Formosan and Austronesian Languages

T. R. Cheng

Introduction

About 30 to 40,000 years ago, anatomically modern humans (AMH) peopled the Island we call Formosa and the people, Formosans, today. Sometimes less than 10,000 years ago, they developed, nurtured, expanded, and founded the Austronesian (AN) Language Family spoken by most insular islands in both Indian and Pacific Oceans. The language family started to disperse into the vast domain after one of the initial ten Proto-AN languages left Formosa 6,000 to 5,500 years ago and reached the Philippines and further south to Borneo, Malaysia, Sumatra, and rested temporarily at eastern peripheries of Indonesia around 4,000 years ago. Next round of linguistic expansions did not resume until some 3,000 years ago. During that 1000+ years’ break, AN speakers invented stable double-rigged canoes that enabled them to carry live stocks, plants, foods, and passengers for long distant voyages, and ventured into new uninhabited insular islands. This round of the language transmission had completed by AD 1,200 when most islands in both Oceans were occupied by the AN speakers.

I will describe prehistoric linguistic and cultural spreading and the early recent Formosan history, since most islanders in general are unaware of that glorious past and their own contributions to the culture history of the world.

Island belongs to Formosans

Formosan ancestors indeed peopled the island first. They have left splendid legacies and unique culture achievements. However, there are still large amounts of treasures waiting to be further explored. Paleolithic stone relics and archaic sites thus far excavated yielded tens of thousands to thousands year-old relics. They reveal Formosa bears rich reservoir of archaic remains and the Formosans, having been lived on the same island, too.

The AN language history indicates that Formosan ancestors have made significant contribution to the world culture since 6-5 millennia ago. Tragically, this and some historic relics are deliberately and dogmatically assigned to subsets of China cultures. Archaeological studies, however, have disclosed an entirely different picture; Formosa has a unique and independent set of history that belongs only to Formosans.

Anthropology and Ancient Formosan History

Anthropology deals with all aspects of humans and human evolution. Unlike a rather shallow aspect used to deal with, it encompasses physical (biological), linguistic, cultural, history, archaeology, paleontology, geography, geology, and behavioral, subdisciplines and others that directly or indirectly deliberated for the better understanding. The human species is called Homo sapiens (Hsa), the name designated to human beings.

Under the Physical Anthropology, genetics, DNA lineage diversifications, variations, and evolution that human species has been endowed during the long history of evolution from the remote past are studied. It is the largest field of all subdisciplines in the anthropology. Genetics and DNA are two subjects that have received the most attentions today.

The AMH left the birthplace and ventured into the Eurasian continent or the Old World about 80-60,000 years ago. They reached most inhabitable environment in both Africa and Eurasia by around 40,000 years ago.

Some stone tools excavated in the Ilin (aka. Pasheng) Caves at the southeastern Formosan coast are radio-carbon-dated to over 35,000 years old as reported by Professor Lin Chao-chi (林朝棨) in 1965. That would indicate the time of peopling the Island by ancestors to coincide with the AMH reaching most fable habitats available in both continents.

We must also be reminded of that Formosa was intermittently connected to, and could be a part of Eurasia by land bridges before the last Glacial Peak that ended some 11-13,000 years ago. The AMH could journey along the shorelines of Indochina Peninsula coast of southern Eurasia up north into the area that becomes an insular island since the end of the last Glacial Peak. Presently, we call that island, Formosa.

Indonesia is also intermittently connected by the land-bridge to forming a large merged land called Sundaland. It was a southeastern extension of Eurasia in ancient geological history. It is also the southeast extreme of Eurasia in the Pacific Ocean. We can easily understand that journeys on foot along the shorelines may reach from the Indochina Peninsula to both Indonesia east- and south-wards, and to Formosa northward. Indochina Peninsula is inhabited by Cambodians, Laotians, and Thais who speak the Tai-ka-dai languages. Both Proto-AN languages and the ancestral Proto-Tai-ka-dai have the common linguistic ancestors called Proto-Austro-Tai.

Languages and Racial Displacement

Formosans have never been replaced by foreign settlers. Historians tend to sway public opinions into believing otherwise. A great deal more of information becomes available only recently. Researchers are advised to consult with those new evidence before writing a new book on Formosan history. The foreign origin of Formosan people and history are forged largely for the purpose of malignant political contemplation.

Among the recently unearthed archaic relics such as by Lin CC mentioned above, there is a 4-volume book called “The Formosan Encounters” edited and translated into English by Professor Leonard Blusse and associates in The Netherlands. They have been engaging in the monumental task of extracting cultural activities of Formosan society witnessed on site together with concurring affairs of the Dutch colonial government during the period of occupation from 1623 to 1662 for the entire 39 years. The book are based on the vast records of VOC (Vereenigle Oost-Indische Compagnie, 1602-1811, which contains over 3,000 entries on Formosa affairs from 1623-1662) archived in the Nationaal Archief, Den Haag. The first two volumes of the book were published in 1999, and the third, in 2006, all from Taipah (Taipei), Formosa. Although the final volume encompassing years from 1655 to 1662 has not been published, the first three volumes contain witnessed accounts on Formosan indigenes in great detail and most may be unknown to historians.

These documents would suffice advising historians to look hard into the witnessed accounts on early society of the island before they attempt to write another book on the Formosan history. To begin with, society and culture witnessed by the Dutch since 1623 differ entirely from what Formosa has been portrayed hitherto. Most books belong to the categories of collections of fairy tales or conjectured episodes.

Formosans were still in the Mid to Upper Neolithic periods in the middle of hunter-gatherers instead of agricultural subsistence. It certainly contradicts expected conditions if China farmers were to immigrate and replace the indigenous Formosans entirely since 15-13,000 years or even the re-phrased 8,000 years ago. Chinese fishermen working in Taiwan waters settled en masse 400+ years ago or poor, starving Chinese in Fukien and Canton areas sneaked into island en masse and replaced the entire plains AN Formosans known as PeN Pous (plains people) as well as the island being the farmland explored anew by Chinese farmers since some 400+ years ago were unfounded fictions since Chinese farmers at large lacked viable shipwright technology in those early years even 400+ years ago. How can they cross the perilous and unpredictable marine conditions to reach island that is 120 miles away from the nearest continent places to the island not to mention those places are rarely inhabited or even not developed at all. Do they know what hazardous land and terrifying places they landed on? All in all, these pre-historic fictions should never be allowed to incorporate into the Formosan history. Above all, Chinese were rarely seen even in the plains when Dutch landed on the island in 1623 until years later before Dutch hired Chinese for seasonal hard laborers. (Part a. 8/2/2008)