Misplaced Pages

#263736

73-404: Lower-level reconstructions have also been made, and include Proto-Malayo-Polynesian , Proto-Oceanic , and Proto-Polynesian . Recently, linguists such as Malcolm Ross and Andrew Pawley have built large lexicons for Proto-Oceanic and Proto-Polynesian. Proto-Austronesian is reconstructed by constructing sets of correspondences among consonants in the various Austronesian languages, according to

146-758: A complex convergent boundary between the Philippine Sea Plate and the Eurasian Plate . In a boundary running the length of the island and continuing southwards in the Luzon Volcanic Arc (including Green Island and Orchid Island ), the Eurasian Plate is sliding under the Philippine Sea Plate. Most of the island comprises a huge fault block tilted to the west. The western part of the island, and much of

219-570: A marble canyon, cliff, and fold mountains. Shei-Pa National Park has alpine ecosystems, geological terrain, and valley streams. Kinmen National Park has lakes, wetlands, coastal topography, flora and fauna-shaped island. Dongsha Atoll National Park has the Pratas reef atolls for integrity, a unique marine ecology, and biodiversity, and is a key habitat for the marine resources of the South China Sea and Taiwan Strait. Natural resources on

292-485: A single phoneme s. While accepting Dyen's c, he was hesitant about T and D (more recently, Blust appears to have accepted D but rejected T, and also rejected Z). Ross likewise attempted to reduce the number of phonemes, but in a different way: As Proto-Austronesian transitioned to Proto-Malayo-Polynesian, Proto-Oceanic , and Proto-Polynesian , the phonemic inventories were continually reduced by merging formerly distinct sounds into one sound. Three mergers were observed in

365-562: A territorial sea of 12 nmi (22.2 km; 13.8 mi). The island of Taiwan, the largest of the archipelago, was known in the West until after World War II as Formosa , from the Portuguese Ilha Formosa ( [ˌiʎɐ fuɾˈmɔzɐ] ), "beautiful island". It is 394 km (245 mi) long and 144 km (89 mi) wide, and has an area of 35,808 km (13,826 sq mi). The northernmost point of

438-414: A total of 19 consonants, 4 vowels (*i, *u, *a, *e, where *e = /ə/ ), 4 diphthongs (*ay, *aw, *iw, *uy), and syllabic stress. The following table shows how Wolff's Proto-Austronesian phonemic system differs from Blust's system. According to Malcolm Ross, the following aspects of Blust's system are uncontroversial: the labials (p b m w); the velars k ŋ; y; R; the vowels; and the above four diphthongs. There

511-1007: Is because the Ilocano homeland is the west coast of northern Luzon, while the Puyuma homeland is on the eastern coast of southern Taiwan. Among the Bontok, Kankanaey, and Ifugaw languages of northern Luzon, the reflexes of *daya mean "sky" because they already live in some of the highest elevations in the Philippines (Blust 2009:301). Also, the Malay reflex of *lahud is laut , which means "sea", used as directions timur laut (means "northeast", timur = "east") and barat laut (means "northwest", barat = "west"). Meanwhile, *daya only performs in barat daya , which means "southwest". Below are reconstructed Proto-Austronesian, Proto-Malayo-Polynesian, Proto-Oceanic, and Proto-Polynesian numbers from

584-662: Is from Ross' 2002 proposal of the Proto-Austronesian pronominal system, which contains five categories, including the free (i.e., independent or unattached), free polite, and three genitive categories. Proto-Austronesian vocabulary relating to agriculture and other technological innovations include: Proto-Malayo-Polynesian innovations include: Proto-Malayo-Polynesian also has several words for house: Below are colors in reconstructed Proto-Austronesian, Proto-Malayo-Polynesian, Proto-Oceanic, and Proto-Polynesian. The first three have been reconstructed by Robert Blust , while

