Salita Blog

taps mic hello?

2011-02-28T22:53:00.000-08:00

I have not written in this blog for three years!

I am sorry, but real life got in the way. I got busy at work and other things. Then in 2009, I decided to quit my job and return to school to get my bachelor's degree in linguistics.

Here I am, just three months left until I graduate. I have applied to graduate school, and hopefully I will get accepted.

So, yeah, these past two years have been really eventful for me. But I am still doing stuff about Philippine languages. My honors thesis, will be about Tagalog historical morphology. It's been fascinating researching this stuff and going over it with my advisor.

One of these days, I shall write about the whole Jejemon controversy. In fact, I am taking a discourse analysis course right now and it has given me a new perspective on it with regards to the great negative media coverage it has been receiving since last year.

I wish I could resurrect this blog. Maybe one day I will. And I think one day I may move it to another blogging service. I'll keep y'all posted.

--Chris Sundita

ABS-CBN NOW finally adds three more

2008-02-11T21:43:00.000-08:00

ABS-CBN's on-demand service has finally added more regional programming from Bicol, Zamboanga, and Cagayan Valley!

http://now.abs-cbn.com/index-tvpreg.aspx

As someone of Bicolano heritage, I've been wanting to see programming in Bikol for a very long time. Not only is TV Patrol Bicol available but also Bikol Espesyal and Marhay na Aga, Kapamilya.

For Chavacano, there is also Zambowow which seems to talk about cultural happenings around Zamboanga.

I am very disappointed about Cagayan Valley's TV patrol. It's in Tagalog. I know media in Ibanag is a long shot, but at the very least it should've been in Ilokano. But I suppose they have their reasons.

TV Patrol in Waray-Waray now available online!

2008-01-24T17:43:00.000-08:00

Yay!

ABSCBNNOW now has TV Patrol Tacloban! Finally, news in Waray-Waray! All the Visayas are now covered.

http://now.abs-cbn.com/index-tvpreg.aspx

It also looks like they added TV Patrol from General Santos, which is in Tagalog.

I am hoping that the versions from Bicol, Zamboanga, and Pampanga will be added soon.

Bikol Wikipedia is now open

2007-11-24T22:58:00.000-08:00

Mga Kahimanwa kong Bikolano ~

The Bikol Wikipedia is now finally open.

http://bcl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pangenot_na_Pahina

This is for, more or less, the Naga-Legazpi Standard variety (aka Northern Bikol or Bikol Central). A proposal has been submitted to start a Rinconada Bikol Wikipedia, but it looks like a long shot for now. The Rinconada incubator is at http://incubator.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wp/bto .

There are now Wikipedias in EIGHT different Philippine languages. In addition to Bikol, they are Cebuano, Ilokano, Kapampangan, Pangasinan, Tagalog, Waray-Waray, and Zamboangueño (Chavacano).

I'm quite surprised that the Hiligaynon and the Kinaray-a Wikipedias are still on the back burner. They are "conditionally approved" - meaning, there are some criteria that still need to be met.

Anyway, spread the word.

TV Patrol Pampanga

2007-11-02T17:46:00.000-07:00

Oyni metung a clip na ning TV Patrol Pampanga king amanung Kapampangan.
Here's a clip of TV Patrol Pampanga in Kampangan.

BTW, TV Patrol Central Luzon was added to ABS-CBNnow's line up. TVP Central Luzon is based in Dagupan City in Pangasinan. Unfortunately, it's not in the Pangasinan language but in Tagalog. This should be changed.

And I've added TV Patrol Zamboanga here for your perusal.

ABS-CBN Regional Programming

2007-10-27T13:48:00.000-07:00

Three years ago, I wrote a blog entry about non-Tagalog TV and how I was all excited about it.

Since then, I've encountered clips on YouTube of news programs (TV Patrol) in other Philippine languages. I was going to post a link to the Kapampangan one posted by Sisigman, but ABS-CBNi forced YouTube to remove it. I've also been able to view TV Patrol Zamboanga in Chavacano.

In any case, ABS-CBN has released regional programming on its online service, ABS-CBNnow! And for a limited time, it's free.

Right now, the programming is limited to Cebuano (TV Patrol Cebu, Davao & Cagayan de Oro), Ilokano (TV Patrol Laoag), and Hiligaynon (TV Patrol Iloilo & Negros Oriental) programming - the next three most-spoken languages after Tagalog.

As for non-news programming, there's a handful of variety shows catering to Cebuano and Hiligaynon audiences.

You may access these regional programs at http://now.abs-cbn.com//index-tvpreg.aspx

Below is a graphic from the page. The people are saying things in Hiligaynon, Cebuano, and Bikol. So far, there's no Bikol, Waray-Waray, and Kapampangan programming on that page yet. I'm hoping they add them soon. And then maybe I'll consider paying a monthly fee for this service once the free trial runs out.

Playing around with making movies...

2007-07-08T02:25:00.000-07:00

Back in 2004 I wrote an entry about a Spanish news report about Chavacano.

Anyway, I have been playing with Windows Movie Maker and decided to make a video with subtitles. So I chose that report.

At the end, though, I couldn't resist putting commentary in English and Spanish about the newscast. I basically corrected some inaccuracies in the video. I wish I had a camera to do so, so I had to stick with text.

Enjoy the video.

Buhay pa 'ko!

2007-06-29T20:44:00.000-07:00

Yes, folks, I'm still alive. I've been in hiding ever since I lost the Philippine Blog Awards. I was soo devasted that I've taken residence in a cave up in Mt. Rainier crying myself to sleep, while listening to EMO music.

Kidding, of course.

In all seriousiness, my busy life just kept me away from blogging; it has even curtailed my Wikipedia activities.

I recently moved within the same town and now I'm finally on a 9-day vacation. I intend to rest and get caught up on a lot of things - blogging included.

But yes, I didn't win at the Philippine Blog Awards. I don't think my blog fit the category it was in. But that was all right. Special thanks to Jomar at Alas Filipinas for representing me.

It was interesting though! Fellow Wikipedian editor Seav aka Eugene Alvin Villar took a pic of my blog as it was projected onto the big screen:

Scary seeing my blog being projected like that and looked at by so many people! The reality that people actually read (and you are still out there, aren't ya?) sunk in. hah.

Until next time...

Philippine Blog Awards Update

2007-03-30T22:15:00.000-07:00

Well, folks it's almost 10:30PM Friday here in the Seattle-Tacoma area while it's 10:30PM Saturday in the Philippines. I'm ready to call it a day and hit the sack since I've had a long week.

In four hours, the Philippine Blog Awards ceremony will begin.

Since I am unable to make the trip to my dad's hometown of Makati where the awards will be held, I have designated my online friend Jomar Alas to represent me at the ceremony. He and I first met in Hispano-Filipino and we've had our - and still have - our heated debates in that forum. But it's all good, I swear. ;-)

In any case, Jomar blogs at Skirmisher.Org and also at Alas Filipinas. The latter is the only known Philippine-related blog written entirely in Spanish. Jomar is actively learning Spanish and desires to resurrect a forgotten part of Philippine heritage. Check him out!

So, wish me luck. And good night to you all.

Tagalog verbs

2007-03-30T21:27:00.001-07:00

I've been wanting to do a post about Tagalog verbs for a while now. I've brought my notes together to give you all this entry.

Currently, modern Tagalog verb conjugation is as outlined in the following chart.

	Infinitive	Contemplative (future actions)	Progressive (past and present actions)	Completed (past actions)
Actor Focus 1	-um- (gumawa)	CV- (gagawa)	CumV- (gumagawa)	-um- (gumawa)
Actor Focus 2	mag- (magbigay)	magCV- (magbibigay)	nagCV- (nagbibigay)	nag- (nagbigay)
Object Focus 1	-in (kainin)	CV-...-in (kakainin)	CinV- (kinakain)	-in- (kinain)
Object Focus 2	i- (isulat)	iCV- (isusulat)	iCinV- (isinusulat)	i- -in- (isinulat)
Object Focus 3	-an (tawagan)	CV-...-an (tatawagan)	CinV- ... -an (tinatawagan)	-in- ... -an (tinawagan)

I hope you all will find this chart easy to understand, but I think it's simple enough. The dashes represent the position of the affix in relation to the rootword. CV stands for consonant and vowel and represents the first consonant and the first vowel of the rootword, hence reduplication.

For those who are learning Tagalog, the root words used are gawa (do), bigay (give), kain (eat), sulat (write), and tawag (call). So if you look at the proper column, you can tell that if you add the infix -um- to the rootword gawa you'll get gumawa (did). And if you attach the infix -in- with the suffix -an to tawag, you'll get tinawagan (called [someone]). Got it? Please also keep in mind that these are the basic affixes, so none of the potentive, causative, reason, etc. affixes are included.

However, Tagalog verbal conjugation was not quite as it was as early as a century ago. I have consulted two Tagalog grammar books from the Spanish era; Francisco Blancas de San José's 1610 Arte y Reglas de la lengua tagala and Fr. Sebastián de Totanes's 1745 Arte de la lengua tagala.

During those times, Tagalog's verbal affixes looked more like the following.

	Infinitive	Contemplative (future actions)	Progressive (past and present actions)	Completed (past actions)	Imperative
Actor Focus 1	-um- (gumawa)	CV- (gagawa)	CungmV- (gungmagawa)	-ungm- (gungmgawa)
Actor Focus 2	mag- (magbigay)	magCV- (magbibigay)	nagCV- (nagbibigay)	nag- (nagbigay)	pag- (pagbigay)
Object Focus 1	-in (kainin)	CV-...-in (kakainin)	CinV- (kinakain)	-in- (kinain)	0 (kain)
Object Focus 2	i- (isulat)	iCV- (isusulat)	iCinV- (isinusulat)	i- -in- (isinulat)	-an (sulatan)
Object Focus 3	-an (tawagan)	CV-...-an (tatawagan)	CinV- ... -an (tinatawagan)	-in- ... -an (tinawagan)	-i (tawagi)

Imperative affixes

One major difference is that the Tagalog spoken over two centuries ago had an additional verb category, the imperative which is used for commands and requests (i.e., Matulog ka na - Go to sleep). Even then, the imperative and the infinitive were used side by side in expressing commands, but apparently the infinitive became used exclusively in standard Tagalog. Now, I emphasize standard because in certain dialects of Tagalog, it still exists. In certain dialects of Batangas Tagalog, it has been said that one says buksi mo instead of buksan mo for "open it." And in the Eastern Marinduque dialect, the imperative affixes are very much alive.

Since Tagalog is a Central Philippine language, does this mean that other Central Philippine languages have imperative affixes too? The answer is yes and they are widely used in the languages spoken in Bicol and in the Visayas. Though, in the "Actor Focus 1" category, all these languages have the suffix "-a" for the imperative.

The languages of the Northern Philippines like Pangasinan, Kapampangan, and Ilokano do not have imperative affixes. In light of this fact, my guess is that Tagalog lost the affixes due to speakers of Northern Philippine languages who migrated to Manila and imposed their respective native languages' grammatical rules onto Tagalog. This caught on when their children, assimilated Tagalog speakers, began to use the language. So this could explain why the dialects that tend to be further from Ilokano and Kapampangan speaking regions tend to preserve the affixes. Though because of the influence and prestige of Manila Tagalog, they are also disappearing.

The infix -um- and its derivatives

Another noticeable difference is the infix -um- which has also undergone a process of simplification since the Spanish era.

The infix -ungm- which has disappeared from virtually all contemporary Tagalog dialects. In modern Tagalog, -um- serves as the infinitive, imperative, and completed (past) forms. So what distinguishes the phrase kumain ka (either "eat" or "you ate") is context and tone). This infix is cognate with similar infixes in other Philippine languages. They, too, also make a distinction between the infinitive the past forms:

Language	Infinitive affix	Completed/Past affix
Old Tagalog	-um-	-ungm-
Modern Tagalog	-um-
Ilokano	-um-	-inn
Kapampangan	-um-	-in-
Pangasinan	on-	-inm-
Waray-Waray	-um-	-inm-, -in-, -um-
Tausug	-um-	-im-
Old Bikol	-um-	-umin-

Apparently the infinitive form comes from Proto-Philippine *-um- and the past one from Proto-Philippine *-umin-.

