Paiwan language

Paiwan is a Formosan language of the Austronesian family, native to southern Taiwan and one of the country's officially recognized national languages, spoken by the Paiwan people and historically used more broadly as a second language across southern Taiwan. It has about 96,000 first-language speakers as of 2014 data, uses a Latin-based writing system, and is classified as vulnerable by UNESCO's Atlas of the World's Languages in Danger. Paiwan is notable for preserving most Proto-Austronesian phonemes, making it especially valuable for reconstructing the ancestral Austronesian sound system among Formosan languages that have undergone heavier phonemic mergers.