657-533: Is particularly developed in Oceanic languages . CV (consonant + vowel) reduplication is very common among the Austronesian languages. In Proto-Austronesian, Ca-reduplicated (consonant + /a/) numbers were used to count humans, while the non-reduplicated sets were used to count non-human and inanimate objects. CV-reduplication was also used to nominalize verbs in Proto-Austronesian. In Ilocano, CV-reduplication

730-401: Is rich in wind energy resources, with wind farms both onshore and offshore, though limited land area favours offshore wind resources. By promoting renewable energy, Taiwan's government hopes to also aid the nascent renewable energy manufacturing industry, and develop it into an export market. Taiwan has a population of over 23 million, the vast majority of whom live in the lowlands near

803-420: Is some disagreement about the postvelars (q ʔ h) and the velars g j, and about whether there are any more diphthongs; however, in these respects, Ross and Blust are in agreement. The major disagreement concerns the system of coronal consonants . The following discussion is based on Ross (1992). Otto Dempwolff 's reconstruction of Proto-Malayo-Polynesian from the 1930s included: Dyen (1963), including data from

SECTION 10

#1732764871264

876-595: Is the reconstructed ancestor of the Malayo-Polynesian languages , which is by far the largest branch (by current speakers) of the Austronesian language family . Proto-Malayo-Polynesian is ancestral to all Austronesian languages spoken outside Taiwan , as well as the Yami language on Taiwan's Orchid Island . The first systematic reconstruction of Proto-Austronesian (" Uraustronesisch ") by Otto Dempwolff

949-572: Is the steepest mountain slope in Taiwan, with fault scarps ranging in height from 120 to 1,200 m (390 to 3,900 ft). Taroko National Park , on the steep eastern side of the range, has good examples of mountainous terrain, gorges and erosion caused by a swiftly flowing river. The East Coast Mountain Range extends down the east coast of the island from the mouth of the Hualien River in

1022-455: Is used to pluralize nouns. Reduplication patterns include (Blust 2009): Other less common patterns are (Blust 2009): The Proto-Austronesian and Proto-Malayo-Polynesian personal pronouns below were reconstructed by Robert Blust . In 2006, Malcolm Ross also proposed seven different pronominal categories for persons. The categories are listed below, with the Proto-Austronesian first person singular ("I") given as examples. The following

1095-586: Is why modern-day Polynesian languages have some of the most restricted consonant inventories in the world. Unusual sound changes that occurred within the Austronesian language family include: Proto-Austronesian is a verb-initial language (including VSO and VOS word orders), as most Formosan languages , all Philippine languages , some Bornean languages , all Austronesian dialects of Madagascar , and all Polynesian languages are verb-initial. However, most Austronesian (many of which are Oceanic ) languages of Indonesia , New Guinea , New Caledonia , Vanuatu ,

1168-688: The Austronesian Comparative Dictionary . Geography of Taiwan Taiwan , officially the Republic of China (ROC), is a country in East Asia . The island of Taiwan , also known as Formosa , has an area of 35,808 square kilometres (13,826 sq mi) and makes up 99% of the land under ROC control. It lies about 180 kilometres (112 mi) across the Taiwan Strait from the southeastern coast of

1241-746: The Formosan clouded leopard is likely extinct and the otter restricted to Kinmen island . The largest carnivore is the Formosan black bear ( Selanarctos thibetanus formosanus ), a rare and endangered species. Nine national parks in Taiwan showcase the archipelago's diverse terrain, flora and fauna. Kenting National Park on the southern tip of Taiwan contains uplifted coral reefs , moist tropical forest and marine ecosystems. Yushan National Park has alpine terrain, mountain ecology, forest types that vary with altitude, and remains of ancient roads. Yangmingshan National Park has volcanic geology, hot springs, waterfalls, and forest. Taroko National Park has

