The Bunun language (布農語) is a member of the Formosan languages, which are part of the Austronesian language family. It is spoken by the Bunun people of Taiwan, spanning an area from Ren-ai Township in Nantou County in the north to Yan-ping Township in Taitung County in the south. Bunun has five main dialects. Isbukun is the dominant and prestige dialect, spoken mainly in the south, including Nantou, Taitung, and Kaohsiung. Then, there is Takbunuaz, which is spoken in Nantou and southern Hualien County, Takivatan in Nantou and central Hualien, Takibaka, northern dialect, spoken in Nantou and Takituduh, which is another northern dialect, spoken in Nantou. There was also a sixth dialect, Takipulan, that became extinct in the 1970s.

The Saaroa and Kanakanavu, two smaller minority groups sharing territory with the Isbukun Bunun group, have also adopted Bunun as their vernacular. The Bunun language is subdivided into three main branches: the Northern (Takituduh, Takibaka), the Central (Takbunuaz, Takivatan) and the Southern (Isbukun). Historically, Bunun was originally spoken in and around Sinyi Township (Xinyi) in Nantou County. From the 17th century onwards, the Bunun people expanded southwards and eastwards, assimilating other ethnic groups such as the Saaroa, Kanakanavu, and Thao. The Isbukun (Southern) dialect is the most divergent and prestigious, while the northern dialects (Takituduh and Takibaka) are the most conservative.

Bunun continues to play a significant role in the cultural and linguistic landscape of Taiwan, maintaining its significance despite the pressures of modernity and language shift.

Language family

Bunun is a Austronesian language. In the following website you can find its detailed phylogenetic tree.

Linguistic Structures

Bunun is a verb-initial language and has an Austronesian alignment system or focus system. This means that Bunun clauses do not have a nominative–accusative or absolutive–ergative alignment, but that arguments of a clause are ordered according to which participant in the event described by the verb is ‘in focus’.

Some examples of the language

1. Agent Focus

   Nitu munʔasaŋ siða tilas

   NEG-COMPL ALL-village grab-AF cereals

   ‘[They] did not go back to the village to take rice.’

    

2. Patient Focus

   Huduqa siðaʔun

   sprouts-LDIS grab-UF

   ‘You had to take the young sprouts [of the reed].’

    

3. Locative Focus

   Nitu maqtu tudipa bahiʔa siðaʔani

   NEG-COMPL can those.days-LNK dream-LDIS grab-LF-PRT

   ‘In the old days, you couldn’t just interpret [lit: grab into] a dream by yourself.’

   (De Busser, 2009)

In the following video you can see the public performance of Pasibutbut, a ritual celebrating millet cultivation, by the Bunun Mountain Traditional Music Chorus at the the Esplanade Theatres in Singapore.