Taivoan language
Formosan language
Taivoan or Taivuan, is a Formosan language spoken until the end of the 19th century by the indigenous Taivoan people of Taiwan. Taivoan used to be regarded as a dialect of Siraya, but now more evidence has shown that they should be classified as separate languages. The corpora previously regarded as Siraya like the Gospel of St. Matthew and the Notes on Formulary of Christianity translated into "Siraya" by the Dutch people in the 17th century should be in Taivoan majorly.
Since the January 2019 code release, SIL International has recognized Taivoan as an independent language and assigned the code tvx.
Classification
The Taivoan language used to be regarded as a dialect of Siraya. However, more evidences have shown that it belongs to an independent language spoken by the Taivoan people.
Documentary evidence
In De Dagregisters van het Kasteel Zeelandia written by the Dutch colonizers during 1629–1662, it was clearly said that when the Dutch people would like to speak to the chieftain of Cannacannavo (Kanakanavu), they needed to translate from Dutch to Sinckan (Siraya), from Sinckan to Tarroequan (possibly a Paiwan or a Rukai language), from Tarroequan to Taivoan, and from Taivoan to Cannacannavo."...... in Cannacannavo: Aloelavaos tot welcken de vertolckinge in Sinccans, Tarrocquans en Tevorangs geschiede, weder voor een jaer aengenomen" — De Dagregisters van het Kasteel Zeelandia, pp.6–8 According to William Campbell's Formosa Under the Dutch (1903), historical records show that various displaced indigenous groups "spoke several languages in the same place." Despite this linguistic diversity, populations including the Taivoan ("Tevorangians") were forced to mechanically memorize the Sinckan catechism by heart:"It also often occurred that people living among the mountains were enticed by all possible means to come down and live in the valleys or plains. The people thus got mixed, and spoke several languages in the same place; one result being that, in keeping with the usual routine, those persons learnt the catechism of Mr.
This brief starts where responsible research should: with the source description of “Taivoan language” as formosan language. Everything that follows is an evidence route, not borrowed authority.
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The subject matters to the general reference register because the source frames it as formosan language. Its deeper value depends on whether names, dates, institutions and citations support that framing.
Vocabulary and entity names are the principal evidence signals here, because they determine the precision of every later search. The source revision retrieved here is dated May 16, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q1975271. None of the 0 selected statements returned an explicit reference. The first chronological checks are 2019, 1629, 1662 and 1903.
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This entry incorporates text from “Taivoan language” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.