1314-445: The Formosan landlocked salmon ( Oncorhynchus masou formosanus ). A few of these are now extinct , and many others have been designated endangered species . Taiwan has 65 species of fireflies, the third highest density after Jamaica and Costa Rica. Fireflies are protected and their numbers are increasing, but they are threatened by climate change in the long term. Taiwan had relatively few carnivores , 11 species in total, of which

1387-712: The Linkou Plateau , the Taoyuan Plateau and the Dadu Plateau . About 23% of Taiwan's land area consists of fertile alluvial plains and basins watered by rivers running from the eastern mountains. Over half of this land lies in the Chianan Plain in southwest Taiwan, with lesser areas in the Pingtung Plain , Taichung Basin and Taipei Basin . The only sizable plain on the east coast is

1460-563: The Luzon Strait consisted of multi-ethnic crews rapidly settling across various locations in maritime Southeast Asia , as suggested by both archaeological and linguistic evidence. There was also a Malayo-Polynesian migration to Hainan ; Blench (2016) notes that both Hlai and Austronesian peoples use the foot-braced backstrap loom as well. Below are selected animal and plant names in Proto-Malayo-Polynesian from

1533-811: The People's Republic of China (PRC). The East China Sea is to the north of the island, the Philippine Sea to its east, the Luzon Strait directly to its south, and the South China Sea to its southwest. The ROC also controls a number of smaller islands , including the Penghu archipelago in the Taiwan Strait, Kinmen and Matsu in Fuchien near the PRC's coast, as well as Pratas and Taiping in

SECTION 20

#1732764871264

1606-607: The Philippines are also well known for their unusual morphosyntactic alignment , which is known as the symmetrical voice (also known as the Austronesian alignment). This alignment was also present in the Proto-Austronesian language. Unlike Proto-Austronesian, however, Proto-Oceanic syntax does not make use of the focus morphology present in Austronesian-aligned languages such as the Philippine languages . In

1679-589: The Polynesian languages , verbal morphology is relatively simple, while the main unit in a sentence is the phrase rather than the word. Below is a table of John Wolff's Proto-Austronesian voice system from Blust (2009:433). Wolff's "four-voice" system was derived from evidence in various Formosan and Philippine languages. However, Ross (2009) notes that what may be the most divergent languages, Tsou , Rukai , and Puyuma , are not addressed by this reconstruction, which therefore cannot claim to be alignment system of

1752-524: The Solomon Islands , and Micronesia are SVO , or verb-medial, languages. SOV , or verb-final, word order is considered to be typologically unusual for Austronesian languages, and is only found in various Austronesian languages of New Guinea and to a more limited extent, the Solomon Islands . This is because SOV word order is very common in the non-Austronesian Papuan languages . The Austronesian languages of Taiwan , Borneo , Madagascar and

1825-614: The Sun Moon Lake Basin in the centre of the island. The Dadu and Zhuoshui Rivers flow from the western slopes of the Central Range through the basin to the west coast of the island. The Xueshan Range lies to the northwest of the Central Mountain Range, beginning at Sandiaojiao , the northeast tip of the island, and gaining elevation as it extends southwest towards Nantou County . Xueshan ,

1898-889: The World Trade Organization in 2002. Consequently, upon the decline of subsistence, Taiwan's agriculture now relies heavily on the marketing and export of specialty crops, such as bananas , guavas , lychees , bell fruits , and high-mountain tea . Taiwan has significant coal deposits and some insignificant petroleum and natural gas deposits. As of 2010 , oil accounts for 49.0% of the total energy consumption. Coal comes next with 32.1%, followed by nuclear energy with 8.3%, natural gas (indigenous and liquefied) with 10.2%, and energy from renewable sources with 0.5%. Taiwan has six nuclear reactors and two under construction. Nearly all oil and gas for transportation and power needs must be imported, making Taiwan particularly sensitive to fluctuations in energy prices. Taiwan

