Banana Patua: A Single Phrase of Syllables Hiding the Memories of Southern Taiwan's Tribes

30-Second Overview: Around 1930, linguist Senai Keirun recorded comparative audio of Taiwanese Hokkien and Qiongjiao Patua in Taiwan; in 2014, local interviews in Sichongxi, Pingtung, encountered a group of octogenarians who could still speak this language. Based on existing data, Banana Patua is not a fixed, singular dialect name, but a linguistic practice where different places in southern Taiwan transformed familiar Hokkien or Taivoan into a secret code. Its origins may be linked to silencing during the colonial period and memories of anti-Japanese resistance, but what truly remains are the distinct pronunciations, stories, and silences of different tribes. ¹

Around 1930, linguist Senai Keirun left behind comparative recordings of Taiwanese Hokkien and Qiongjiao Patua in Taiwan. In 2014, local interviews in Sichongxi, Pingtung, encountered a group of octogenarians who could still speak Banana Patua. A 2018 report placed Liuzhongxi in Baihe, Ali Guan in Jiaxian, and Xiaolin Village into this increasingly thin linguistic thread. ^{1 2 3}

It sounds like Taiwanese Hokkien deliberately spoken poorly, but behind it is no joke. Banana Patua and Qiongjiao Patua refer to a secret language or code in the mountainous areas of southern Taiwan: speakers who are familiar with each other are difficult for outsiders to understand immediately. The "Patua" here is not the vernacular prose (baihua) relative to classical Chinese in literary history, but a way of speaking that lives in the mouth and can only be recognized through shared memory.

It is not a fixed dialect, but a shared name for several places

First, let us separate three concepts that are easily confused. Taivoan is the historical language of the Taivoan people. Banana Patua is a linguistic phenomenon that processes Hokkien or Taivoan into a secret communication method. "Banana" is not referring to a fruit article, but is the name of this way of speaking that has been passed down for a long time. The National Taiwan Museum of History named it "Qiongjiao Patua (Taiwanese Hokkien variation)" and stated that it may be based on Taiwanese Hokkien, mixed with Pingpu Indigenous languages. ¹

This distinction is important. If we write Banana Patua as a language that has already been organized, we erase its most precious part: it grows different voices in different places, and many details exist only in the memories of elders. The 1996 research included in the Academia Sinica Digital Collections has a title that includes "it was once mistaken for the mother tongue of the Siraya Pingpu tribe." This bibliography itself reminds us that classification is not a one-time answer, but a problem that changes with field materials. ⁶

How a sentence becomes understandable only to insiders

The key may not necessarily be replacing the entire vocabulary, but actively modifying the sounds. Field reports from The News Lens record that when speaking Banana Patua, users insert specific consonants and vowels into their native language, making it harder for outsiders to deconstruct sentence boundaries. The report also preserves an example of Taivoan converted into Banana Patua: "Masahansanrusu." ²

This method has a very practical advantage: there is no need to invent a separate dictionary, nor to announce in advance "we are now using a code." Those who know can tell which syllables are added extras; those who do not know will feel that every word seems familiar, yet cannot grasp the meaning when combined. In community interviews in Sichongxi, elders recalled that it was once used to talk about outsiders behind their backs, allowing companions to keep a small space that others could not understand in front of bystanders. ³

📝 Curator's Note: This is not language deliberately becoming difficult, but a community making "who understands" an integral part of the language.

From Yujing to the Nanzi Xian Stream, language follows people

Banana Patua should not only be regarded as a "strange accent" because it is related to how people move. Reports from Indigenous Sight indicate that the Taivoan homeland is related to the Yujing Basin in Tainan, and at least before the 18th century, they moved to the Nanzi Xian Stream and Luenong Stream basins in Kaohsiung. In the 19th century, some clan members moved along the Xinwuli Stream to the Hualien-Taitung Valley. ⁴

The Wikitongues organization's compilation of Taivoan also describes a migration path from southwestern Tainan to Kaohsiung and the Hualien-Taitung Valley, noting that Taivoan was previously classified as a dialect of the neighboring Siraya, and recent research and revitalization efforts have gradually highlighted its uniqueness. ⁷ These materials discuss the Taivoan language, not Banana Patua itself. But they allow us to see the same background: language does not stay neatly on a single point on the map; it moves with marriage, flight, work, kinship interactions, and tribal migration.

A 2018 report records that a few elders in Liuzhongxi, Baihe, Ali Guan in Jiaxian, and Xiaolin still speak Banana Patua; among them, the Banana Patua of the Taivoan tribe is described as a self-contained system, different from the version previously collected by researchers in Neimen. ² The "difference" here is not a flaw, but evidence that it was once used by people: every place transformed common needs into its own voice.

After 1915, the "anti-Japanese code" became the most convenient answer

In 1915, an armed struggle under the name of faith occurred in the Jouboshan area; a special topic from the National Taiwan Museum of History points out that after the struggle failed, participants faced severe torture and judicial trials. ⁵ In such an era, it is understandable that local elders understood Banana Patua as a code to prevent the Japanese or outsiders from understanding.