Furthermore, there were variants of -um- that had to do with phonetic environment. For example, if the first vowel of a rootword was /i/, then -um- would optionally change to -im-. This is called vowel harmony. For comparison's sake, I'll use the rootword tingin as an example:

English	Modern Tagalog	Old Tagalog
to look	tumingin	timingin
I looked	tumingin ako	tingmingin ako
I am/was looking	tumitingin ako	tingmitingin ako
I will look	titingin ako

Now when did this conjugation cease to exist? I am guessing sometime in the middle of the last century. I was able to find a mention of the -ungm- infix in the Pedro Serrano Laktaw's 1929 Estudios gramaticales sobre la lengua Tagálog. He remarks on page 83:

"... que el um del imperativo tenga ng intercalada entre sus dos letras componentes, de modo que resulte ungm para el pretérito y presente, a fin de distinguir el pretérito perfecto del imperativo, como se nota en las antiguas gramáticas, y tal como aún pronuncian la mayor parte de los tagalogs puros, si bien se ve igualmente en muchos libros impresos, como también se oye en Manila a los tagálogs pronunciar el pretérito y el presente con solo el um."

(... that the um of the imperative has a "ng" inserted between its two component letters, in a way that it results in ungm for the preterite and the present, in order to distinguish the preterite perfect from the imperative, as is noted in the older grammars. And it is pronoounced such by the majority of pure Tagalogs, it's also seen in many printed books. The Tagalogs in Manila also pronounce the preterite and the present with just um.)

It makes me wonder if there are still older Tagalog speakers - people in their 90s and 100s - who speak this way.

Another phonological change was that verbs beginning with certain sounds took on different affixes. This would usually happen to verbs beginning with /b/ and /p/. The infix -um- would assimilate with those consonants. There were some exceptions to the /p/ and /b/ rule as in the verbs kuha (get), uwi (return home), inom (drink), ihi (urinate), and others. According to the grammars, verbs fitting in this category may also be conjugated the regular way (i.e., unassimilated). Below is a comparison outlining the modern Tagalog forms and the two ways of conjugating the verb in old Tagalog. I use the rootword pasok (enter) as an example.

English	Modern Tagalog	Old Tagalog (unassimilated conjugation)	Old Tagalog (assimilated conjugation)
to enter	pumasok		masok
I entered	pumasok ako	pungmasok ako	nasok ako
I am/was entering	pumapasok ako	pungmapasok ako	nanasok ako
I will enter	papasok ako

It's also worth nothing that a similar process of assimilation happens in Tausug and Kapampangan languages.

Verbal affixes in other Tagalog dialects

One thing I heard growing up was that Tagalog speakers from southern Luzon (Batangas, Quezon, etc.) would say "nakain ka ba ng pating?" To a Manileño, this means "were you eaten by a shark?" But in those regions, it means "are you eating shark?" - nakain is the equivalent of kumakain.

The Tagalog dialects of Marinduque are the most divergent, especially the Eastern Marinduque dialect - perhaps due to the relative isolation from the Tagalogs of Luzon and also perhaps due to the influence of the Visayan and Bikol migrants.

Linguist Rosa Soberano's 1980 The Dialects of Marinduque Tagalog goes into great depth concerning the dialects spoken there. The following is a verb chart which outlines the conjugation of the Eastern Marindique dialect of Tagalog:

	Infinitive	Contemplative (future actions)	Progressive (past and present actions)	Completed (past actions)	Imperative
Actor Focus 1	-um- (gumawa)	má- (mágawâ)	ná- (nágawâ)	-um- (gumawa)	0 (gawa)
Actor Focus 2	mag- (magbigay)	(ma)ga- ([ma]gabigay)	naga- (nagabigay)	nag- (nagbigay)	pag- (pagbigay)
Object Focus 1	-in (kainin)	a- (akainin)	ina- (inakain)	-in- (kinain)	-a (kaina)
Object Focus 2	i- (isulat)	a- (asulat)	ina- (inasulat)	i- -in- (isinulat)	-an (sulatan)
Object Focus 3	-an (tawagan)	a-...-an (atawagan)	ina- ... -an (inatawagan)	-in- ... -an (tinawagan)	-i (tawagi)

What I find interesting is that some of these affixes, particularly "a-" and "ina-," are affixes used in Asi (Bantoanon), a Visaya language spoken in Romblon, just south of Marinduque.

Some final thoughts

I hope you found this informative. It's fun sometimes for me to use the Old Tagalog or Eastern Marinduque Tagalog verbal affixes in my conversations with other Filipinos. Some have not noticed them at all (particularly when I use -ungm-) while others will think I'm weird and attempt to correct me. In some ways, I think it would have been wonderful for Tagalog to have preserved them - to have preserved the richness. But I guess these things happen for a reason.

Language maps

2007-03-24T23:47:00.001-07:00

One way to improve articles on Wikipedia is to include images. How does this work for language-related articles? For starters, you could include a map of the area where the language is spoken.

For Philippine languages, this can be quite tricky. The Philippine situation is unlike the situation in, say, Japan where almost everyone speaks Japanese. So all you'd need to do is put a map of Japan and color it green and say "everyone there speaks Japanese!"

Ok, ok, the pedant in me ~~says~~ screams that Japan is not that simple either. I mean, for a more detailed map you'd need to show where dialects such as Kansai-ben and Kagoshima-ben, not to mention coloring areas where the dying Ryukyuan and Ainu languages are spoken. But you get the idea.

One of the problems is the famous question concerning dialects, where does a language begin and end? Even native speakers themselves have a hard time drawing a line in the sand. Yes, there is Ethnologue, which says there are over 160 Philippine languages but both you and I know that number can change at a moment's notice, depending on whom you speak to. This is because that there is little research done on speech varieties spoken in a different areas - from my understandings, SIL linguists have to go on Swadesh lists and the like. But as time goes on, more definitive research comes in and thus a clearer picture of the Philippine language situation becomes reality.

A related problem is the issue of names. In a previous blog entry, I mentioned that millions of Cebuano speakers simply disappeared in the 2000 Census's Mother Tongue category between the years 1995 and 2000. What was the problem? The appearance of a new "Bisaya/Binisaya" category was to blame. Many people in the Visayan islands simply call their respective languages "Bisaya" or "Binisaya" whether they are living in Allen, Northern Samar or Davao City! Many native speakers simply do not use the linguistic names that linguists have assigned to their languages, be it Dispoholnon or Porohanon - it's just plain Bisaya. Others have no specific names, like Bantayan Visayan. This is reflected in the Bikol, Ifugao, and Manobo languages as well.

Then you have problems like Davaoeño - which could refer to a dialect of Cebuano, Tagalog, or Chavacano or even the language related to Mansakan. Ay ay ay!

The four main sources that I consulted were Ethnologue, the 2000 Census, Dr. Curtis McFarland 1983 work A Linguistic Atlas of the Philippines, and Dr. R. David Zorc's 1977 The Bisayan Dialects of the Philippines.

I really want to get a copy of the CD from the National Statistics Office. It has statistics down to the barangay! That would really help in making the maps more detailed. The CDs are available here but no one has answered my e-mail. :-(

In any case, the maps are below. Click to enlarge.

Cebuano

Cebuano is spoken in various provinces in the Visayas and Mindanao and goes by different names. In Bohol, it's called Boholano and in Leyte it can be called Leyteño, Leytehanon, or Kana. Cebu is basically the de-facto capital of the region and its influence is reflected in the written language, so I guess its dialect gets dibs on being the most famous one. Though I'm all for an inclusive name, but not too inclusive like Visayan.

I had a difficult time with the provinces of Surigao Norte, Surigao Sur, and the newly-created Dinagat Islands. There are four main dialects of Surigaonon spoken there, and they have a lot of Cebuano influence. People have claimed that Cebuano is spoken there, but I can't ascertain it. I don't doubt that Cebuano is spoken there, so for now I have put it in light blue coloring. I am not comfortable with this designation, so I need to research this more.

Kapampangan

Doing Kapampangan was more simple. The majority of Kapampangans are concentrated in Pampanga. However, linguistic borders do not always represent political ones. Southern Tarlac is Kapampangan-dominated, and there are communities of Kapampangan-speakers in southwestern Nueva Ecija, northeastern Bataan, and western Bulacan.

Tagalog

Tagalog was easier as well. Looking at the map, it makes you wonder how a language that's relegated to a smaller area could be the national language of the country for decades. With that aside, I have some doubts about Mindoro. I have conflicting information about where exactly Tagalog is spoken. It appears the interior is dominated by Mangyan languages, but are they mingling with Tagalog speakers? Or do they themselves speak Tagalog? Also, the southern ends of Mindoro are home to Visayan-speakers.

People may argue that this map should cover ALL of the Philippines since over 96% of the population speaks it. But I felt the map would be more useful and more accurate if it showed the areas where Tagalog is native.

Visayan languages

I am quite proud of this map. I've been wanting to do this map for the longest time. It challenges the popular notion of what a Visayan is and what they speak. As you can see, Visayan languages are native to the southern end of Luzon (however, the people there consider themselves Bicolanos) all the way to Jolo (the people there do not consider themselves Visayans either).

One problem that I had with this map was related to Cebuano. For now it's been classified in its own subbranch of Visayan languages. But I feel that it's a South Visayan language just like Tausug, Surigaonon, and Butuanon are. But I can't impose my hypotheses on Wikipedia, so I have to go with current research.

On a side note, I suggested to another Wikipedian that we should do a Venn diagram on what a Visayan is. Since there are geographic, linguistic, ethnic, and political perspectives.

For example:

A Cebuano is a Visayan under all those criteria.
A native of Cagayan de Oro is a Visayan but not geographically and politically.
A Tausug and a Sorsoganon is only Visayan in terms of language. As a matter of fact, in Tausug, "Bisaya" means "Christian."
An Abaknon from Capul Island is only politically, geographically, and perhaps ethnically Visayan but not linguistic; their language is Sama-Bajaw (related to the languages near Jolo).
And since 2005, Palawanons are now politically Visayan!

Mentioned in YES!

2007-03-24T22:33:00.000-07:00

A Wikipedian living in Manila informed me that I was quoted in the March 2007 issue of YES! Magazine concerning the use of the word Pinoy. Luckily, my grandma buys an issue for herself at the local Filipino store every month, so I went to her house after she told me that she did have a copy.

In any case, I made a scan of the article in question. Click to enlarge. Mr. Lacaba apparently used this post where I mentioned my debate between Guillermo R. Gómez and his son Guillermo O. Gómez concerning the origin of Pinoy.

So yeah, it's kind of exciting and weird at the same time that my blog has been getting this attention lately! And I thought that people in general believe that Philippine languages weren't interesting. ;-)

Salita Blog is a finalist for Philippine Blog Awards

2007-03-24T15:08:00.000-07:00

Well, I submitted my blog a while back for the Philippine Blog Awards. Y'know, just for fun. Didn't think (and still don't think) that I'd win. Well I'm a finalist now. Wow. There are four other finalists in the Socio-Political category.

I had trouble finding a "cultural" category which is what I think where this blog fits. But since the issue of regional languages of often a political one in the Philippines, this was the second-best category.

So, good luck to me, I guess? I won't be able to attend the awards ceremony, though. I don't have the funds or the passport to do so. Alas..

But yeah, I am feeling bad now - I haven't had time to post in this blog. There are so many topics that have I've been mulling over.

Where art thou, Panaghoy?

