As noted in the history section, the Formosan (Taiwanese) indigenous languages are widely considered by linguists to represent the most ancient branch of the Austronesian language family. The Austronesian family includes Hawaiian, Māori, Tagalog, Malay, Malagasy, and hundreds of other languages spoken across an area covering half the globe. The linguistic evidence suggests that the ancestral population dispersed outward from Taiwan (or somewhere very close to it) approximately 5,000 years ago. This makes Taiwan’s indigenous heritage not merely local but of global anthropological significance.