakha Central Takbanuaz Takivatan
Bunun was originally spoken in and around Sinyi Township (Xinyi) in Nantou County. From the 17th century onwards, the Bunun people expanded towards the south and east, absorbing other ethnic groups such as the Saaroa, Kanakanavu, and Thao. Bunun is spoken in an area stretching from Ren-ai Township in Nantou in the north to Yan-ping Township in Taitung in the south. Isbukun is distributed throughout Nantou, Taitung, and Kaohsiung. Takbanuaz is spoken in Nantou and southern Hualien County. Takivatan is spoken in Nantou and central Hualien. Both Takituduh and Takibakha are spoken in Nantou.
Proto-Bunun Shibata (2020) has a reconstruction of Proto-Bunun.
Phonology
Consonants + Consonant inventory Labial Dental Alveolar Velar Uvular Glottal Nasal Plosive Fricative Approximant
Orthographic notes: as ⟨j⟩.
Notes: The glides exist, but are derived from the underlying vowels to meet the requirements that syllables must have onset consonants. They are therefore not part of the consonant inventory. The dental fricative is actually interdental (). In the Isbukun dialect, often occurs in final or post-consonantal position and in initial and intervocalic position, whereas other dialects have in both of these positions. While Isbukun drops the intervocalic glottal stops () found in other dialects, also occurs where occurs in other dialects. (For example, the Isbukun word [mapais] bitter is [mapaʔis] in other dialects; the Isbukun word [luʔum] 'cloud' is [luhum] in other dialects.) The alveolar affricate occurs in the Taitung variety of Isbukun, usually represented in other dialects as .
Vowels +Vowel inventory Front Central Back High Mid Low
Notes: does not occur in Isbukun.
Grammar
Overview Bunun is a verb-initial language and has an Austronesian alignment system or focus system. This means that Bunun clauses do not have a nominative–accusative or absolutive–ergative alignment, but that arguments of a clause are ordered according to which participant in the event described by the verb is 'in focus'. In Bunun, three distinct roles can be in focus: the agent: the person or thing that is doing the action or achieving/maintaining a state; the undergoer: the person or thing that is somehow participating in the action without being an agent; there are three kinds of undergoers: patients: persons or things to whom an action is done or an event happens instruments: things (sometimes persons) which are used to perform an action beneficiaries (also called recipients): the persons (sometimes things) for whom an action is done or for whom an event happens the locative participant: the location where an action takes place; in languages with a Philippine-style voice system, spatial location is often at the same level in a clause as agents and patients, rather than being an adverbial clause, like in English. Which argument is in focus is indicated on the verb by a combination of prefixes and suffixes. a verb in agent focus is often unmarked, but can get the prefix ma- or – more rarely – pa- or ka- a verb in undergoer focus gets a suffix -un a verb locative focus gets a suffix -an Many other languages with a focus system have different marking for patients, instruments and beneficiaries, but this is not the case in Bunun. The focussed argument in a Bunun clause will normally always occur immediately after the verb (e.g. in an actor-focus clause, the agent will appear before any other participant) and is in the Isbukun dialect marked with a post-nominal marker a.
Bunun has a very large class of auxiliary verbs. Concepts that are expressed by auxiliaries include: negation (ni 'be not' and uka 'have not') modality and volition (e.g. maqtu 'can, be allowed') relative time (e.g. ngausang 'first, beforehand', qanaqtung 'be finished') comparison (maszang 'the same, similarly') question words (e.g. via 'why?') sometimes numerals (e.g. tatini '(be) alone, (be) only one') In fact, Bunun auxiliaries express all sorts of concepts that in English would be expressed by adverbial phrases, with the exception of time and place, which are normally expressed with adverbial phrases.
Word classes Takivatan Bunun has the following word classes (De Busser 2009:189). (Note: Words in open classes can be compounded, whereas those in closed classes cannot.)
Open classes Nouns Verbs Adjectives
Closed classes Demonstratives Anaphoric pronouns Personal pronouns Numerals Place words Time words Manner words Question words Auxiliaries
Affixes Bunun is morphologically agglutinative language and has a very elaborate set of derivational affixes (more than 200, which are mostly prefixes), most of which derive verbs from other word classes. Some of these prefixes are special in that they do not only occur in the verb they derive, but are also foreshadowed on a preceding auxiliary. These are called lexical prefixes or anticipatory prefixes and only occur in Bunun and a small number of other Formosan languages.
Below are some Takivatan Bunun verbal prefixes from De Busser (2009).
+Takivatan Bunun verbal prefixes Type of prefix Neutral Causative Accusative Movement from mu- pu- ku- Dynamic event ma- pa- ka- Stative event ma- / mi- pi- ka- / ki- Inchoative event min- pin- kin-
In short: Movement from: Cu- Dynamic event: Ca- Stative event: Ci- Inchoative event: Cin- Neutral: mV- Causative: pV- Accusative: kV-
A more complete list of Bunun affixes from De Busser (2009) is given below.
