Tsou
Language · official in 1 country
Tsou calls itself Cou, a name meaning 'person' that goes back to Proto-Austronesian *Cau and is cognate with the name of the Thao. The language of the Tsou people is spoken in the west-central mountains south-east of the Alishan area, and its spelling writes the central vowel with x, a rare use of that letter for a vowel.
The language on record
- Own name
- Cou
- ISO 639-3
- TSU
- Script
- Latin
- Family
- Formosan (Tsouic)
- Official in
- 1 country
Where Tsou is official
A single country, Taiwan, where the Tsou villages lie in Alishan Township and in one village of Nantou County.
Official beside Tsou
About Tsou
Where the Tsou villages lie
Two dialects survive, Tapangʉ and Tfuya. Duhtu and Iimcu are extinct, and Iimcu was never well described. Tapangʉ is spoken in Tapangʉ, Niaʼucna, Saviki and Sinvi; Tfuya in Cayamavana, Dadauya and Ranguu. All of these are in Alishan Township, Chiayi County. Mamahavana, a Duhtu village, lies in Xinyi Township, Nantou County. The dialects barely differ, with near-identical grammar and a few sound correspondences.
Why linguists doubt a Tsouic branch
Tsou was long grouped with Kanakanabu and Saaroa in a Tsouic branch of Austronesian. Chang in 2006 and Ross in 2009 disputed that branch and found Tsou more divergent than the other two.
Which consonant clusters Tsou allows
Tsou has six vowels and a notable number of consonant clusters, though never more than two consonants together. No syllable goes beyond CCVV. Clusters such as /hp/, /ht/ and /hʔ/ at the start of a word are unusual among the world's languages, and in a pair of stops both are released. The implosive /ɗ/ is pronounced with a lateral release by about a third of speakers, so /ɗauja/, 'maple', may sound like [lauja].
How stress deletes vowels
Stress falls on the second-to-last vowel, or mora, and moves when a suffix is added; every other light syllable before it takes a secondary stress. Unstressed vowels drop out except at the edges of the word or where the result would be a forbidden cluster. So ⫽seʔe-nətəh-a⫽, 'to cut with a bolo', surfaces as [sʔenˈtəha].
Common questions
Questions about Tsou
What does the word Tsou mean?
'Person'. It descends from Proto-Austronesian *Cau.
Why is x used for a vowel in Tsou spelling?
The central vowel /ɨ/ has been written x, a rare case of that letter standing for a vowel. It is also written ʉ, as in the dialect name Tapangʉ.
Which Tsou dialects are still spoken?
Tapangʉ and Tfuya. Duhtu and Iimcu are extinct, and the Duhtu village of Mamahavana is in Nantou County rather than Chiayi.