But there is a distance that cannot be skipped between "sounds reasonable" and "has been proven." Local interviews from PeoPo Citizen News cite Yang Sen-fu's 1996 research inference, placing the possible inception time of Banana Patua around 1910 and linking it to the anti-Japanese secret communication during the Jouboshan Incident; the same report also proposes that the Sichongxi version may have been brought in by fleeing anti-Japanese fighters, transmitted through commodity exchange interactions, or formed locally due to surveillance by local police. ³

None of these three possibilities can be confirmed solely by legend. Furthermore, the recordings from around 1930 by the National Taiwan Museum of History prove that someone was already using and recording Qiongjiao Patua at that time, but they cannot alone answer in which year, by whom, and because of what event it was created. ¹ What we can be certain of is: it was used by people to protect conversations in an era of colonial rule, tribal migration, and local interactions; what we cannot be certain of is: from whose mouth the first Banana Patua sentence began.

📝 Curator's Note: What truly remains is not just the answer to "what is this code," but the historical context of "we once needed a code."

The same name, three local memories

The difficulty of language turns a corner here. Elders from Xiaolin Village told interviewers that Banana Patua can be used to encrypt Minnan or Taivoan; elders from Ali Guan once judged that the Neimen version was not the "true" Banana Patua they recognized. Elders from Sichongxi described it as a whisper passed down and learned for fun by elders. ^{2 3}

These statements are not entirely consistent with each other, which precisely illustrates that it is not a language standard issued by a central institution. It is more like a map composed of many small paths: some walk in from anti-Japanese memories, some from women's conversations while washing clothes, some simply learned a few syllables from elders in childhood. Local memory even connects it to ancestral spirits, tribal women, or field life; these statements differ from each other, yet collectively point to one thing—Banana Patua was never a language game detached from life. ²

If only the four words "anti-Japanese code" remain, readers will miss the following decades. It was also a joke among companions at work, a game for tribal children, a code during kinship interactions. Language did not disappear immediately after trauma; instead, it continued to be passed to the next person through those seemingly unimportant moments in daily life.

When the recorder appeared, the language was already ebbing

The National Taiwan Museum of History archives state that Qiongjiao Patua was once widely known in the countryside, but is now nearly extinct. The museum's preserved Senai Keirun Taiwan Recordings span from 1930 to 1938, and state that Senai Keirun recorded comparative audio of Taiwanese Hokkien and Qiongjiao Patua around 1930, with related digital data provided by the Foreign Languages University of Tokyo in Japan. ¹

This history has a painful contrast: what allows us to hear it again today relies on recordings left by an outsider linguist; but the people who can explain these syllables, say when they were used, and who taught whom, are decreasing. A 2018 report from The News Lens points out that the decline of elders and insufficient documentation make it increasingly difficult to confirm the transmission and diffusion of Banana Patua. ²

The revitalization work of Taivoan provides another reference. Wikitongues interviews language revitalizers, recording how they collect vocabulary from different communities, compare it with colonial-era language materials, and attempt to compile a dictionary; this is a preservation action for Taivoan, not a direct answer for Banana Patua, but it illustrates that the most basic work of language revitalization is not romantic: it requires leaving behind sounds, speakers, place names, usage contexts, and version differences together. ⁷

To preserve Banana Patua, do not rush to find a single ancestor for it

What Banana Patua needs most may not be a standard answer that unifies all versions, but a record that does not delete differences. How did each place insert sounds? Who taught whom? Was it used in the fields, in labor sheds, while washing clothes, or in children's games? Are the same sentences truly identical in Xiaolin, Ali Guan, Paozailiao, and Sichongxi? These questions are more important than choosing a pretty origin story for it.

Researchers, museums, and tribes can do different things: museums preserve sounds, researchers compare syllables and contexts, tribes preserve the memories of speakers, and later people clearly write the sources, not treating inferences as conclusions. This division of labor will not make Banana Patua "revive" immediately, but it will allow the next generation to know that what they inherited is not a specimen smoothed out of all wrinkles, but a language that once lived in different places.

📝 Curator's Note: For a language on the verge of disappearance, the most dangerous thing is not that we do not know everything yet, but that we first patch it with a single version to make it look like we know.

The question Banana Patua leaves for Taiwan is not just "can you speak it." It is more like asking: when a group must modify familiar speech so that outsiders cannot understand it in order to protect their own conversations, how do we hear that history today?

Around 1930, Senai Keirun recorded two sounds together; in 2014, elders in Sichongxi still passed on a few syllables from their elders; in 2018, the memories of Xiaolin, Ali Guan, and Liuzhongxi pulled this thread back to the tribe. What remains in the end may not be an answer that can be locked by a dictionary, but evidence that on the same island, people once recognized each other with different voices.

Further Reading

100 Years of Taiwan Sound: Qiongjiao Patua (Taiwanese Hokkien Variation), Indigenous Sight: The Reborn Taivoan of the Taivoan, Academia Sinica Digital Collections: Bibliography on the Pingpu Secret Language "Banana Patua".

References