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EntityQ56505· pop 33· linked from 579 articles

Also known as Bunun language, bnn

Formosan language spoken by the Bunun people of Taiwan

Key facts

Native to
Taiwan
Ethnicity
Bunun people
Native speakers
38,000 (2002)
Language family
Austronesian Bunun
Dialects
Isbukun Takituduh Takibaka Takbanuaz Takivatan Takipulan †
Writing system
Latin ( Bunun alphabet )
Recognised minority language in
Taiwan
Iso 639 3
bnn
Glottolog
bunu1267

via Wikipedia infobox

Wikidata facts

Instance of
natural language
Subclass of
Formosan
Country
Taiwan
Show 10 more facts
topic's main category
Category:Bunun language
linguistic typology
agglutinative language
writing system
Latin script
Wikimedia language code
bnn
native label
Bunun
indigenous to
Taitung County
number of speakers, writers, or signers
38000
different from
Bunun
Sources (8)

via Wikidata · CC0

~10 min read

Encyclopedic overview

The Bunun language (Chinese: 布農語) is spoken by the Bunun people of Taiwan. It is one of the Formosan languages, a geographic group of Austronesian languages, and is subdivided in five dialects: Isbukun, Takbunuaz, Takivatan, Takibaka and Takituduh. Isbukun, the dominant dialect, is mainly spoken in the south of Taiwan. Takbunuaz and Takivatan are mainly spoken in the center of the country. Takibaka and Takituduh both are northern dialects. A sixth dialect, Takipulan, became extinct in the 1970s.

The Saaroa and Kanakanavu, two smaller minority groups who share their territory with an Isbukun Bunun group, have also adopted Bunun as their vernacular.

Excerpted from Wikipedia’s “Bunun” article, available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 licence.