Focus agent focus (AF): -Ø undergoer focus (UF): -un (also used as a nominalizer) locative focus (LF): -an (also used as a nominalizer)
Tense-aspect-mood (TAM) affixes na- irrealis (futurity, consequence, volition, imperatives). This is also the least bound TAM prefix. -aŋ progressive (progressive aspect, simultaneity, expressing wishes/optative usage) -in perfective (completion, resultative meaning, change of state, anteriority) -in- past/resultative (past, past/present contrast) -i- past infix which occurs only occasionally
Participant cross-reference -Ø agent -un patient -an locative is- instrumental ki- beneficiary
Locative prefixes Stationary ‘at, in’: i- Itinerary ‘arrive at’: atan-, pan-, pana- Allative ‘to’: mu-, mun- Terminative ‘until’: sau- Directional ‘toward, in the direction of’: tan-, tana- Viative ‘along, following’: malan- Perlative ‘through, into’: tauna-, tuna-, tun- Ablative ‘from’: maisna-, maina-, maisi-, taka-
Event-type prefixes ma- Marks dynamic events ma- Marks stative events mi- Marks stative negative events a- Unproductive stative prefix paŋka- Marks material properties (stative) min- Marks result states (transformational) pain- Participatory; marks group actions
Causative pa- causative of dynamic verb pi- causative of stative verb pu- cause to go towards
Classification of events mis- burning events tin- shock events pala- splitting events pasi- separating events kat- grasping events
Patient-incorporating prefixes bit- 'lightning' kun- 'wear' malas- 'speak' maqu- 'use' muda- 'walk' pas- 'spit' qu- 'drink' sa- 'see' tal- 'wash' tapu- 'have trait' tastu- 'belong' taus-/tus- 'give birth' tin- 'harvest' tum- 'drive'
Verbalizers pu- verbalizer: 'to hunt for' maqu- verbalizer: 'to use' malas- verbalizer: 'to speak'
Pronouns Takivatan Bunun personal pronoun roots are (De Busser 2009:453): 1s: -ak- 2s: -su- 3s: -is- 1p (incl.): -at- 1p (excl.): -ðam- 2p: -(a)mu- 3p: -in-
The tables of Takivatan Bunun personal pronouns below are sourced from De Busser (2009:441).
+Takivatan Bunun Personal Pronouns Type of Pronoun Root Foc. Agent(bound) Non-Foc. Agent(bound) Neutral Foc. Agent Locative Possessive 1s. -ak- -(ʔ)ak -(ʔ)uk ðaku, nak sak, saikin ðakuʔan inak, ainak, nak 2s. -su- -(ʔ)as – suʔu, su – suʔuʔan isu, su 1p. (incl.) -at- – – mita ʔata, inʔata mitaʔan imita 1p. (excl.) -ðam- -(ʔ)am – ðami, nam ðamu, sam ðamiʔan inam, nam 2p. -(a)mu- -(ʔ)am – muʔu, mu amu muʔuʔan imu, mu
+Takivatan Bunun Third-Person Personal Pronouns Singular Plural [Root] -is- -in- Proximal isti inti Medial istun intun Distal ista inta
Iskubun Bunun personal pronouns are somewhat different (De Busser 2009:454). +Iskubun Bunun Personal Pronouns Type of Pronoun Agent Undergoer Possessive 1s. saikin, -ik ðaku, -ku inak, nak 2s. kasu, -as su isu, su 3s. saia saiʤa isaiʤa, saiʤa 1p. (incl.) kata, -ta mita imita 1p. (excl.) kaimin, -im ðami inam 2p. kamu, -am mu imu 3p. naia inaiʤa naiʤa
Demonstratives Takivatan Bunun has the following demonstrative roots and affixes (De Busser 2009:454):
Demonstrative suffixes Proximal: -i Medial: -un Distal: -a
Demonstrative roots aip-: singular aiŋk-: vague plural aint-: paucal ait-: inclusive generic
Demonstrative prefixes Ø-: visible n-: not visible
Place words ʔiti here ʔitun there (medial) ʔita there (distal)
Function words sia anaphoric marker, "aforementioned"; also used as a hesitation marker tu attributive marker duma "others" itu honorific marker
Takivatan Bunun also has definitive markers.
+Takivatan BununDefiniteness Markers Singular Plural Proximal -ti -ki Medial -tun -kun Distal -ta -ka
Notes
References
External links
Kaipuleohone's Robert Blust collection includes elicited materials on Bunun. Yuánzhùmínzú yǔyán xiànshàng cídiǎn 原住民族語言線上詞典 – Bunun search page at the "Aboriginal language online dictionary" website of the Indigenous Languages Research and Development Foundation Bunun teaching and leaning materials published by the Council of Indigenous Peoples of Taiwan Bunun translation of President Tsai Ing-wen's 2016 apology to indigenous people – published on the website of the presidential office