2007-01-21T15:39:00.000-08:00

So the Visayan film Panaghoy sa Suba was released in 2004. It garnered a lot of awards and worldwide recognition in various film festivals like Cannes. But yet, almost three years later there is no DVD? How am I supposed to watch this film? Should I get a pirated copy of this DVD? Yes, it would be illegal but if and when a legit DVD is released, I'll be sure to buy a copy to express my gratitude in making non-Tagalog films.

Speaking of non-Tagalog films, I discovered a Chavacano film on YouTube called El Amor di Pilar (Pilar's Love). The film is produced by brothers Patrick & Paco Almaden of Monad Studios. The plot surrounds a widower from Manila who goes to Zamboanga and falls in love with the sister of his deceased wife. The film does have Tagalog in it but there is a lot of Chavacano in it.

The next non-Tagalog film was brought to my attention last night by Jason Laxamana of his film studio Kalalangan Kamaru; he is a 20 year-old Angeles City (Pampanga) native as well as a broadcast communications student at the University of the Philippines Diliman. He is creating what looks like a horror film in Kapampangan called Anak ning Kapri (Child of Kapre). It's Laxamana's goal to make this film completely in Kapampangan, right down to the credits! Kudos to him!

I can't wait to see both of them. :-D In any case, the clips are below. Enjoy!

The Eskaya

2006-12-28T12:54:00.000-08:00

I first encountered Hector Santos's Philippine Leaf website about 10 or 11 years ago (man does time fly!). I don't remember seeing his page about the Eskaya script, though. Just recently, a fellow Wikipedia editor brought to my attention an article she has been working on about the Eskayas of Bohol and their language.

She also sent me a URL of a blog here on Blogspot with pictures of a person's trip to visit the Eskaya in Bohol. The photos by Perez Sez really caught my interest. They show the Eskayan script being used in everyday Eskaya life. The skeptical side of me wonders if these are real or doctored photographs, but I am leaning towards believing they're real barring any future research on them. The photographs are amazing, though.

According to Santos, the Eskaya claim their language is not related to any other. A look at the script reveals that there are a lot of consonant clusters (ble chda bro cro) which are not characteristic of most other Philippine languages. As a matter of fact, it reminds me of Tboli and Blaan with their unusual clusters in words like sdo (fish), kdaw (day), mkik (cry), and tnilos (to cut meat).

I tried deciphering the script so I can see if there are any relations to other languages, but it was rather confusing. Fortunately, one of the photos have some Romanized Eskaya which reads:

Samnet yo Bantilar
Samnat yo aantilac, Datong con bathala ya abeya chda cloper meboy siewes, menti chdi loning ya moy beresagui samnat eela-bolto, gona yonoy dolerkido.
bentod ya hondo yel moy sebar, chda adniam yel kenampay.
Cho
Ediac este mesesabla lo-o ya bac robas cheti ri esto ebitangki chda laraker ???? ya droser ya ?? do-o moy sam tener-go y ?? chda carno ya lacya ya bohol.

Interesting. I cannot make out any words. It does not appear to be related to any of the languages I know. However, it does remind me of Tboli, as I said.

Back to the script. It seems rather random to me. The origins of the script are unknown. Frankly, I believe the script to have been created by someone who happened to look at writing from either Americans or Spaniards and simply stole the letters from there while assigning them totally different phonetic values. I see letters like A, R, d, f, O (which is pronounced the same in Eskaya!), and u. I also see the letters 2, 4, and 8. There are also groups of letters like iss, Das, go, gn, leA, led, Ath, and Aas. Then there are syllabic characters which resemble Greek letters (φ, γ), Cyrillic letters (э), and something that even resembles the Japanese hiragana syllabic character お!

(Click to enlarge. Photo courtesy of Wikipedia)

Do you know what this reminds me of? The Cherokee syllabary invented by Sequoyah. He just took random letters from the Roman alphabet and gave them different sounds:

(Click to enlarge. Photo courtesy of Wikipedia)

So was there an Eskayan version of Sequoyah? Hopefully more research can shed more light on this mystery.

Kapampangan music video

2006-12-25T16:45:00.000-08:00

A "Millenium Version" of the popular Kapampangan folk song, Atin Ku Pung Singsing (I once had a ring) has been made into a music video by the Center for Kapampangan Studies at Holy Angel University in Angeles City, Pampanga.

It apparently is a part of a CD titled "Paskung Kapampangan" (Kapampangan Christmas). It was mentioned on Christmas Eve by Tonette Orejas in the Philippine Inquirer article Kapampangan carols now on CDs. Even though Christmas is basically over, I still would like a copy of this CD. In any case, the music video is below. Enjoy! ~~I think it's the first time I've seen a music video in a non-Tagalog Philippine language~~ (Scratch that - it's the second; I've watched the Kapampangan tourism video!).

Right under the video are the lyrics and a translation which Ernie Turla (author of the Classic Capampangan dictionary) helped me with back in 2003.

Atin ku pung singsing (I once had a ring)
Metung yang timpukan (It was a family heirloom)
Amana ke iti (I inherited this)
King indung ibatan (From my own mother)
Sangkan keng sininup (I pretended to hide it)
King metung a kaban (Inside a chest)
Mewala ya iti, (It just disappeared)
E ku kamalayan. (Without my knowing)

Ing sukal ning lub ku (The pain inside me)
Susukdul king banwa (Reaches up to the sky)
Pikurus kung gamat (My crossed arms)
Babo ning lamesa (Are on top of the table)
Ninu mang manakit (Whoever finds)
King singsing kung mana (My heirloom ring)
Kalulung pusu ku (My poor heart)
Manginu ya keya. (Will worship him).

Jesus Film in Philippine languages

2006-12-23T22:19:00.001-08:00

Since Christmas Eve is upon us, I'd like to show you a link where you can watch the Jesus Film dubbed in various languages - a lot of which are in many Philippine languages.

The link is http://www.jesusfilm.org/languages/index.html

They are (as far as I can tell; there may be more that I may've missed):

Aklanon
Bicolano
Koronadal Blaan
Cebuano
Chavacano
Hiligaynon
Ibaloi
Ibanag
Ifugao
Ilocano
Itawis
Kankanaey
Kapampangan
Kinaray-a
Magindanaon
Masbateño
Pangasinan
Romblomanon
Southern Sama
Western Subanon
Tagalog
Tausug
Tboli
Waray-Waray
Yakan

*phew*

As an added bonus, go check out Gospel Recordings.Com they have MP3 recordings of oodles and oodles of Philippine languages. There are simply too many to list. This is a great way to introduce yourselves to the languages of the Philippines.

Over and out!

Chavacano pronouns

2006-11-26T18:30:00.000-08:00

Before summer started, there was a proposal to start a Wikipedia for Chavacano. My vote was in conditional support; the condition was that the type of Chavacano had to be specified (in this case, Zamboangueño). It passed sometime thereafter. One of the reasons why I had conditional support was that the three varieties of Chavacano are different from each other. And to illustrate this, I showed the pronouns in each of the three main living Chabacano varieties, Zamboangueño, Caviteño, and Ternateño. A chart of which is below (and now in the Chavacano article on Wikipedia):

	Zamboangueño	Caviteño	Ternateño
1st person singular	iyo yo	yo
2nd person singular	evo(s) (common) vo(s) (common) tu (familiar) uste(d) (formal)	tu vo uste	vo uste
3rd person singular	el ele	eli
1st person plural	kami (exclusive) kita (inclusive) nosotros (formal)	nisos	mijotro motro
2nd person plural	kamo (common) vosotros (familiar) ustedes (formal)	vusos	ustedi tedi
3rd person plural	sila (common & familiar) ellos (formal)	ilos	lojotro lotro

Zamboangueño evidentally has the most complex pronoun system out of the three. Not only does it retain the inclusive and exclusive distinction in "we" which is characteristic of many Philippine languages but there are also various levels of formality.

In more polite speaking, the Spanish pronouns are used; tu, usted, nosotros, vosotros, ustedes, and ellos. Since nosotros is used, the inclusive/exclusive distinction is loss.

In more casual speech, not only Visayan pronouns are used (kami, kita, kamo, and sila) but also Spanish-based innovations (evos & ele).

Caviteño and Ternateño seem to the more Spanish-based innovations than Zamboangueño does. Vo seems to come from Spanish vos, which is an old way of saying "you" that survives in some South American (especially Argentina) and Central American dialects of Spanish.

The Ternateño mijotro (we) and lojotro (they) appear to based on the Spanish mis otros (my others) and los otros (the others). Ustedi and tedi are based on Spanish ustedes (plural "you"; you guys, you all).

As far as Caviteño nisos, busos, and ilos are concerned, I'm somewhat puzzled. I could be wrong, but they appear to be from nosotros, vosotros, and ellos but I'm not sure where the -os ending came from. It's most likely to mark the plural.

To end this entry, below is a photo taken by Guillermo Gomez Rivera on his trip to Ternate a few years ago. In English, it says "We receive all of you with all our hearts."

Language Barrier, a microdocumentary on Cebuano

2006-10-15T02:35:00.000-07:00

During these past few years, I've been dreaming of having my own TV show on PBS in the distance future, after having established myself in the field of linguistics. The show I have in mind would be about languages of the world but in a Rick Steves-esque kind of format - just basically bringing awareness of the different kinds of languages. I even have a "The Languages of Bicol" section already planned out in my head - I'd demonstrate how words for a particular object differ whenever I cross a river in Bicolandia. Or I could cover the revival of say, Occitan, in France, the horrid state of the Ryukyuan languages in Japan, the sole living native speakers of various languages, the life of a translator/interpreter, etc. The possibilities are just endless!

Whether or not the show would garner a substantial audience is another matter altogether, but a guy can dream, can't he?

But I digress.

I did, however, find a video that's along the lines of what I want to do. While in the land of viral videos that is YouTube, I discovered a video titled Language Barrier, produced in Cebu City & Lapu-Lapu City by IAFT film student Ian Allen Lim. It is a "microdocumentary" (I think I just invented this word) which gives a sociolinguistic perspective by interviewing three native Cebuanos: writer/poet Michael U. Obenieta, UP student Roxy Jane Kaka, and media law professor Alfredo Buenaventura.

Each of these three have differing attitudes concerning their native language vis-à-vis Tagalog. Mr. Obenieta and Ms. Kaka seem to have diplomatic attitudes toward people speaking Tagalog in Cebu but at the same address the way that Cebuanos and their language have been mistreated. Atty. Buenaventura, on the other hand, passionately argues that Tagalogs should learn Cebuano when they come to Cebu if he has to speak Tagalog while in Manila.

Despite these different opinions, there seems to be a common thread among the three of them. They have their own rich language with its long-standing history and they are damn proud of it. It's also a matter of fairness. Until the late 20th century, there were more native Cebuano speakers than native Tagalog ones. Despite that, it was Tagalog that went on to be national and official language of the country and the only language to be officially taught in schools. Even today the mass media is by and large in Tagalog and English, though Cebuano seems to making ground, albeit slowly.

The point is that it puts a more meaningful background of how Cebuanos feel about the marginalization of their language in the face of Tagalog domination. It's very easy for Tagalogs to discard Cebuanos' feelings and quickly labeling it irrational and divisive regionalism and such.

I do support Atty. Buenaventura's idea of reciprocity to a certain extent, however it's not a Tagalog-speaker's fault they can't learn the language (Cebuano resources are difficult to obtain, and I speak from experience, as a Tagalog speaker). It should be up to the Philippine educational system to implement such a program. More on this can be found in my blog entry titled My Ideal Language Policy.

In any case, you can view the video at the end of this blog entry. You can also access it directly (as well as leaving the author a comment) by clicking here.

Link of the day: Yami Language Learning Center

2006-10-09T15:45:00.000-07:00

I wrote about Yami in this blog over two years ago in this entry. While it is spoken outside of the Philippines, it is, for all intents and purposes, a Philippine language due to its relationship to other Philippine languages, namely to Ivatan and Itbayat spoken in the Batanes Islands north of Luzon. Because of this, I feel (felt) that this has some relevance in my blog.