1971-642: The Yilan Plain in the northeast. The island of Taiwan lies across the Tropic of Cancer , and its climate is influenced by the East Asian Monsoon . Northern Taiwan has a humid subtropical climate , with substantial seasonal variation of temperatures, while parts of central and most of southern Taiwan have a tropical monsoon climate where seasonal temperature variations are less noticeable, with temperatures typically varying from warm to hot. During

2044-410: The bidu cognate with PMP *pitu; xaseb-a-turu 'eight' ('five-and-three'), with the baturu cognate with PMP *walu; xaseb-i-supat 'nine' ('five-and-four'), with the supa (< PAn *Sepat 'four') cognate with PMP *Siwa. The Proto-Austronesian language had different sets of numerals for non-humans ("set A") and humans ("set B") (Blust 2009:279). Cardinal numerals for counting humans are derived from

2117-422: The comparative method . Although in theory the result should be unambiguous, in practice given the large number of languages there are numerous disagreements, with various scholars differing significantly on the number and nature of the phonemes in Proto-Austronesian. In the past, some disagreements concerned whether certain correspondence sets were real or represent sporadic developments in particular languages. For

2190-518: The 17th century. Camphor extraction and sugar refining played an important role in Taiwan's exports from the late 19th century through the first half of the 20th century. The importance of these industries declined mainly due to the reduction of international demand rather than the exhaustion of related natural resources. Domestic agriculture (rice being the dominant kind of crop) and fisheries retain some importance. Still, they have been greatly challenged by foreign imports since Taiwan's accession to

2263-426: The 19–25 consonants of the Proto-Austronesian language that was originally spoken on Taiwan or Kinmen . Blust also observed the following mergers and sound changes between Proto-Austronesian and Proto-Malayo-Polynesian. However, according to Wolff (2010:241), Proto-Malayo-Polynesian's development from Proto-Austronesian only included the following three sound changes. Proto-Oceanic merged even more phonemes. This

Proto-Austronesian language - Misplaced Pages Continue

2336-591: The Austronesian Basic Vocabulary Database. Note that *lima 'five', ultimately the root for 'hand', is not found for 'five' in some Formosan languages, such as Pazeh, Saisiat, Luilang, Favorlang and Taokas; numerals cognate with Proto-Malayo-Polynesian 6–10 are found in Amis, Basay, Bunun, Kanakanabu, Kavalan, Paiwan, Puyuma, Saaroa and Tsou. Pazeh, Favorlang, Saisiat and Taokas reflect *RaCep 'five'. Laurent Sagart suggests that this

2409-509: The Formosan languages, expanded Dempwolff's set of coronal consonants: Tsuchida (1976), building on Dyen's system: Dahl reduced Tsuchida's consonants into: Blust based his system on a combination of Dyen, Tsuchida and Dahl, and attempted to reduce the total number of phonemes. He accepted Dahl's reduction of Dyen's S X x into S but did not accept either Tsuchida's or Dahl's split of Dyen's d; in addition, he reduced Dyen's s 1 s 2 to

2482-520: The Proto-Austronesian to Proto-Malayo-Polynesian transition, while nine were observed for the Proto-Oceanic to Proto-Polynesian transition. Thus, Proto-Austronesian has the most elaborate sound system, while Proto-Polynesian has the fewest phonemes. For instance, the Hawaiian language is famous for having only eight consonants, while Māori has only ten consonants. This is a sharp reduction from

2555-532: The Proto-Polynesian words given below were reconstructed by Andrew Pawley . Proto-Polynesian displays many innovations not found in the other proto-languages. The Proto-Austronesians used two types of directions, which are the land-sea axis and the monsoon axis. The cardinal directions of north, south, east, and west developed among the Austronesian languages only after contact with the Europeans. For

2628-455: The South China Sea. Geologically, the main island comprises a tilted fault block , characterized by the contrast between the eastern two-thirds, consisting mostly of five rugged mountain ranges running parallel to the east coast, and the flat to gently rolling plains of the western third, where the majority of the population resides. Several peaks exceed 3,500 m in height - the highest, Yu Shan at 3,952 m (12,966 ft), makes Taiwan

