HSIEH, Kuo-Pin (Hsing-Kuo University)
The newly developed linguistic traits as an ethnic boundary for the dying
Sirayan Plains Aborigines in Taiwan
This paper aims to present and expound the fieldwork findings about how the
so-called vanishing Sirayan Plains Aborigines in Taiwan, with an extinct mother
tongue, persist in drawing distinct ethnic boundaries because of their newly
developed linguistic traits. The Sirayan Plains Aborigines have been widely
viewed as an ethnic group that had lost its distinct ethnic boundary since the
Sirayan language became extinct in 1908. However, according to my fieldwork
conducted in two documented Sirayan villages, I found that many highly
sinicized Sirayan descendants still maintain Sirayan identification and the
Sirayan-Han ethnic boundary still persists in several aspects, including a set of
linguistic traits developed over the past decades. All contemporary Sirayan
descendants have used Minnan (southern Fujienese) as their mother tongue,
but some elderly still speak Minnan with a distinctive accent, which usually
consists of a heavy ending tone in each sentence. Aside from this, many
Minnan terms with the prefix "hoan," [barbarian], signifying derogatory meaning
against aborigines, are modified or forbidden in these villages. Under the
circumstances that the Sirayan-Han boundary has become blurred, these
newly developed linguistic traits serve as a new dimension of ethnic distinction
for the local people to tell the difference between Sirayan people and Han
Chinese.