I ran across a website housed by Providence University in Taichung County, Taiwan. It is called the Yami Language Learning Center. It is basically a Yami language learning site.

The site is divided into three learning levels, beginning, intermediate, and advanced. Each level has 1 book (with 10 lessons each), with the exception of the intermediate level which has 2 books. There is also a grammatical sketch, learning games (with Jeopardy!), a final exam, and a dictionary. Awesome, huh?

What I like is that the dialogs have accompanying MP3 recordings with them. This allowed me to listen to this language for the first time. What I noticed is their pronunciation of /r/. It is retroflex as in Mandarin. Which leads me to wonder if Mandarin has influenced this.

I also noticed a Japanese word that made it to Yami, sinsi. It comes from 先生 (sensei) meaning "teacher."

One more thing I have found interesting is that they included the personal marker "si" in the dialogs. The sentence for example says "mo sinsi, ngongyod a tao si Paloy ang?" and in English it became "Teacher, is si Paloy a real person?" Normally, in the Philippines, the si is left untranslated This was also the case in the link I talked about in my last entry about Yami. They included the si in the Yami man's name, si-Mogaz. Now, I may not be Yami but from my Tagalog point of view this doesn't sound right.

Enjoy the site. I found it fascinating.

Two new Wikipedias in two Philippine languages

2006-10-02T20:51:00.000-07:00

Hi folks, I am pleased to announce the opening of two new Wikipedias in two Philippine languages.

The first one is the Pangasinan Wikipedia at http://pag.wikipedia.org . In my previous entry, someone left a message in Pangasinan asking for volunteers to contribute to Pangasinan. So now that it's up, I hope the word gets out.

The second one is in the Zamboanga variety of Chavacano, which is now available at http://cbk-zam.wikipedia.org . I voted in support of this Wikipedia provided that "zam" be included as part of the domain name. There are three types of Chavacano (the other two in Cavite & Ternate), and each is different so it wouldn't really make sense to have three varieties in one Wikipedia. Of course, I still foresee the problem of Caviteños and Ternateños making edits in their respective tongues there.

So in addition to the two Philippine languages above, there are Wikipedias available in (along with number of articles as of now): Cebuano (1,366), Ilokano (2,003), Kapampangan (1,420), Tagalog (4,840) and Waray-Waray (1,645).

And also, two other Philippine Wikipedias are also on incubator status. This is usually the final step before becoming a full-fledged Wikipedia. I am not fully up to speed on the creation process, but I think they need more articles and more contributors before making that very step. These two languages, spoken on Panay Island, are Hiligaynon (aka Ilonggo) and Kinaray-a. So spread the word.

On a related noted, I think it's sad the first time these languages have an encyclopedia is only online.

PS: Hoy, sa sakuyang mga kahimanwang Bikolnon - naghahalat pa ako nin Wikipedia para sa tataramon na Bikol. Noarin maabot? :-) (translation: Hey! To my Bicolano kababayans - I'm still waiting for a Wikipedia in Bikol. When's it coming?)

The use of siya

2006-09-30T14:10:00.000-07:00

I have not posted in over three months, sorry about the neglect. Do I even have any readers left? ;-) I did graduate in June and I ended up working almost all summer rather than taking my usual vacation. I also spent some time roughing it in northeastern Washington and the Oregon coast, so I pretty much had a full plate! Enough excuses, I'll try to update more, especially since I have no school for the next year.

I'd just like to mention that right now, my current interest is in Asi or Bantoanon whose verb system is highly fascinating! It's a Visayan language spoken by about 70,000 people who are native to just five municipalities on four small islands in the province of Romblon. I reviewed an Asi literature book in a previous blog entry. As soon as I have more info about the verbs, I will post my findings in this blog.

In other news...

A friend of mine who is a student at Ateneo de Manila University e-mailed me a couple of months ago. In it, one of the sentences he wrote read "narinig ko siya." I thought to mysef "sino ang narinig niya?" (whom did he hear?) However, due to the context of the message (which was about being able to listen to a high pitch tone), I immediately realized that he was referring not to a person, but to a thing.

I asked him if he seriously uses siya to mean "it." And he said yes, and that it's quite widespread. The only time I heard it used the way he used it was this YouTube video of an American LDS (Mormon) missionary named Daniel speaking Tagalog. He had used the word "Pastilan" and when asked what it meant, explained by saying "Bisaya po siya" (it's Visayan) and "yung ibig sabihin niya" (it means).

So my friend asked me what I would use instead of siya. I explained to him that I would use either one of the Tagalog words that mean "this" or "that," ito, iyan, iyon or simply no pronoun (i.e., narining ko) at all since the nature of the verb narining implies an object anyway, since it's an object-focus verb.

Now, my family hasn't been to the Philippines since the late 1980s, and so I wondered if this was a recent innovation happening back in the Inang Bayan. My mother said that it sounded rather awkward while my grandmother, who grew up in Manila and Minalabac, Camarines Sur, explained that it was wrong, and went off into a lecture saying that "siya" is only for people and that we should use "iyan." The funny thing is, two weeks later, while at my grandma's house, she gave me a fan that she didn't need and told me about its wobbly stand by saying "baka matumba siya" (it might fall).

In any case, since then I have been hearing siya to mean "it" in a variety of places, usually on The Filipino Channel. I haven't heard it much from Filipinos I come into contact with, but I'm keeping my ears open.

I had wondered if there were any studies done about this, so I asked and looked around. Dr. Hsiu-chuan Liao, a University of Hawai'i linguist specializing in Formosan & Philippine languages, referred me to her student from De La Salle named Evelyn Calizo. Ms. Calizo had presented a paper called Filipino Siya: A Case of Broadening at the 10-ICAL conference in Palawan back in January.

I recently got into contact with Ms. Calizo, and she forwarded to me her paper. She noted the presence of this phenomenon in well-known TV personalities such as Kris Aquino and Alma Concepcion.

An interview conducted by Mel Tiangco, a news anchor and reality show host, with Alma Concepcion, a movie actress about the latter’s coping with epilepsy:

Mel: Paano mo tinanggap ang sakit mo? ‘How were you able to accept your illness?’
Alma: Tinanggap ko na lang siya kasi kailangang maging malakas ako ‘I just have to accept it because I have to be strong’.

Calizo also recounted a problem in her field research; some native informants have claimed that they do not use siya to refer to objects, but have been found to do so as in the case of the librarian whom she elicited information from. This was apparently the case of my grandmother.

Summing up her data, the following groups are more likely to use siya this way were people from Metro Manila and Nueva Vizcaya (in contrast to Batangas, which was the other province surveyed), and people younger than 30. Males and females seem to be equal as far as usage is concerned.

One thing I would have preferred to have had seen in Calizo's study was the use a zero pronoun, which is my preference; she only compared siya and ito (this). Also, does the phenomenon extend to sila (them) as well? I find the use of sila used for objects to be as equally "jarring" as siya.

I wonder, though, if this phenomenon happens in other Philippine languages. I do know that in Kapampangan the use of ya and the plural la is obligatory, even when the antecedent is present. But Kapampangan is the exception, not the rule.

Another thing I have been wondering is "what if?" What if Tagalog had developed separate third person pronouns for objects, what would they be?

My guess is that they would be *angya or *aya for "it" while *ala or *anla for a inanimate "them."

How did I come to this conclusion? In Tagalog, si (as well as ni, kay) marks a person. This is reflected in siya and sila as well as the interrogative pronoun sino (who). On the other hand, ang (and ng and sa) marks non-personal nouns. The interrogative form is ano but there is no pronoun based on this.

Now, these are just the nominative (absolutive) forms. The genitive forms would probably look like *naya and *nala. The oblique forms would be *saiya and *saila. Bikol, for instance has saiya and sainda. Hiligaynon has sa ila and sa ila.

To take this a step further. There is a personalized interrogative form in the genitive case for sino, which is nino, but there is none for ano. It's not *nano but simply ng ano. In the oblique case, there's kanino and saan, which can also mean "what" but also doubles as "where."

Now wouldn't *aya (and *naya, *saiya), *ala (and *nala, *saila), and *nano be useful pronouns in Tagalog? I think they would. :-) But no, I am not campaigning for their use, since we probably get along just fine with the way Tagalog is right now.

Philippine Independence Day

2006-06-12T18:26:00.000-07:00

I am probably a day late, but here in the Seattle area we still have about 6 hours left of June 12th. So Happy Philippine independence day!

Jed Pensar of SOLFED (Save Our Languages through FEDeralism) sent the Philippine national anthem translated into Hiligaynon, Cebuano, Kinaray-a, Manobo, and Butuanon. I have included the latter three versions on my webpage at http://www.geocities.com/csundita/filipiniana/anthems.html

So while here in America there's controversy concerning the singing of the Star Spangled Banner in Spanish (which is ironic, since I learned the English lyrics, composed during American rule in the 1930's, of the Philippine national anthem FIRST, and didn't know the original was in Spanish until 10 years ago!) there's some controversy in the Philippines as well.

According to Chapter II, Section 36 of Republic Act 8491, the national anthem must "be sung in the national language." Chapter VII, Section 48 further outlines consequences in not complying with the provisions with this act; this includes.

This has prompted the passing of a resolution back in November of 2002 by the city council in Iligan, Lanao del Norte. It banned the mandatory singing of the anthem in Cebuano. My opinion at the time, as well as a copy of the article are archived here.

My opinion still stands that this RA 8491 needs to amended. It's stupid, really. This is considering the fact that the original anthem was written in Spanish and also the fact that the Philippines is ethnolinguistically diverse. Manuel Quezon III gave a passing mention about this in his blog.

I also found an article titled 3 versions of the unsung national anthem in Bicol. In response, a reader, Francisco San Miguel of Morong, Rizal, warned about violating the law.

In other news, I graduate in four days. So I'm rather pressed for time (amazing how I squeezed this in!). I did get accepted to the University of Washington's linguistics program, however I am going to put that on hold to work for one more year. It's a risky move, since it entails me reapplying (which could potentially mean being rejected), but I think I'll get in again.

I'll have a lot of freetime during the summer. I plan on writing about that Reid festschrift I mentioned earlier as well as Dr. Carl Rubino's new book on learning Tausug (which UPS should be delivering to me this Friday!).

10-ICAL papers

2006-04-29T19:20:00.000-07:00

Hi folks, as you can guess by my absence, I've been extremely busy with school and work. I am in my last quarter of community college and am taking two demanding psychology courses and another anthropology course. They're very fascinating! I graduate with Associate in Arts and Sciences degree in just 48 days. I'm excited - especially since I don't have to worry about homework and tests for a while. And I can finally concentrate on learning Russian. ;-)

In February, I submitted my transfer application to the University of Washington in Seattle so I can begin getting my degrees in linguistics (and possibly anthropology, though that's up in the air still). If I get accepted and if the financial situation is good, then I will be a UW Husky with junior standing this fall. I won't find out until June or July if I become accepted, which is rather annoying because I can't stand the uncertainty. Argh! So wish me luck.

Back in January, the Linguistic Society of the Philippines and SIL International hosted The Tenth International Conference on Austronesian Languages (10-ICAL)at Puerto Princesa in Palawan.

I, unfortunately, was not able to make it there but many other linguists well-known to me in Philippine & Austronesian linguistics were in attendance like Lawrence Reid, David Zorc, Andrew Pawley, Loren Billings, Michael Forman, Bob Blust, Hsiu-chuan Liao, John Wolff, Paz Buenaventura Naylor, and many others.

As someone who didn't attend, I found the webpage where they collected all the papers presented at the conference to be extremely useful. They are accessible at http://www.sil.org/asia/philippines/ical/papers.html

There is so much to read and they cover a great variety of Philippine languages and other Austronesian languages. So far I have read Pangilinan's paper on Kapampangan orthography, Liao's presentation of dual pronouns in Philippine languages, McFarland's paper on deictic pronouns, and Zabolotnaya's paper about Philippine linguistics in Russia.