2701-595: The Yushan Range, across the valley of the south-flowing Kaoping River . The range has major elevations between 1,000 and 2,000 m (3,300 and 6,600 ft). The main peak, Data Mountain (大塔山), towers 2,663 m (8,737 ft). Below the western foothills of the ranges, such as the Hsinchu Hills and the Miaoli Hills , lie raised terraces formed of material eroded from the ranges. These include

2774-529: The camphor laurel ( Cinnamomum camphora ) was once also widespread at lower altitudes. Taiwan is a centre of bird endemism (see List of endemic birds of Taiwan ). Before the country's industrialization , the mountainous areas held several endemic animal species and subspecies, such as the Swinhoe's pheasant ( Lophura swinhoii ), Taiwan blue magpie ( Urocissa caerulea ), the Formosan sika deer ( Cervus nippon taiwanensis or Cervus nippon taiouanus ) and

2847-513: The central range, consists of sedimentary deposits scraped from the descending edge of the Eurasian Plate. In the northeast of the island, and continuing eastwards in the Ryukyu Volcanic Arc, the Philippine Sea Plate slides under the Eurasian Plate. The tectonic boundary remains active, and Taiwan experiences 15,000 to 18,000 earthquakes each year, of which 800 to 1,000 are noticed by people. The most catastrophic recent earthquake

2920-399: The collapse of a 17-story apartment building. The terrain in Taiwan is divided into two parts: the flat to gently rolling plains in the west, where 90% of the population lives, and the mostly rugged forest-covered mountains in the eastern two-thirds. The eastern part of the island is dominated by five mountain ranges, each running from north-northeast to south-southwest, roughly parallel to

2993-559: The continental shelf, the Strait is no more than 100 m (330 ft) deep, and has become a land bridge during glacial periods . Niushan Island in Nanlai village, Aoqian town, Pingtan County, Fuzhou, Fujian is the closest China (PRC)-administered island to the main island. To the south, the main island is separated from the Philippine island of Luzon by the 250 km (155 mi)-wide Luzon Strait . The South China Sea lies to

Proto-Austronesian language - Misplaced Pages Continue

3066-477: The country of Switzerland. Other environmental issues include water pollution from industrial emissions and raw sewage , contamination of drinking water supplies, trade in endangered species , and low-level radioactive waste disposal. Though regulation of sulfate aerosol emissions from petroleum combustion is becoming stringent, acid rain remains a threat to the health of residents and forests. Atmospheric scientists in Taiwan estimate that more than half of

3139-626: The currently remaining disagreements, however, scholars generally accept the validity of the correspondence sets but disagree on the extent to which the distinctions in these sets can be projected back to proto-Austronesian or represent innovations in particular sets of daughter languages. Below are Proto-Austronesian phonemes reconstructed by Robert Blust , a professor of linguistics at the University of Hawaii at Manoa . A total of 25 Proto-Austronesian consonants, 4 vowels, and 4 diphthongs were reconstructed. However, Blust acknowledges that some of

3212-425: The east coast of the island. As a group, they extend 330 km (210 mi) from north to south and average about 80 kilometres (50 mi) from east to west. They include more than two hundred peaks with elevations of over 3,000 m (9,800 ft). The Central Mountain Range extends from Su'ao in the northeast to Eluanbi at the southern tip of the island, forming a ridge of high mountains and serving as

3285-550: The exclusive preserve of the indigenous peoples until the early 20th century. A further 1.2 million people from throughout China entered Taiwan at the end of the Chinese Civil War in 1949. Some areas in Taiwan with high population density and many factories are affected by heavy pollution. The most notable areas are the southern suburbs of Taipei and the western stretch from Tainan to Lin Yuan, south of Kaohsiung. By

