Siraya people

The Siraya were an indigenous people of Taiwan, comprising at least five major subtribes: Mattauw, Soelangh, Baccloangh, Sinckan, and Taivoan. They lived in the flat southwest part of the island. After the Chinese occupation of Formosa in 1683, the Siraya people were gradually acculturated, and the Siraya language ceased to be spoken from the end of the 19th century [cite journal
author=Adelaar, K.A.
year=1997
title=Grammar notes on Siraya, an extinct Formosan language
journal=Oceanic Linguistics
volume=36
issue=2
pages=362–397
url=http://www.jstor.org/pss/3622990] . Despite the mis-perception of complete extinction, the Siraya people are still well and alive today. In the Tso-chen, Kou-pei and Chiou chen lin of Sinhua township many families of Siraya descendents still identify themselves as ethnically Siraya.

The Sirayan language

According to Taiwan Journal, Taiwan's Academia Sinica historians and linguistics announced, on February 14, 2006, that their team of researchers have deciphered up to 80% of the 187 so-called Sinckan Manuscripts (or "Sinkang Manuscripts"), a set of documents from 17th and 18th centuries written in the language spoken by the Siraya people using a system of romanization introduced by the Dutch in the 1600s. In order to convert the Siraya to Christianity, Dutch missionaries studied the Sirayan language, devised a romanized script in which to record it, taught the Siraya people how to use it, and began translating the New Testament into the Sirayan language. Copies of the Dutch missionaries' translation of the Book of Matthew into Sirayan have survived, and several of the manuscripts are bilingual, with side-by-side Sirayan and Chinese versions of the contents. ( [http://publish.gio.gov.tw/FCJ/doc/journal-frame.html Excerpted from Taiwan Journal] ).