Favorlang songs transcribed in Southern-Hokkien: Decipherment

Abstract

Favorlang is an extinct language of indigenous people in Taiwan (Austronesian). This language was documented in Bible translation by Dutch missionary in the 17th century. However, the grammar of this language remains unclear. The only useful literature for the analysis is a Vertrecht's wordlist of Favorlang-Dutch written in 1650 which was published in Campbell (1896). Under the rule of Qing dynasty, a Chinese officer investigated aboriginal customs and documented folklores from 34 villages (including six Favorlang songs) using Chinese characters (Huang 1722). These Chinese character should be pronounced by Southern-Hokkien. These songs were provided with translation in Chinese for each verse, but there were no inter-linear glosses. As a first step to the deciphement, Florenz (1898) transliterated these songs into roman letters, Ogawa (date unknown) identified some words, and Sato (1936:410-411) attempted to decipher one Siraya song and one Favorlang song. This study presents a preliminary decipherment for all six Favorlang songs and discuss some linguistic features observable in the songs.