Saaroa

What the oral tradition says about Yushan

The Tsouic peoples trace their origin to Yushan. About 2,000 years ago, the tradition says, they split into the Northern Tsou, who moved west along the Nantzuhsien River, and the Southern Tsou, who followed the Laonung River. About 800 years ago the Southern Tsou divided into the Kanakanabu and the Saaroa. The Tsouic area once covered a large part of south-western central Taiwan and shrank through invasion and disease.

How reduplication builds meaning

Reduplication is highly productive, and it works the same way on dynamic verbs and on adjectival words. Either can take progressive, continuous, intensifying, diminutive or collective meanings from a doubled syllable. Roots usually run to more than two syllables in a (C)V.(C)V.(C)V pattern, and the basic word order is verb, actor, theme.

Why stress does not make it tonal

Saaroa has primary and secondary stress, and neither distinguishes words. A stressed vowel is higher in pitch and louder, but because the pitch never separates one word from another, Saaroa is not a pitch-accent language. The sound inventory is small: 13 consonants and four vowels, /i, ɨ, u, a/.

The shift to Bunun began when Bunun speakers migrated into Saaroa territory. Many elders also speak Taiwanese Hokkien, and the vocabulary carries loans from Japanese of the 1895 to 1945 period, from Mandarin and Southern Min, and heavily from Mantauran Rukai, the neighbours next door.