Reference articles on history, science, culture and more
Surprise meSurprise meSubscribe
Encyclopedia

Kavalan language

East Formosan language of Taiwan

Wikipedia contributorsAdapted for Fathomly · View authors
3 min read
Source updated August 31, 2026
Image credit is listed at the end of this article.

Kavalan (also known as Kvalan, Kebalan or Kbalan) was formerly spoken in the Northeast coast area of Taiwan by the Kavalan people (噶瑪蘭). It is an East Formosan language of the Austronesian family.

Kavalan is no longer spoken in its original area. As of 1930, it was used only as a home language. As of 1987, it was still spoken in Atayal territories. In 2000, this language was still reported to be spoken by 24 speakers but considered moribund.

In 2017, a study using the EDGE metric from species conservation found that Kavalan, although critically endangered, was among the most lexically distinct of Austronesian languages.

01Dialects

Kavalan consists of the following speech communities ordered from north to south:

  • Kariawan (Jialiwan 加禮宛), near Hualien, a formerly Sakizaya-speaking area
  • Patʀungan (Xinshe 新社), located in Fungpin (豐濱鄉), Hualien
  • Kulis (Lide 立德)
  • Kralut (Zhangyuan 樟原)

These speech communities in eastern Taiwan were named after older settlements from the north, such as Kariawan, Sahut, and Tamayan, where the Kavalan people originally migrated from. Modern-day Kavalan speakers are surrounded by the Amis.

Tsuchida (1985) notes that word lists collected from Lamkham 南崁 (Nankan) and Poting 埔頂 (Buding) are closest to Kavalan, while Li (2001) counts them as 'Basaic' languages.

Many Kavalan can also speak Amis, Taiwanese, Mandarin, and Japanese.

02Phonology

There are 15 consonants and 4 vowels in Kavalan.

Consonants
Bilabial Dental Alveolar Palatal Velar Uvular
Nasal m n ŋ
Plosive voiceless p t k q
voiced b
Fricative voiceless s
voiced z ɮ [ɮ ~ d] ʁ
Approximant l [l ~ ɫ ~ ɾ] j w
Vowels
Front Central Back
Close i u
Mid ə
Open a

In Kavalan, Proto-Austronesian phonemes have merged as follows:

  • *n, *N, *j, *ɲ as n
  • *t, *T, *c as t
  • *d, *D, *Z as z
  • *s, *S as s
  • *q, *ʔ, *H are deleted

The following Proto-Austronesian phonemes are split:

  • *k into q and k
  • *l into r and ʁ (written as R)
  • *a into i (if adjacent to q) and a

The Kavalan language is also notable for having a large inventory of consonant clusters. It is also one of the only two Formosan languages that has geminate consonants, with the other one being Basay. Consonant gemination is also common in the northern Philippine languages, but is non-existent in the Central Philippine languages except for Rinconada Bikol.

03Grammar

Morphology

Kavalan nouns and verbs are distinguished by the lack of /a/ in the first syllable (nouns) or presence of /a/ (verbs). Kavalan syllables take on the structure (C)(C)V(C)(C). Kavalan is also one of two Formosan languages to have geminating consonants.

Kavalan affixes include:

  • m- (agent focus)
  • -um-/-m- (agent focus)
  • -in/-n- as variants of ni- (patient)
  • -a (irrealis patient-focus marker)
  • -an (locative-focus marker, nominalizer)
  • -i (imperative, patient focus)
  • pa- (causative)
  • qa- (future)

Unlike many other Formosan languages, there is no *-en suffix.

Syntax

Kavalan, like most other Formosan and Philippine languages, has many case markers.

  • Nominative: a/ya
  • Oblique: ta, tu
  • Genitive: na, ni
  • Locative: sa, ta- -an

Types of focus in Kavalan include:

  1. Agent
  2. Patient
  3. Locative
  4. Instrumental
  5. Beneficiary

The Kavalan case markers below are from Li & Tsuchida (2006:27).

Kavalan Case Markers
Case Nominative Oblique Genitive Locative
Common a, ya tu na sa, ta- -an
Personal a, ya ta ni ,

Pronouns

The Kavalan personal pronouns below are from Li & Tsuchida (2006:30).

Kavalan Personal Pronouns
Nominative Genitive Oblique Locative
1st person singular aiku, =iku zaku, -ku timaiku tamaikuan
plural excl. aimi, =imi zanyaq, -nyaq timaimi tamaimian
incl. aita, =ita zata, -ta, -kita timaita tamaitan
2nd person singular aisu, =isu zasu, -su timaisuanzen tamaisuan
plural aimu, =imu zanumi, -numi timaimu tamaimuan
3rd person singular aizipna tiyau zana, -na timaizipna tiyau tamaizipan tiyauan
plural qaniyau zana, -na qaniyau taqaniyauan

04Affixes

The Kavalan affixes below are from Li & Tsuchida (2006:14-24).

Watch videos about Kavalan languageExplainers and documentaries on YouTube (opens in a new tab)

Sources and credits

This article is adapted from the Wikipedia article “Kavalan language”, written by its contributors and licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0. Fathomly has changed the layout, removed citation markers, navigation and maintenance notices, and adjusted punctuation. This adapted version is shared under the same license. For references, see the original article.

Images, from Wikimedia Commons:

Fathomly is not affiliated with or endorsed by the Wikimedia Foundation. Spotted a problem? Tell us.