The Hoanya (Chinese: 洪雅族; pinyin: Hóngyǎzú) are a Taiwanese Aboriginal people who live primarily in Changhua County, Chiayi City, Nantou County, and near Tainan City.
Their language, Hoanya, is now extinct.[1]
The Lloa people and Arikun people are generally considered to be a part of the Hoanya people.
Etymology
Scholars like Kaim Ang suggest the name of the people, Hoanya, comes from Taiwanese Hokkien Hoan-iá (番仔, lit. "barbarian"), originally from the perspective of ethnic Chinese referring to non-Chinese, especially historical natives of Taiwan and Southeast Asia.[2][3] The name of the people group retained the obsolete diminutive suffix -iá (仔) in Hokkien, which originally came from a weak form of kiáⁿ or káⁿ (囝) and today survives in Hokkien as the diminutive suffix -á (仔). Huán-nià (番仔) is attested in the Dictionario Hispanico Sinicum (1626-1642)[4] and use of the obsolete -iá (仔) suffix is also recorded in Medhurst's 1832 Hokkien dictionary.[5] The modern form of the aforementioned word in Taiwanese Hokkien is Hoan-á (番仔), which over the centuries took on a derogatory connotation in Taiwan in reference to Taiwanese aboriginal groups in general or to any unreasonable persons. However, the same word, Huan-a, has different connotations in other Hokkien-speaking communities, such as in Fujian (China), the Philippines, Malaysia, Singapore and Indonesia.