3358-640: The island is Cape Fugui in New Taipei 's Shimen District . The central point of the island is in Puli Township , Nantou County . The southernmost point on the island is Cape Eluanbi in Hengchun Township , Pingtung County . The main island is separated from the southeast coast of mainland China by the Taiwan Strait , which ranges from 220 km (140 mi) at its widest point to 130 km (81 mi) at its narrowest. Part of

3431-646: The island's mineral resources (e.g. coal, gold, marble), as well as wild animal reserves (e.g. deer), have been virtually exhausted. Moreover, much of Taiwan's forestry resources , especially firs were harvested during Japanese rule for the construction of shrines and have only recovered slightly since then. To this day, forests do not contribute to significant timber production mainly because of concerns about production costs and environmental regulations. The few natural resources with significant economic value remaining in Taiwan are agriculture-associated. Sugarcane and rice have been cultivated in western Taiwan since

3504-405: The island's principal watershed. The mountains are predominantly composed of hard rock formations resistant to weathering and erosion, although heavy rainfall has deeply scarred the sides with gorges and sharp valleys. The relative relief of the terrain is usually extensive, and the forest-clad mountains with their extreme ruggedness are almost impenetrable. The east side of the Central Mountain Range

3577-409: The islands include small deposits of gold , copper , coal , natural gas , limestone , marble , and asbestos . The island is 55% forest and woodland (mostly on the mountains) and 24% arable land (mostly on the plains), with 15% going to other purposes. 5% is permanent pasture and 1% is permanent crops. Because of the intensive exploitation throughout Taiwan's pre-modern and modern history ,

3650-659: The land-sea axis, upstream/uphill and inland, as well as downstream/downhill and seaward, are synonym pairs. This has been proposed as evidence that Proto-Austronesians used to live on a mainland, since the sea would be visible from all angles on small islands. In Kavalan, Amis, and Tagalog, the reflexes of *timuR mean "south" or "south wind," while in the languages of the southern Philippines and Indonesia it means "east" or "east wind." In Ilocano , dáya and láud respectively mean "east" and "west," while in Puyuma , ɖaya and ɭauɖ respectively mean "west" and "east." This

3723-661: The late 20th century, Taipei suffered from extensive vehicle and factory air pollution , but after the government required mandatory use of unleaded petrol and established the Environmental Protection Administration in 1987 to regulate air quality, the air quality of Taiwan has improved dramatically. Motor scooters , especially older or cheaper two-stroke versions, which are ubiquitous in Taiwan, contribute disproportionately to urban air pollution. The Taichung Power Plant also contributes significantly to air pollution, producing more CO 2 than

SECTION 50

#1732764871264

3796-432: The ligature *na and locative *i. Morphology and syntax are often hard to separate in the Austronesian languages, particularly the Philippine languages . This is because the morphology of the verbs often affects how the rest of the sentence would be constructed (i.e., syntax). Below are some Proto-Austronesian affixes (including prefixes , infixes , and suffixes ) reconstructed by Robert Blust . For instance, *pa-

3869-499: The main island each year. The heavily forested eastern mountains provide a habitat for a diverse range of wildlife, while human land use in the western and northern lowlands is intensive. The total land area of Taiwan is 36,197 km (13,976 sq mi), slightly larger than Belgium . It has a coastline of 1,566.3 km (973.3 mi). The ROC claims an exclusive economic zone of 83,231 km (32,136 sq mi) with 200  nmi (370.4 km; 230.2 mi) and

3942-534: The main peak, is 3,886 m (12,749 ft) high. The Yushan Range runs along the southwestern flank of the Central Range. It includes the island's tallest peak, the 3,952 m (12,966 ft) Yu Shan ('Jade Mountain') which makes Taiwan the world's fourth-highest island , and is the highest point in the western Pacific region outside of the Kamchatka Peninsula , New Guinea Highlands and Mount Kinabalu . The Alishan Range lies west of