So that's it for now. When I have time, I'll do a review of Carl Rubino & Hsiu-chuan Liao's Current Issues in Philippine Anthropology: Parangal kay Lawrence A. Reid that I've been meaning to do.

Much ado about Pinoy

2006-03-12T23:03:00.000-08:00

So I am a member of a group dedicating to promoting Hispanic culture and language in the Philippines. For what it's worth, my views are moderate. Though the more conservative members tend to say I am liberal as they are for instituting Spanish as the official language of the Philippines (I have over 160 reasons why). My views have to do with making Spanish an option in schools and perhaps forging relationships with Latin Americans for cultural exchange and the like, nothing too drastic, ¿no?

I am going off on a tangent, but one of the more extreme members is Guillermo Gómez y Rivera. He's a retired(?) educator in the Philippines, originally from Iloilo. He was involved somehow the constitutional convention of 1973 and he's been a very passionate advocate of reviving the Spanish language in Philippines; he blames the Americans, whom he refers to as the WASP USENSES (American WASPS).

In any case, one of his pet peeves is the term "Pinoy." No problem, I know some people aren't rather fond of nicknames. But he takes it a step further. He urges Filipinos to stop using it because it is very demeaning to us. For one, he asserts, that the Americans coined it, taking the PIN in "Pilipinong" and the OY from "unggoy" (monkey). He also claims that "PINAY" is equivalent to "whore" and provides Philippine Inquirer headlines concerning the rape of a Filipina in Subic as proof.

Of course, I am in complete disagreement. It's a joke really. A very sick joke. Gómez asserts that those of us who defend the word "Pinoy" are "sick" because we want other Filipinos to be seen as demeaning. He offers the latest show, "Pinoy Big Brother," as proof wherein one of the celebrities urinates on public television. He blames it on the Americans, but I dutifully pointed out to him that it is a Dutch invention which is now owned by Telefónica, a company based in Spain.

Now his son, Guillermo Gómez y Ordóñez, maintains a blog here on blogspot. I have encountered an entry from January 19, 2006 wherein he mentions his father's story. This time it's a different story; he claims Pinoy was actually coined by two American employers in Los Angeles during the 1970's:

And so it goes and now we adopt it as a norm without knowing where this idiom or street slang even ever came about. Hey, Bro..wake up and smell the coffee!! It was born in L.A.!! Imagine what it means!! It means Pilipinong ungoy! And you will say or sing: Pinoy, Pinoy ako..ibang iba ang Pinoy…and so the song goes. I wonder what those two guys back in the 70’s would be laughing at right now…The problem with us is that it’s always ‘ok’ with us because we choose it to be so then when we are made aware of it, it becomes easy to blametoss it to the concept of colonialism. But who in the first place is entertaining it??!! Now, ’think!’, where did the word ‘flips’ come from or how it was invented…wanna adopt that too? It came from L.A. These words didn’t even come from here!! Not that I have something against the Americans or the other nations. In the first place, it’s not their fault that we do not properly identify or respect our nationality. Will Rizal stand up for this or Bonifacio?? SO DO NOT USE IT!! BOYCOTT THE WORD ‘PINOY’!!

Never mind the fact that neither Gómez Jr. nor Gómez Sr. identify the names of these racist American pigs and neither do they provide any documentation.

Now, the usual story behind the origin of Pinoy is that it originated among the "manongs" - the early Filipino immigrants to America. Sources such as the Fililipino American National Historical Society say that it was coined to distinguish between the Filipinos living "back home" with the Filipinos living here in America.

I have perused the University of Michigan's collection of important Philippine historical documents (which I mentioned here) and found a lot of hits for "Pinoy" and "Pinoys".

The oldest hit in the database is from a Philippine Republic article written in January 1926 by Dr. J. Juliano, member of the faculty of the Schurz school in Chicago. You can say the article in its entirety here. I quote:

"Why does a Pinoy take it as an insult to be taken for a Shintoist or a Confucian?"
"What should a Pinoy do if he is addressed as a Chinese or a Jap?"

The oldest reference for the Philippines is from 1927. It's a book by Carson Taylor called History of the Philippine press. It's simply a brief mention of a weekly Spanish-Visayan-English publication called Pinoy based in Capiz. The publication date December 27, 1926. The publisher was Pinoy Publishing Company. Other than that, there's no further information.

Another reference is from 1930 in the Manila-based publication Khaki and Red: the official organ of the constabulary and police. The article, which is about street gangs, is located here and the relevant quote is "another is the "Kapatiran" gang of Intramuros, composed of patrons pools rooms who banded together to "protect pinoys" from the abusive American soldados."

There are a more results that span from the 1920's to the 1940's. Some take on social issues facing Pinoy, some are casual mentions of Pinoys at events, while some are advertisements from Hawai'i from Filipinos themselves saying "BILI KAYO SA PINOY."

You can see them for yourselves here:

Results for 'pinoys'.
Results for 'pinoy'.

There are hits for "Pinay" but they are for a French person's surname and does not mean "Filipina."

I should note that Professor Laurence Reid, a retired University of Hawai'i linguist specializing in Philippine languages, is the consultant for the newest edition of the Oxford English Dictionary; he looks for terms originating from Philippine languages that have made it into English. He says that Pinoy was mentioned in Carlos Bulosan's 1946 book America is in the Heart: "The Pinoys work every day in the fields but when the season is over their money is in the Chinese vaults." (Bulosan, 118)

If any of you know of references to Pinoy earlier than 1926, contact me. And if any of you find any conclusive documents supporting Gómez's claim that Pinoy is a "shit name" (his words) coming from Pilipinong unggoy, let me know, because as of now he has given us, uh, shit?

Signing off,

--Chris Sundita
A proud Pinoy

Use of linkers in Philippine languages

2006-01-03T01:10:00.000-08:00

Happy New Year!

Since I am on Christmas vacation, just thought I'd get a major entry in before I return to work and school on Wednesday, then I'll be too busy to write in this blog. That's my new resolution - to write in here more often. Anyway, I will be taking astronomy, logic, and argumentation and research at school for the winter quarter - so I'm in for a challenging quarter.

Y'know, what I had in mind a few days ago was just to repeat last year's post where I wished you all a Happy New Year in 10 Philippine languages. But as I was "admiring" the translations, I was looking at the linkers that each of the Philippine languages used. So I thought, why don't I talk about how linkers are used in different Philippine languages?

Before I go on, I thought I'd explain what linkers are and use an example in Tagalog (linkers are in bold). In many Philippine languages, linkers (also called ligatures) are used to "link" (duh!) words together. They may link an adjective and noun (malaking bahay), verb and adverb (mabilis na tumakbo), clauses (sabi niya na hindi raw siya aalis), pseudo-verb and verb (gustong umuwi), number and noun (tatlong hari), prepositioned possessive pronouns and nouns (ang kaniyang asawa) and others.

Here are the uses and general guidelines in case there is more than one linker (which is usually the case). Any native speaker comment, correction, and clarifications are welcome. And if you speak a language not represented here, then by all means contribute to the list by leaving me a comment! :-)

Tagalog and Northern Bikol

-ng: In Tagalog, this is suffixed to words ending in a vowel and glottal stop while it replaces /n/ in words that end with that. In Bikol, the same rules seem to apply except in the case of words ending in /n/, either that or there is a variation. Examples: bagong taon (Tag., new year), ba-gong taon (Bik. Naga, new year).

na: This is used after words ending in a consonant (not a glottal stop or /n/) or a diphthong. Examples: itim na aso (Tag., black dog), itom na ayam (Bik. Naga, black dog)

Cebuano and Hiligaynon

-ng: This is suffixed to words ending in a vowel, glottal stop, and even diphthongs (this is a departure from Tagalog & Bikol usage). Examples: bag-ong tuig (Ceb. & Hil., new year).

nga: Used after words ending in a consonant. Sometimes this is used even after words ending in a vowel. Examples: itom nga iro (Ceb., black dog), itom nga ido (Hil., black dog).

ka: This is a special linker used with numbers. Examples: tulo ka adlaw (Ceb., three days), tatlo ka adlaw (Hil., three days)

Note: The rules also ably to Romblomanon and Masbateño. However, with Masbateño, some speakers use -ng and nga while others use -n and na.

Waray-Waray

nga is the sole linker. bag-o nga tuig (new year).

Ilokano

nga: Used after words, regardless of ending. However, this is prefered before words that begin with a vowel. Example: nangisit nga aso (black dog).

a: Same as above, but usually prefered, though not obligatory, before words beginning with a consonant. Example: baro a tawen (new year)

Kapampangan

-ng: Same as Tagalog. Example: bayung banwa (new year)

a: Equivalent of Tagalog na used after words ending in consonants. Example: anam a aldo (six days). A special note, before /a/ there is no glottal stop; there is a /y/ inserted between them so mayap a abak sounds like mayap a yabak.

Pangasinan

-n: Suffixed to words ending in vowels. Example: balon taon (new year).

ya: Used before words beginning in a vowel. Example: sakey ya agew (one day).

a: Used everywhere else, namely after words ending in a consonant and before words beginning in a vowel. Example: andeket a sira (black fish).

Bolinao

-n: Suffixed to words ending in vowels. Example: ba-yon taon (new year)

a: Used after words ending in consonants. Example: maabig a awro (good day [greeting]).

Sambal Botolan

ya: Used everywhere, and sometimes after vowels. malake ya alahas (a lot of jewelry), katowa ya papwak.

-y: Suffixed to words ending in vowels, but seems as if it is interchangeable with "ya". tatloy mipapatel (three siblings), pitoy olo (seven heads).

Asi

-ng: Suffixed to words ending in vowels. Example: bag-ong tuig (new year).

nak: Elsewhere. Example: itom nak isra (black fish).

Maranao

a is the sole marker. Example: mala' a seda' (big fish).

Central Tagbwana

a is the sole marker. Example: bayo a taon (new year).

Tausug

Wayruun (There is none)! Simply putting the words next to each other suffices. Example: baru tahun (new year).

And to end this post, here are the words "new" and "year" in a number of Philippine languages. Unfortunately, I don't know the linkers for all of them.

