July 17, 2018| DAIGU SIGUA
The Different Ways to Say Mother in the Formosan Languages
"Ina" is the word that most Austronesians use to call their mother. Taiwan, as the homeland of all Austronesian people, how its various ethnic groups call their mother has become an interesting issue to further explore and that’s what we would like to show you here. As shown in Table 1, with only the exception of three groups, the Truku and Seediq as “bubu” and the Atayal as “yaya”, all other ethnic groups are “Ina” or other similar pronunciations. Even the Taiwanese-speaking group, the major one in the island, also has a similar call as “I-yah”, and it probably originated from “Ina”. This can be explained by the fact that the majority (85%) of Taiwanese-speaking group are all descendants of the Pingpu.
Due to the consistency of the word used for “mother” by the majority of ethnic groups in Taiwan, we can infer that all ethnic groups that currently exist in Taiwan have a common origin. After more than 10,000 years of evolution, the common ancestor formed the various ethnic groups today. Among them are those who have moved out to the Pacific, such as the Hawaiian and Maori. There are also those who moved out and then moved in again, such as the Thao. Regardless of whether they moved out or moved in, before 1945 the population of Taiwan was formed basically by the Austronesian people.
Concerning the evolution of languages, there is a principle that the language of the stay-in groups is far more complicated than the language of the move-out groups. For example, the entire Austronesian languages can be divided into 10 subgroups, while the languages of Taiwanese ethnic groups account for 9 subgroups. And all the other languages spoken from Malay Archipelago to Polynesia and Madagascar are put into the last subgroup. Image 1. This principle can explain the distribution of the word “Ina” in the Oceania as well. (Another article)
Image Credit: Kanguole
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Austronesian_languages#/media/File:Formosan_languages_en.svg
The same principle also applies to the interpretation of genetics. For example, in "Parasite and host both out of Taiwan", which analyzes the gut bacteria of Austronesian people, found that Taiwan's strains are far more complex than strains in other regions in Oceania.
The word "Ina" is not limited to the Austronesians only. Similar words for mother can be found in all parts of the world such as Central Asia, the Middle East, Europe, North Africa, and the Americas. See ‘Who calls their mother “Ina” The distribution of an ancient cognate word’. Taiwan probably is the place of origin of the word “Ina.”
Table 1. The ways to call mother in Formosan languages
Image 1. Language tree
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