4015-454: The non-human numerals through Ca-reduplication. This bipartite numeral system is found in Thao, Puyuma, Yami, Chamorro, and various other languages (however, Paiwan uses ma- and manə- to derive human numerals). In many Philippine languages such as Tagalog, the two numeral systems are merged (Blust 2009:280–281). Proto-Malayo-Polynesian language Proto-Malayo-Polynesian ( PMP )

4088-430: The north to Taitung County in the south, and chiefly consist of sandstone and shale. It is separated from the Central Range by the narrow Huatung Valley , at an altitude of 120 m (390 ft). Although Hsinkangshan (新港山), the highest peak, reaches an elevation of 1,682 m (5,518 ft), most of the range is composed of large hills. Small streams have developed on the flanks, but only one large river cuts across

4161-655: The northernmost islands of the Philippines by the Bashi Channel . The islands of Kinmen and Matsu near the coast of Fujian across the Taiwan Strait have a total area of 180 km (69 sq mi); the Pratas and Taiping islets in the South China Sea are also administered by the ROC, but are not part of the Taiwanese archipelago. The island of Taiwan was formed approximately 4 to 5 million years ago at

4234-407: The pollutants causing Taiwan's acid rain are carried from China by monsoon winds. Taiwan historically had a serious problem with the illegal dumping of household and industrial waste which became so severe that Taiwan was known as "garbage island." This high level of pollution led to civil and government action, by 2022 the recycling rate was one of the highest in the world at 55%. Community activism

4307-404: The population. Immigrants from southern Fujian began to farm the area around modern Tainan and Kaohsiung from the 17th century, later spreading across the western and northern plains and absorbing the indigenous population of those areas. Hakka people from eastern Guangdong arrived later and settled the foothills further inland, but the rugged uplands of the eastern half of the island remained

4380-439: The protolanguage of the entire family. He calls the unit to which this reconstruction applies Nuclear Austronesian . The following table compares Proto-Austronesian and Proto-Malayo-Polynesian question words. Currently, the most complete reconstruction of the Proto-Austronesian case marker system is offered by Malcolm Ross . The reconstructed case markers are as follows: Important Proto-Austronesian grammatical words include

4453-459: The range. Badlands are located at the western foot of the range, where the ground water level is the lowest and rock formations are the least resistant to weathering. Raised coral reefs along the east coast and the frequent occurrences of earthquakes in the rift valley indicate that the fault block is still rising. The ranges to the west of the Central range are divided into two groups separated by

SECTION 60

#1732764871264

4526-620: The reconstructed consonants are still controversial and debated. The symbols below are frequently used in reconstructed Proto-Austronesian words. *D only appears in final position, *z/*c/*ñ only in initial and medial position, while *j is restricted to medial and final position. The Proto-Austronesian vowels are a, i, u, and ə. The diphthongs , which are diachronic sources of individual vowels, are: In 2010, John Wolff published his Proto-Austronesian reconstruction in Proto-Austronesian phonology with glossary . Wolff reconstructs

4599-466: The southwest, the East China Sea to the north, and the Philippine Sea to the east. Smaller islands of the archipelago include the Penghu islands in the Taiwan Strait 50 km (31 mi) west of the main island, with an area of 127 km (49 sq mi), the tiny islet of Xiaoliuqiu off the southwest coast, and Orchid Island and Green Island to the southeast, separated from

4672-450: The table. This consonant system is quite similar to the ancestral Proto-Austronesian ( PAN ) system, but is characterized by three mergers: The Proto-Austronesian vowels *a, *i, *u, *e (*e representing /ə/) and final diphthongs *ay, *aw, *uy, *iw remained unchanged. In a study from 2016, Roger Blench has raised doubts that there was actually a single unitary Proto-Malayo-Polynesian language. Rather, Malayo-Polynesian expansion across