NEW

bago - Tagalog, Butuanon, Maranao, Buhid Mangyan, Cuyonon, Southern Bikol
ba-go - Northern Bikol
bag-o - Cebuano, Hiligaynon, Waray-Waray, Kinaray-a, Aklanon, Masbateño, Romblomanon, Asi, Onhan, Cagayanon, Mamanwa, Surigaonon, Hanunoo
bagu - Agta, Pamplona Atta, Isneg, Kalagan, Mansaka, Ibanag, Maguindanao
ba-gu - Tausug, Palawan Batak, Aborlan Tagbanwa
bag-u - Binukid, Kinamigin, Tigwa Manobo
bag-ew - Agusan Manobo
begu - Sindangan Subanun, Western Bukidnod Manobo, Kakidugen Ilongot
bigu' - Casiguran Dumagat
bogu - Siocon Subanon
baha'u - Samal
bahu - Itawis
behu - Ilianen Manobo
buhu - Sangir
bado - Inibaloy
balo - Pangasinan, Guinaang Bontoc, Northern Kankanaey, Bayninan Ifugao, Kallahan
baklu - Kalamian Tagbanwa
baro - Ilokano
vuru - Sarangani Sangil
bawu - Gaddang
baya - Dibabawon Manobo
bayo - Sambal Botolan, Alangan Mangyan
bayu - Kapampangan, Iraya Mangyan
ba-yu - Tagalog Sinauna (Tagarug)
va-yo - Ivatan
va-yu - Itbayat
pa''ala - Amganad Ifugao
lomih - Tboli
lami - Obo Manobo
falami - Blaan
lafus lomi - Ubo Manobo
manto - Tiruray, Tagabawa Manobo
'iam - Ata Manobo, Tigwa Manobo
kaling - Sarangani Manobo
magtu - Ata Manobo, Tigwa Manobo, Tasaday Manobo
milalaw - Tadyawan Mangyan
nuevo - Chabacano

YEAR

taon - Tagalog, Northern Bikol, Southern Bikol, Pangasinan, Sambal Botolan, Batak, Casiguran Dumagat, Cagayano, Kakidugen Ilongot, Sinauna Tagalog, Aborlan Tagbanwa
taen - Tadyawan Mangyan
taung - Sarangani Sangil, Sangir
tawen - Ilokano, Guinaang Bontoc, Balangaw, Binongan Itneg,
taw-en - Inibaloy, Kayapa Kallahan, Northern Kankanaey
tew-en - Northern Kankanaey
tawon - Ifugao, Guinaang Kalinga
tahun - Tausug, Samal
takun - Kalamian Tagbanwa
tuun - Keley-i Kallahan
toon - Sindangan Subanon
ton - Siocon Subanon
dagon - Cuyonon, Alangan Mangyan
dagun - Ibanag, Isneg, Atta
dag-on - Aklanon, Hanunoo
dag-un - Iraya
dawun - Gaddang
lagun - Maguindanao
ragon - Maranao
lahon - Obo Manobo
dahun - Itawis
rahun - Ilianen Manobo
tuig - Cebuano, Hiligaynon, Waray-Waray, Kinaray-a, Masbateño, Asi, Onhan, Romblomanon, Butuanon, Surigaonon, Manobo, Mansaka, Binukid, Mamanwa
tuid - Kinamigin, Ata Manobo, Tigwa Manobo
awaan - Ivatan
hawan - Itbayat
fali - Sarangani Blaan
foli - Koronadal Blaan
omay - Sarangani Manobo
umay - Kalagan
halay - Tboli
segefalay OR gefalay - Kalamansig Cotabato Manobo
banwa - Kapampangan
bialun - Tagabawa Manobo
belintuwa' - Tiruray
fangaraw - Buhid
timpo - Hanunoo
año - Chabacano

Ang Pasko ay Sumapit...

2005-12-25T10:29:00.000-08:00

My usual Christmas greetings...

Tagalog: Maligayang Pasko
Cebuano: Maayong Pasko
Ilokano: Naragsak a Paskua
Hiligaynon, Kinaray-a, Romblomanon, & Masbateño: Malipayon nga Paskwa
Bikol: Maogmang Pasko
Waray-Waray: Maupay nga Pasko
Kapampangan: Masayang Pasku
Pangasinan: Maabig ya Pasko
Akeanon: Maayad-ayad nga Paskwa
Asi: Maadong Paskwa
Onhan: Mayad nga Paskwa
Bolinao: Marigan Nabidad
Boholano: Malipajong Pasko
Philippine English: Meri Krismas :-)
Philippine Spanish: Pelis Nabidad :-)

Ilokano & Waray Wikipedias / Tayabas Tagalog / Why?

2005-10-24T19:50:00.000-07:00

Well, howdy strangers!

[insert apology for justifying my neglect of this blog]

I thought I'd take a break from working on my anthropology mid-term project to give this blog a much-needed update. Anthropology is really fascinating, I tell you. It is on my short list of possible double majors or minors that I can add in addition to my planned linguistics major.

There are two items of interest that I would like to get out there. On Wikipedia, there were two proposals to get Wikipedias for two Philippine languages, namely Waray-Waray and Ilokano.

The proposal was approved; there are now 5 Philippine-language Wikis (Tagalog, Cebuano, and Kapampangan in addition to the aforementioned two). I was quite surprised and quite puzzled about Ilokano - there is a huge Ilokano presence on the internet as well as being the 2nd-most spoken Philippine language in the United States (with university courses to boot). But yet, it's last one.

In any case, both Wikipedias have been very active; the Waray one has 482 articles and the Ilokano one has 105 (the owner of Mannurat.Com, Roy Aragon, being very active). Very impressive!

The URL's for the encyclopedias are:

Ilokano Wikipedia - http://ilo.wikipedia.org
Waray Wikipedia - http://war.wikipedia.org

So, congratulations.

In other news, I have borrowed a book called A Lexicographic Study of Tayabas Tagalog written in 1971 by E. Arsenio Manuel of the University of the Philippines.

This interested me a lot. I speak Manila Tagalog, but I have some roots to Quezon Province. My great-grandmother Estelita Fermin Sundita was born there in 1903. Where exactly, I don't know. I have contradictory information on the town where she was born. Her passport from the 1970's and her Social Security Application say Atimonan, but the birth records of her children born in the 1920's say Lucena City. Anyway, Lola Estelita died in California when I was 5 and she was the only great-grandmother I ever knew.

The author relies on dozens of informants from all over Lucena City - he elicited information starting in the 1940's until 1953. The author mentions some sociolinguistic factors as to when the non-standard dialect is used - and the reactions (i.e., laughter and ridicule) it gets.

He considers the dialect to be "Central Tagalog" (what about south?) which is based on geography. He also makes mention of what appears to be subdialect areas such as Tayabas-Pagbilao-Sariaya, Unisan-Gumaka-Pitogo, and San Narciso-Katan-awan.

He also briefly mentions some phonological features particularly the preservation of the glottal stop when it occurs between a consonant and a vowel (called malaw-aw) - tam-is, ngay-on, dinug-an, but-o, and big-at. There is also the tendency to pronounce oo as uu and noo as nuu.

The rest of the book is basically a one-way dictionary from Tayabas Tagalog to Manila Tagalog and English. It wasn't quite as I expected, but I guess it's useful in a way.

Here are some sample entries:

gá. (Kat[an-awan].) Ba, baga. Ano ga. Kumusta!
An interrogative postpositional article

náay. 1. Naiyon, naayon, ayon. HIndi mo ba makita? Naay! Naay mandin sa sahig!2. Naay pa (gin. sa pagsusumbong ng mga bata sa magulang kung inuulitan o inaatig ng iba, at nagpapatuloy ng pag-uulit pagkatpos sawayin o pagsabihan).
1. There it is. Same as náiyon, náayon, ayón. 2. Náay pa, to call attention to the fact that someone is still bothering him after the other boy has been told not to (an expression often used by children addressing their plaint to their parents).

sabád. Sagot ng di kausap, ng di tinatanong. Sumabad, magsalita nang di kinakausap. Sa dalawang magkapulong, ang humalo sa usapan nang di inaanyayahan ay sumasabad sa usapan. Pasabadsabad, pásalitsalit o pasangit-sangit sa usapan. Sabát, o abát, din.
Reply of a person not asked or spoken to. Sumabád, to take part in a conversation without being invited; to speak or talk without being called to participate; to intercept the talk of two or more persons. Pasabád-sábad, to interrupt the conversation frequently. Sábat or abat also.

suwís (from Spanish. juez, judge). Magsusuwis, dadalaw ang pinunong-bayan sa bukid, linang, o nayon; ang pinunong-lalawigan sa bayon o nayon. Suwisan, ang ganiyang pagdalaw o pagsisiyasat na tinutugunan ng piging at kasayahn ng mga tagalinang o tagabayan. Wika ng isang makata:

Sa mga soisan, ibang pagtatao
kasalan, binyagan, ....
pag walang achara'y pati taga Centro
di lubhang ganahan sa piging na ito.
- Aurelio Obispo, "Tulang Paligsahan" (1929)

Term derived from juez (de ganado), judge of pastures, who during the Spanish regime inspected livestock of the farm and outlying barriors for the purpose of taking a census of animals, etc. Suwís has now a political significance, being an official visit or inspection of the barrio, by a municipal authority, or the town by the provincial governor or other high officials. Suwisan, the official visitand the popular reception combined used to be the biggest event in the lives of barrio folks.

Perhaps the most interesting entry was this:

tanó (at and + ano what). Bakit?
Why? What for? And so why? And so what?

The reason why I find this interesting is that in Naga Bikol, they use taano or ta-no for "why." In Legazpi, it is ngata - other Bikol dialects have hadaw, nata and ta-daw.

I also learned that in Tagalog, bakit is composed of bakin at. I wondered, then, if there was such a phrase as bakin at ano. I looked at the University Michigan's site, and found no such phrase.

However, I did find both of them mentioned side by side. In Joaquín de Coria's 1872 Nueva gramática tagalog, teórico-práctica, I found that, curiously, bakin meant because and at ano meant why.

On another page, it defined bakin to mean "why, and it is also an unusual verb. It is used in the negative. Examples. Forgive the enemies, don't you guys see that God forgives sinners, his enemies? Patauaring ninyo ang manga caauay, ¿di baquinang panginoong Dios ay nagpapatauar sa manga macasalanang tauong caauay niya? You reprimand me for my sins, but why do you do the same? Aco,i inaauyang mo nang casalanan co ay, baquin icao ay gayon naman ang gaua mo? -- And why you too? Baquin icao? Why you all? Baquin cayo?

In Constantino Lendoyro's 1902 Tagalog language, bakin, bakit, and at ano are listed as words for "why."

So, very interesting stuff. I wish I could find the answer to all this, but so far, it's still a mystery. Why were there two why's?

Baybayin & Coca Cola

2005-08-31T22:03:00.000-07:00

I made this partly out of a fit of boredom as well as a picture made by online friend Viktoro Medrano.

The English version of the Coca Cola thing says "Enjoy Coca-Cola" but I decided to use the French & German version which say "Drink Coca-Cola."

So, it says "uminom ng Kuka-Kula."

After many failed attempts doing it by hand (I suck at computer graphic design, apparently), I used Paul Morrow's stylized Tagalog Baybayin font.

Hear me speak Kinaray-a!

2005-08-20T12:09:00.000-07:00

In the Kinaray-a mailing list, a Ronald Panaligan announced that he's planning to publish a Kinaray-a dictionary. Kinaray-a, just for a reminder, is a West Visayan language spoken in Antique province on the island of Panay. It is one of the 13 most spoken Philippine languages.

Anyway, there was one problem.

How is he going to graphically represent the "schwa" vowel? This vowel is found in many Philippine languages and once existed in virtually all of them.

Many Karay-as usually write the letter "u."

But it's ambiguous with the /u/ sound.

People have proposed û and ö.

I have proposed simply e. That's how it's used in a number of Philippine languages, and the rate of ambiguity is less. For one, the average Joe (or José, in this case) are usually not inclined to write accent marks on words.

Furthermore, in textbooks aimed at teaching Kinaray-a, one cannot indicate stress by placing accent marks on "û" and "ö" since there are already ones. But one can do so with "e." For example, is it pronounced "béket" or "bekét"?

Anyway, there was some discussion on whether or not this sound is similar to Ilokano and Pangasinan. The Karay-as claimed there is a difference. I asked if they could record their voices, but no one stepped up. So I offered to record mine using the same vowel I pronounce Ilokano words with. One of the list members Dixcee promised me her California Golden Balls. Did I win them?

The link is here: http://members.aol.com/linggwistik/private/kinaray-aschwa.wav

I said:

iririmaw tatûn (let's get together)

Bûkût takûn Karay-a (I am not Karay-a)

Ang bûdlay kanatûn nga mga Pinoy, kon diin pa ang gûtûk rudtu pa
tatûn gustu magdasûk. (I have no clue!)

She said I didn't pronounce "tatûn" and "takûn" correctly and it's a draw on the balls. Darn. What the hell are California Golden Balls, anyway?

But yes, now you all have the honor of listening me speak Kinaray-a with quite possibly a heavy Tagalog accent laced in with an American twang here and there.

Whatever Mr. Pinaligan chooses, I will just have to accept. I really would like a Kinaray-a dictionary. :-)

In other news - I am done with summer classes. I did extremely well. I am off from school for the next month. In the fall I will be finishing up the 3rd installment of intermediate French along while exploring philosophy and anthropology. I'm quite excited about the anthropology class.

