Northern Formosan languages
| Northern Formosan | |
|---|---|
| (proposed) | |
| Geographic distribution | Taiwan |
| Linguistic classification | Austronesian
|
| Language codes | |
| Glottolog | west2572 (Western Plains)nort2899 (Northwestern) atay1246 (Atayalic) |
(orange) Li's Northern Formosan | |
The Northern Formosan languages is a proposed grouping of Formosan languages that includes the Atayalic languages, the Western Plains languages (Papora, Hoanya, Babuza, and Taokas), and the Northwest Formosan languages (Pazeh and Saisiyat; Li places Western Plains with this grouping).
The Northern Formosan subgroup was first proposed by Paul Jen-kuei Li in 1985. Blust (1999) rejects the unity of the proposed Northern Formosan branch. A 2008 analysis of the Austronesian Basic Vocabulary Database, however, supports the unity of the Northern Formosan branch with a 97% confidence level (see Austronesian languages#Classification).