4745-593: The vegetation on Taiwan ranged from tropical rainforest in the lowlands through temperate forests , boreal forest and alpine plants with increasing altitude. Most of the plains and low-lying hills of the west and north of the island have been cleared for agricultural use since the arrival of the Chinese immigrants during the 17th and 18th century. However the mountain forests are very diverse, with several endemic species such as Formosan cypress ( Chamaecyparis formosensis ) and Taiwan fir ( Abies kawakamii ), while

4818-631: The western coast of the island. The island is highly urbanized, with nearly 9 million people living in the Taipei–Keelung–Taoyuan metropolitan area at the northern end, and over 2 million each in the urban areas of Kaohsiung and Taichung . Taiwanese indigenous peoples comprise approximately 2% of the population, and now mostly live in the mountainous eastern part of the island. Most scholars believe their ancestors arrived in Taiwan by sea between 4000 and 3000 BC, most likely from southeastern China. Han Chinese make up over 95% of

4891-549: The winter (November to March), the northeast experiences steady rain, while the central and southern parts of the island are mostly sunny. The summer monsoon (from May to October) accounts for 90% of the annual precipitation in the south, but only 60% in the north. The average rainfall is approximately 2,600 mm per year. Typhoons are most likely to strike between July and October, with on average about four direct hits per year. Intensive rain from typhoons often leads to disastrous mudslides. Before extensive human settlement,

4964-477: The world's fourth-highest island . The tectonic boundary that formed these ranges remains active, and the island experiences many earthquakes, some of them highly destructive. There are also many active submarine volcanoes in the Taiwan Straits. The climate ranges from tropical in the south to subtropical in the north, and is governed by the East Asian Monsoon . On average, four typhoons strike

5037-531: Was based on evidence from languages outside of Taiwan , and was therefore actually the first reconstruction of what is now known as Proto-Malayo-Polynesian. The following consonants can be reconstructed for Proto-Malayo-Polynesian (Blust 2009): The phonetic value of the reconstructed sounds *p, *b, *w, *m, *t, *d, *n, *s, *l, *r, *k, *g, *ŋ, *q, *h was as indicated by the spelling. The symbols *ñ, *y, *z, *D, *j, *R are orthographic conventions first introduced by Dyen (1947). The assumed phonetic values are given in

5110-543: Was key to this change along with innovations such as garbage trucks which play music. Illegal extraction by Chinese sand dredging vessels has caused significant damage to the marine environment of Taiwan's outlying areas. The Taiwan Banks are a particularly hard hit target. Bottom trawling is a controversial practice due to the environmental damage it causes. Bottom trawlers with a tonnage under 50 are restricted from trawling within 5km of shore and those over 50 tons are restricted from trawling within 12km of shore. In 2023

5183-470: Was the PAn root, replaced by *lima in a lineage that lead to the remaining languages, rather than the reverse, because it seems to be retained in proto-Malayo-Polynesian in the forms 7, 8, 9, which appear to be disyllabic contractions of additive phrases attested from some of the western Formosan languages, especially Pazeh: Pazeh xaseb-uza 'six' (literally 'five-one'); xaseb-i-dusa 'seven' ('five-and-two'), with

5256-425: Was the magnitude-7.3 Chi-Chi earthquake , which occurred in the centre of Taiwan on 21 September 1999, killing more than 2,400 people. On 4 March 2010 at about 01:20 UTC, a magnitude 6.4 earthquake hit southwestern Taiwan in the mountainous area of Kaohsiung County . Another major earthquake occurred on 6 February 2016, with a magnitude of 6.4. Tainan was damaged the most, with 117 deaths, most of them caused by

5329-503: Was used for non-stative (i.e., dynamic) causatives, while *pa-ka was used for stative causatives (Blust 2009:282). Blust also noted a p/m pairing phenomenon in which many affixes have both p- and m- forms. This system is especially elaborate in the Thao language of Taiwan. A verbal prefix *paRi- is also reconstructed (albeit at the lower level of PEMP Tooltip Proto-Eastern Malayo-Polynesian ), for “reciprocal or collective action”; it

#263736