Languages of the Southern Gateway

2005-08-09T22:33:00.000-07:00

This entry is the seventh and last in a series of articles in the first annual Seven-Day Salita Blogathon. For more information, please see this entry.

The third book I bought from SIL was Languages of the Southern Gateway. It is basically a polyglot phrasebook intended for those going to western Mindanao and the Sulu Archipelago.

Since this book was first printed in 1979 and reprinted two times in the 1980's, I am not going to review it. Instead, I am just going to publish excerpts so you guys can get an idea on how the languages spoken in this area are like.

The languages are:

Tagalog - we all know this one.
Chabacano - the Philippine Creole Spanish spoken in Zamboanga, in particular.
Sinama (Samal) - A Sama-Bajaw language spoken in parts of Borneo and the Sulu Archipelago. This book focuses on the Siasi (Central) dialect.
Yakan - Another Sama-Bajaw language spoken mainly in Basilan province.
Tausug - A Southern Visayan language; genetically closer to Tagalog than any of the languages in this region but heavily influenced by them.

What I found particularly interesting in this book is that the apostrophe in Sinama has two uses. First, it represents the glottal stop. And second, it represents the "schwa" vowel (actually high back unrounded). It's easy to tell them apart, according to the book. If the apostrophe is between two vowels, then it's the glottal stop. if it's between two consonants, then it's the vowel. I wonder if there are any occasional disambuguities? For example, is there a word that consists of BOTH the glottal stop and this particular vowel consecutively?

Here are some examples of its use in Sinama. It makes clear the schwa vowel is /o/ in northern dialects so it offers that alternative for foreigners who cannot pronounce it.

b'ttong - stomach
d'nda - woman
d'ppa - fathom
l'lla - man
a'a - person
kello' - crooked
magka'at - ruined
ta'u - know

Eng: What place are you from? I live in Malaybalay, in Bukidnon.
Tag: Taga-saan kayo? Nakatira ako sa Malaybalay, Bukidnon.
Cha: De donde lugar tu? De Malaybalay, na Bukidnon.
Sin: Maingga lahatnu? Iya lahatku ma Malaybalay, Bukidnon.
Tau: Dayn diin kaw? In hula' ku ha Malaybalay, Bukidnon.
Yak: Antag lahatnun? Lahatkun la'i si Malaybalay si Bukidnon.

Eng: I do not understand.
Tag: Hindi ko nauunawaan.
Cha: Hende you ta entende.
Sin: Mbal aku makahati.
Tau: Di' aku makahati.
Yak: Ga'i tasabutku.

Eng: Open the door. Close the window.
Tag: Bukisan mo ang pinto. Isara mo ang bintana.
Cha: Abri el puerta. Cerra el ventana.
Sin: Ukabun lawang. Tambolun tandawan.
Tau: Ukaba in lawang. Tambula in tandawan.
Yak: Lukahun ko' gawangin. Dindingun tendewanin.

Eng: Have you just recently arrived? Yes, I came just yesterday from Zamboanga.
Tag: Bago ko lamang dumating? opo, kahapon lamang ako dumating galing sa Zamboanga.
Cha: Ahora lang ba tu ya llega? Si, ayer lang yo llega de Zamboanga.
Sin: Baha'u kat'kkanu? Aho', iyampa aku at'kka di'ilaw min Sambuangan.
Tau: Iyan pa kaw dimatung? Huun. Dimatung aku kahapun dayn ha Zamboanga.
Yak: Ba'ahu du tekkanun? Awe', d'ilew du tekkakun amban Sembuwangan.

Eng: Your child is beautiful. So healthy.
Tag: Maganda ang iyong anak. Malusog.
Cha: Bonito di tuyo anak. Bien gordo. (WHAT??)
Sin: Alingkat anaknu. Al'mmok isab.
Tau: Malingkat in anak mu. Matambuk tuud (this one means fat too)
Yak: Hap anaknun, lemmek.

Eng: May I borrow your pen for a moment?
Tag: Pahiramin nga ang ball pen ninyo sandali?
Cha: Puede yo presta tu bolpen un rato?
Sin: Makajari aku angindam bolpennu dai'dai'?
Tau: Makajari aku mamus sin bulpin mu hangkarai'?
Yak: Indamanun ku ko' bolpen.

Eng: She is upstairs but her mother is downstairs.
Tag: Siya ay nasa itaas, ang nanay niya ay nasa baba.
Cha: Talla le na arriba'y casa, pero su nana taqui abajo.
Sin: Wa'i iya mariyata', bo ina'na wa'i mareo'.
Tau: Yadtu siya ha taas ba sa' in ina' niya yaun ha baba'.
Yak: La'i iye diyata' luma', sa'inen tu'u diyawa'.

Eng: You're late; the ship has gone.
Tag: Huli na kayo! Umalis na ang bapor!
Cha: Atarasao ya tu; ya sale el barco.
Sin: Atrasaw kam. Wa'i na kappal.
Tau: Natarasaw kaw. Timulak na in kappal.
Yak: Tarasaw kew. Patulak ne kappalin.

Eng: Show me the way to the market.
Tag: Ituro mo sa akin ang daan patungo sa palengke.
Cha: Enseña conmigo el camino para na tiangue.
Sin: Panduin aku kono' lan tudu ni tabu'?
Tau: Haunu in dan pa tabu'?
Yak: Panoanun ku ko' lan hap tiyanggihin.

Eng: Where are you going? To the market. I am going to buy fish.
Tag: Saan po kayo pupunta? Sa palengke. Bibili ako ng isda.
Cha: Donde man tu anda? Na tiangue. Ay compra yo pescao.
Sin: Piinga ka ilu? Ni tabu' aku. Am'lli aku daing.
Tau: Pakain kaw? Pa tabu'. Mami aku ista'.
Yak: Tungan kew? Hap tiyanggi ku. Tiya'ku melli kenna.

Eng: You speak English well!
Tag: Mahusay kayo magsalita ng Inggles!
Cha: Ta conversa tu Ingles buenamente!
Sin: Ata'u toongan ka amisala Ingglis!
Tau: Matu'lid kaw magbissara bahasa Anggalis!
Yak: Ta'u kew teed magininglis!

My ideal language policy

2005-08-08T23:58:00.000-07:00

This entry is the sixth in a series of articles in the first annual Seven-Day Salita Blogathon. For more information, please see this entry.

For those of you who already know me, you probably have an idea of what my ideal language policy for the Philippines is. But most likely, you only know part of it. In this entry, I outline a draft copy of my ideal language policy for the Philippines.

As outlined by the 1987 Constitution, both Tagalog (under the name Filipino) and English are official languages. Tagalog/Filipino is the national language. And the regional languages are "auxiliary" languages in their respective home regions. And Spanish & Arabic are to be promoted on an optional basis.

Here is what I propose.

Official Language at the National Level

I am not sure what the best answer is here. For an ethnolinguistically diverse country as the Philippines, I am totally against the idea of one sole official and national language. Sure, there are arguments that we should have a unifying language. But why can't more than one language help with this process of unification? To me, being limited to one language is, in a word, unfair. It's disprectful. And I think it has fostered resentment among non-Tagalogs.

Some have proposed that there be no official language at all. The United States is this way - but English is the de-facto official language. It's an idea that' sworth thinking about, but so far I have not been too fond of it. For one, I think it will inevitably lead to the de-facto officialization of one sole language - and that is Tagalog.

I am leaning towards systems in other countries where there are more than two official languages. Switzerland is one, with 4 (German, French, Italian, and Romantsch). But, India is another with 22 official languages.

There are over 160 languages in the Philippines, but clearly all of them cannot be the official languages.

So maybe the 13 major languages? They each have at least 1 million speakers and all of them represent at least 90% of the country. It is more inclusive than just 1 language that natively represents about a quarter of the country.

Regionally & Provincially

I think this one is simple - whatever major language is spoken in the respective regions and provinces. Places like Romblon would have Romblomanon, Asi, and Onhan. Cagayan would be Ilokano, Ibanag, and Gaddang. Batanes would be Ivatan and Itbayat, and so on.

Schools

As it stands, only Tagalog & English are taught in schools and those are the languages in which textbooks are available. In theory, the regional languages are taught from an early age and then Tagalog & English are used as the media of instruction.

This horrible pratice must come to an end.

Research has shown that students learn better in their native languages. Makes sense, doesn't it? I am taking a class on Statistics now. It is rather challenging. I speak Spanish quite well. However, I'd be at a disadvantage if I learned about statistics in Spanish. I'd much prefer English to ensure that I understand everything. Similarly, why force a Bikolano child to learn about math in Tagalog & English - languages that are not his own? It'd be much more better in the long run to learn in his own language.

The medium of instruction should be - wherever possible - the native language. Think about it, learning about physics in Kapampangan. There are the nay-sayers who say that it cannot be done. But you know what? It's possible. If the Indonesians, Thais, and Japanese can do it - then so can we.

One of the arguments against this was that there are no native scientific vocabulary. Well, I have news for you - neither does English. Most of its scientific vocabulary is from Latin and Greek. Tagalog, Kapampangan, and whatever else can do the same.

I illustrated this points months ago in a discussion forum where I took a sentence from my physics textbook to explain the concept of acceleration with a falling object:

"Isang bagay na nahuhulog ay bumibilis nang 9.8 m/s bawa't segundo kung
kakaunting-kaunti lamang ang resistensya ng hangin. "

(A falling object gains speed at a rate of 9.8 m/s per second if there is very little wind resistence.)

Now, that wasn't hard.

So, am I advocating the removal of English in the school curriculum. Of course not! I see a lot of value in English, and its loss would be detrimental to Filipinos.

If anything, English should be treated as what it really is to most Filipinos - a foreign language. English shouldn't be used to teach math and sciences.

But when should English be taught? As early as possible. English should be taught to children - a vital time to be learning foreign languages.

On the subject of foreign languages, two foreign languages should be taught. They fall into two categories.

A Philippine language - Get the three major Philippine languages - Tagalog, Cebuano, and Ilokano. Tagalogs would have the choice of learning Ilokano or Cebuano. Visayans would have to learn either Ilokano or Tagalog. And Ilokanos would have to learn, you guessed it, Cebuano or Tagalog. I don't believe in forcing someone to learn a language. HOWEVER, I believe that we should force the learning of a language that one's countrymen speaks just as we force children to learn math and history. The choice of the language is up to them.

A non-Philippine language - English is the obvious choice. However, it would be a choice among other non-Philippine languages. I also propose Spanish. Perhaps Chinese and Japanese.

Now, there are limits. It's typical that someone will complain that "Oh, we can't translate documents and books in all 160 languages."

I know that.

Let's try one step at a time. Tagalog is already done. We'll ease into Cebuano .. then Ilokano ...

It doesn't have to happen overnight.

One argument I encountered - and it's pretty silly, ludicrous even - it came from a guy named Antonio (comments of this type here). He claimed that my proposals have a selfish reason. By preserving the languages and calling for their use in all areas of societies (the Catalans call it "normalization"), we linguists are out to get a profit by translating and making money off of making books and dictionaries about these languages. Yes, Antonio, I am learning to become a linguist so I can get filthy rich.

Another argument I hear is "but the Philippines has so many other problems! This is the last you should be thinking about!"

That may be the case, and I understand that. And what can I say? The topic is about language policy and not about poverty and overpopulation. My "thing" is languages. And thus, languages I will discuss. If I want to discuss poverty and the other problems in the Philippines, then I'll have another blog for that where I'd advocate the use of contraceptives and the like. I just don't believe in a pathetic and irrelevant cop-out. Yes, language policy is the furthest on the mind of Filipinos - but perhaps there will be a time in the future.

So yes, these are my proposals. Albeit in a very rough form. It's bound to change as time goes on and as I come into contact with new information. I encourage you to comment constructively.

Who are the Tagarugs? The Tagarug Mystery...

