| Also Known As: Ami,Sabari,Maran,Bakurut,Amia,Tanah,Pangtsah,Lam-si-hoan,Pagcah,Pangcah
Description:
Amis is the Formosan language of the Amis or Ami, a tribe of indigenous people along the east coast of Taiwan (see Taiwanese aborigines). It is spoken from Hualien in the north to Taitung in the south, with another population near the southern end of the island, though the northern varieties are sometimes considered a separate language.
Government services in counties where many Amis people live in Taiwan, such as the Hualien and Taitung train stations, broadcast in Amis alongside Mandarin. However, few Amis under the age of 20 in 1995 spoke the language, and it is not known how many of the 138,000 ethnic Amis are speakers.
Amis is a dialect cluster. The northern varieties, Sakizaya and Nataoran, are divergent enough to be classified as separate languages. Within Amis proper, there are Tavalong-Vata'an, Middle, and Southern dialects, the latter including Malan and Hengchun Amis.
The following discussion covers the central dialect of Amis (Maddieson & Wright).
The voiceless plosives /p t t͡s k ʡ/ are released, so that ccay "one" is pronounced [t͡st͡saj]; as is /s/ in clusters: spat "four" is [spat⁼]. The glottal stop is an exception, being frequently unreleased in final position...... full article at Wikipedia |
