Ethnic groups in Asia

Source: Wikipedia. Pages: 140. Chapters: Arab people, Göktürks, Taiwanese aborigines, List of ethnic groups in Vietnam, Buryats, Persian people, Bumiputera, Dungan people, Cham, Tajik people, Russians, Japanese people, Eurasian, Azerbaijani people, Turkish people, Adyghe people, Liao Dynasty, Koreans, Theory of Pashtun descent from Israelites, Hill people, Vietnamese people, Austro-Tai peoples, Meskhetian Turks, Karluks, Oirats, Finno-Ugric peoples, Karlugh Turks, Burgher people, Volga Tatars, Rouran Khaganate, Kekaya, Caucasian peoples, Moken, Chepni, Kumandins, Tay people, Usinaras, Xianbei state, Banu Amela, Akha people, Altay people, Nakhuda, Topasses, Northern Liao, Rungus people, Honorary whites, Tangkhul, Pangasinan people, Samoyedic peoples, Ethnic groups in Thailand, Tungusic peoples, Upper Mongols, Choros, Taz people, Galoli language, Saek people, North Caucasian peoples, Zubu, Mambai, List of hill tribes of Thailand, Hazara-i-Karlugh, Orang Cocos, Eastern Arabs, Eastern Ethiopian, Meskhetians, Mirdadzai. Excerpt: Taiwanese aborigines (Chinese: ; pinyin: yuánzhùmín; Wade-Giles: yüan2-chu4-min2; Pe¿h-oe-ji: gôan-chu-bîn; literally "original inhabitants") is the term commonly applied in reference to the indigenous peoples of Taiwan. Although Taiwanese indigenous groups hold a variety of creation stories, recent research suggests their ancestors may have been living on the islands for approximately 8,000 years before major Han Chinese immigration began in the 17th century (Blust 1999). Taiwanese aborigines are Austronesian peoples, with linguistic and genetic ties to other Austronesian ethnic groups, such as peoples of the Philippines, Malaysia, Indonesia, Madagascar and Oceania (Hill et al. 2007; Bird, Hope & Taylor 2004). The issue of an ethnic identity unconnected to the Asian mainland has become one thread in the discourse regarding the political status of Taiwan. For centuries, Taiwan's aboriginal peoples experienced economic competition and military conflict with a series of colonizing peoples. Centralized government policies designed to foster language shift and cultural assimilation, as well as continued contact with the colonizers through trade, intermarriage and other dispassionate intercultural processes, have resulted in varying degrees of language death and loss of original cultural identity. For example, of the approximately 26 known languages of the Taiwanese aborigines (collectively referred to as the Formosan languages), at least ten are extinct, five are moribund (Zeitoun & Yu 2005:167) and several are to some degree endangered. These languages are of unique historical significance, since most historical linguists consider Taiwan to be the original homeland of the Austronesian language family (Blust 1999). Taiwan's Austronesian speakers were formerly distributed over much of the island's rugged central mountain range and were concentrated in villages along the alluvial plains. As of 2009, their total population is around 499,500 (approximately 2 percent of Taiw