Tao is a member of the Batanic branch of Malayo-Polynesian languagese. It is spoken on Orchid Island, a part of Taiwan, by about 3,800 people. The Batanic languages are classified as Northern Philippine languages by some linguists, but others believe they are a separate branch of the Malayo-Polynesian language family.
Tao is also known as Yami, Botel Tobago, Lanyu or Tawu. Tao speakers call it ciriciring No Tao or ireriak No Tao. Orchid Island is called Pongso no Tao ("Island of Tao") in Tao, and 蘭嶼 in Chinese, which is pronounced in Mandarin and Lân-sū in Taiwanese.
Download an alphabet chart for Tao (Excel)
O nimanoma do pongso ta ya a tao nokakoa am, sira mina Paloy, aka nira mina Ozamen, aka nira Pacilalaw. Sira rana ori am, ji sia mingongoyod pa a tao, ta somavik sira a tao. Sira Paloy rana ya am, ji sia hakakaw, ta ji sia ateneng a omhakaw, so ikabo no kanen da, to sia nginonginom so sazowsaw am ranom, ori o ikaviay da nira ori am, iyangay da nira mina Paloy ya.
About the earliest humans on this island, there were si Paloy, si Ozamen, si Pacilalaw, etc. These people, though, were not real people, for some of the things they thought or did were not like normal people. Now, Si Paloy and that group, they did not work in the fields because they did not understand agriculture, and therefore they did not have food. They lived by drinking the wind and water. This was the life of si Paloy's group.
Source: http://yamiproject.cs.pu.edu.tw/elearn/reading.php?sn=72
Information about Yami/Tao | Phrases | Numbers
Information about Tao
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yami_language
https://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/達悟語
http://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/タオ語
http://www.ethnologue.com/language/tao
https://thelanguagecloset.com/2021/03/27/the-language-of-the-orchid-island-yami-tao/
https://mathiasbarra.substack.com/p/lesser-known-languages-lkl-tao
http://preserveandshare.org/2019/05/11/a-short-introduction-of-yami-language-classification/
Learn Tao Online
http://yamiproject.cs.pu.edu.tw/elearn/
Languages written with the Latin alphabet
Page last modified: 14.07.24
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