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). 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
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
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, four 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.