The Atayal language is an Austronesian language spoken by the Atayal people of Taiwan. Squliq and Cʼuliʼ (Tsʼoleʼ) are two major dialects. Matuʼuwal and Paʼkualiʼ, two subdialects of Cʼuliʼ, are unique among Atayal dialects in having male and female register distinctions in their vocabulary.

Several works on the language, including several reference grammars, have been published. In 1980 an Atayal–English dictionary was published by Søren Egerod. A translation of the Bible into Atayal was completed in 2003. Atayal was one of the source languages of Yilan Creole Japanese.

Under KMT rule, Taiwan saw the imposition of Mandarin Chinese as the sole national language, resulting in the suppression of indigenous languages, including Atayal. The education system mandated Mandarin instruction, leading to a decline in the intergenerational transmission of Atayal. Despite these challenges, Atayal communities maintained their language in private and informal settings. Following the lifting of martial law in the 1980s and Taiwan's subsequent democratization, policies shifted to recognize and preserve indigenous languages with the establishment of the Council of Indigenous Peoples.

In April 2020, an Atayal language Wikipedia was launched following efforts by Taiwan's Ministry of Education and National Chengchi University to promote the written use of Taiwan's Aboriginal languages.

Atayal dialects can be classified under two dialects groups: Squliq and Cʼuliʼ (Tsʼoleʼ).

There are 7 Atayal dialects according to Goderich (2020).

Goderich (2020:193) classifies the Atayal dialects as follows, and also reconstructs over 1,000 words for Proto-Atayal.

The Atayal language is most commonly written in the Latin script; a standard orthography for the language was established by the Taiwanese government in 2005. In writing, ⟨ng⟩ represents the velar nasal /ŋ/, and the apostrophe ⟨ʼ⟩ represents the glottal stop. In some literature, ⟨ḳ⟩ is used to represent /q/ and ⟨č š ž⟩ are used to represent /tʃ ʃ ʒ/.