2005-08-07T22:05:00.000-07:00

This entry is the fifth in a series of articles in the first annual Seven-Day Salita Blogathon. For more information, please see this entry.

During the Christmas season of 2003, I ran into an old newsgroup posting by a Dr. Rodrigo "Rudy" Dar. In 1996, he mentioned doing research with linguist Dr. Ted Llamzon in the Limutan River area of Rizal province. The name of the language they were researching was called Tagarug. The speakers refered to themselves as "Sinauna" (original). Thirsty for more information, I finally got into contact with Dr. Dar after New Year's 2004.

Dr. Dar told me about the story how he and Dr. Llamzon went about looking for this language. They took some notes and made a Swadesh list (list of words). Unfortunately, Dr. Dar immediately left the Philippines when martial law was instituted by Marcos in the 1970's, so all his notes are gone.

There seem to be some discrepancies which add to all these mysteries.

First, Ethnologue lists a language called Remontado Agta. It's classified in the same subgroup as Kapampangan and the Sambal languages. Also, its alternate names are Hatang-Kayey and Sinauna. Dar told me that Llamzon would shorten the name to Sinauna rather than Tagarug, and that is the name that stuck with SIl and the Linguistic Society of the Philippines.

However, Dar said that the Tagarugs were certainly not Agtas or Negritos.

Second, Dr. Lawrence Reid mentioned in a mailing list that there are people called Sinauna Tagalog (Original Tagalog) in Tanay, Rizal province. This variety shared the pronoun tamu (we; tayo in Tagalog) with Kapampangan.

Third, I have a paper written in 1973 by Dr. Llamzon called The Importance of Dialects in historical Linguistics: Conant's Pepet Law as a Case in Point. He mentions a dialect called "Puray Tagalog" which has the "schwa vowel" found in other Philippine languages. It is spoken in the town of Montalban, Rizal.

Fourth, Dar showed me excerpts of a master's thesis by Pilar Santos. She identifies the Sinauna Tagalog-speaking area to be in: Barangay Daraitan in Tanay, Rizal as well as barangay Kaybilukay, Makidata, Paymihuan, and Pinutian, which are only available by foot. She mentions that Llamzon researched these areas. (so I guess that rules out the third reason above). She says that Tagalog is not intelligible with Sinauna Tagalog.

So are we dealing with 3 different languages or one different one? Unfortunately, I have no native speaker texts of this language, so it is hard to tell.

I do have some words. Mark Rosenfelder's Zompist.Com has Sinauna Tagalog. The numbers are: isâ, dar-á, tatlú, á-pat, limá, á-num, pitú, walú, siyám, sangpú.

I also have my own copy (bought it in a place in India, of all places) of Fe Aldave Yap's A Comparative Study of Philippine Lexicons (I reviewed it here), and there are Sinauna Tagalog words. Yap says it's spoken in Tanay, Rizal.

Many of the Sinauna Tagalog words resemble Tagalog, which is probably due to contact with Tagalogs. But there are words that are different.

They are:

SinaunaTagalog	Tagalog	English
pamahaw	almusal	breakfast
ba'bak	ahas	snake
kumawat	umakyat	to climb
alahipan	alipin	slave
dunut	amoy	smell
anaya	ano	what
aydaw	araw	day
atap	atip	roof
migbunu	mag-away	to fight
bayi	babae	woman
ba'yu	bago	new
ubon	bata	child
ngusu	bibig	mouth
mabayat	mabigat	heavy
buak	buhok	hair
burak	bulaklak	flower
minadunut	bulok	rotten
sabud	bundok	mountain
hayin	dahon	leaf
aramay	daliri	finger
rangbun	marami	many
landap	dinig	hear
a'bang	gutom	hunger
a'dong	ilong	nose
sarapaw	lumpiad	to fly
marukas	masama	bad
ngatte	ngayon	today
bitiis	paa	foot
itit	puki	vagina
pig'i	puwet	butt
kanana	saan	where
si'na	sino	who

That's the gist of it ... there's more. But it still would be nice to have actual sentences because the words alone do not tell the whole story.

Also, to make matters more mysterious - Dar mentions that he saw on a map called "The Filipino People" - released by the National Museum in the 1970's - that there are people who call themselves Tageilog in Quezon province.

Google reveals this page. It's an altername for DUMAGAT: Kabulowen language. It gives the Ethnologue code of Alta, Southern. However, the Tageelog/Tageilog names aren't mentioned.

It makes me wonder who the original Tagalogs really were. Could it be that Southern Luzon was populated by these Tageilogs and Tagarugs, and then the Central Filipinos came in from the Visayas and adopted the name of these people and conquered their land and intermarried with the locals? Who knows. I could only speculate. If only there were evidence.

Book Review: Central Tagbanwa

2005-08-06T23:22:00.000-07:00

This entry is the fourth in a series of articles in the first annual Seven-Day Salita Blogathon. For more information, please see this entry.

The second book I ordered from SIL is Central Tagbanwa: A Philippine Language on the Brink of Extinction by Robert Scebold.

Central Tagbanwa is a language spoken in northern Palawan. It is a member of the Meso-Philippine group of languages. Other branches in this family include the Central Philippine languages, which is a very large group of widespread and well-known languages such as Tagalog, Cebuano, and Bikol. Ethnologue reports that 2,000 people spoke it in 1985. According to Scebold on page 7, he "estimated the total Tagbanwa population to be between 800 and 1000." While the number reduced by 50%. But there are a couple of caveats. The Philippine census counts 16,300 Tagbanwa speakers, however there are different varieties of Tagbanwa. Also, there may be other Tagbanwas outside the area he researched. Despite this, the results are alarming.

I care about language extinction. And I care for their preservation and the rights of their respective speakers to use them in any possible way. In 163 pages this book succeeds in its two missions - to give us a detailed status of the language as well as to describe the languages for those of us language geeks who are interested in such things.

In the first two chapters, he gives important background on Central Tagbanwa's history and present situation. Interestingly enough, he says that two SIL linguists "discovered" the language in the course of their research in 1979. He places the blame on why Central Tagbanwa is a language destined to death. He points to other Filipinos who migrated to Palawan. He also points to the American presence and education system from 1898-1946. He also points to the Japanese occupation during WWII. In chapter two he outlines his methods for getting a rough estimate of Central Tagbanwa speakers. Three Central Tagbanwa are presented as case histories. Also, most of Scebold's research was in Barangay Binga, San Vicente, Palawan.

Scebold did a good job on the third chapter, phonology. Central Tagbanwa posseses four vowels; one of which is a high central vowel. This is surprising, considering that the fourth vowel in other Philippine languages such as Ilokano and Kinaray-a is a high back unrounded vowel. The fourth Central Tagbanwa vowel is similar in pronunciation to the Russian letter ы as in язык (yazihk, meaning "language"). This sound is also found in Romanian, represented by the letters â and î as in the word română (meaning, "Romanian").

Also, there appears to be an extra consonant. He interprets this consonant with the Greek "beta" - β. It is technically called a "voiced bilabial fricative" and a weakened version of it exists as a variant of the Spanish /b/. He admits that there is "trace evidence" for this particular phoneme and points to words such as /bulβol/ which has both sounds. Furthermore, he says that native speakers prefer writing this sound as the letter v. Judging from the examples in which this letter is found, I have reason to believe that it is simply an allophone and that there are certain environments where this is pronounced in. But, I have never heard spoken Central Tagbanwa, so I cannot say for sure. I should note, that [β] exists in Tausug as an allophone and I can hear the sound loud and clear in spoken Tausug.

With 50 pages, chapter 4 is the largest chapter in the book. He deovtes this chapter to a "brief" grammatical sketch of the language. He outlines each grammatical concept with an explanation and some sample sentences. The sample sentences include a phrase in Central Tagbanwa, followed by a breakdown of the morphemes, then a word-for-word translation, and finally a free English translation. Here is an example:

"4.2.1.1. Noun Marking Particles"

"Nominative noun markers are used to mark the participants in focus in verbal clauses, and to mark topics in nonverbal clauses.."

"(49)Ti Andres ay ipagamot niya ka doctor.
ti Andres ay i-=pa-=gamot niya ka doctor
N Andrew COP NB.NAF=CAUS=medicine 3SG O doctor

'He will have Andrew treated by a doctor.'"

"(50)Doon ka Malaya ti Beto.
doon ka Malaya ti Beto
D30 O Malaya N Beto

'Beto is over there in Malaya.'"

"(51)Ka Puerto napadong ya barko.
ka Puerto na-=padong ya barko
O Puerto POT.CMP.AF=dock N ship

'The ship docked in Puerto."

Chapter 5 is a sort of mini-dictionary. It's not intended to be a comprehensive dictionary. It is two-way, English-Central Tagbanwa and vice-versa.

Excerpts:

Central Tagbanwa-English

biring v. to be astonished. Nabiring kanya ing ono ya pogdikal. He was astonished, wondering what shone with such luster.

English-Central Tagbanwa

pig bavoy

And finally, the end of the book features an appendix which contains three stories. They were contributed in February of 2000 by Roberto Lerona. The stories are "The Tagbanwa Man Who Found Gold", "The Boy That Was Gotten by a Crocodile", and "Conservation about the Ashfall from Mt. Pinatubo."

Here is a photo of the book. It was published in 2003 and SIL is selling it for just $5.70

To Robert Scebold and other people who make books about Philippine languages - keep'em comin'!

13 Major Languages And Numbers in Ilokano and Kapampangan

2005-08-05T23:22:00.000-07:00

This entry is the third in a series of articles in the first annual Seven-Day Salita Blogathon. For more information, please see this entry.

A little more than a year ago, I wrote an entry titled Eight Major Languages No More. My intention was to update the oft-repeated claim that there are "eight major dialects (sic)" because they are based on at least one million speakers.

With the release of the 2000 Census figures, I found that there were 12 instead of four.

The ball started in 2002 when linguist Jason Lobel added up census figures for towns he knows speaks certain languages. In the end he came up with 12 languages.

I did the same thing when the National Statistics Office released their mother tongue statistics and I myself came up with 12 languages.

But Jason's and my 12 languages did not match. He had forgotten Tausug and I had neglected the Southern Bikol language.

Yes, I did have Bikol in the list. But a fellow member in another mailing list I belong to reminded me by asking me if Bikol was like Visayan - a language group rather than a single language. The answer is yes, but on a smaller scale. There are 4 Bikol languages in contrast with Visayan's 3 dozen.

So, I did a recount of the Bikol speakers.

Northern Bikol (includes the Naga & Legazpi) standards number over 2.1 million.

Southern Bikol has over 1 millino speakers. I compared Northern and Southern Bikol here.

Bisakol (Visayan Bikol), which includes Masbatenyo, has about 850,000 speakers(!).

Northern Catanduanes Bikol has 80,000 speakers.

Total: About 4 million.

The census lists 4.5 million speakers throughout the Philippines, so there are a half-million speakers unaccounted for. The figures I cited above are those who speak it within the Bicol region.

But if I allocate the figures proprotionately (52.5% of 500,000 + 2.1 million), that gives Northern Bikol about 2.4 million speakers. Southern Bikol has 1,125,000.

In other news, I explored the number systems again in two Philippine languages; Kapampangan and Ilokano. I looked up grammars that date to the Spanish era. They did count their numbers similar to the way Tagalogs and Warays did.

Page 205 of Diego Bergaño's early-18th century Arte de la lengua Pampanga it mentions that there is adwang pulu for 20 however 21 is mekatlung metung. 31 is mekapat. 91, however, is mecarinalan metung. The rootowrd use is dinalan, meaning 100.

Bergaño admitted that Kapampangans also counted the "Spanish way" - adwang pulu ampun metung instead of mekatlung metung.

Bergaño gave examples of higher, more complex numbers.

387,000 - mekapat walung libu pitung dalan
67,853 - mekapitung libu walung dalan ampon mecanam atlu
425,000 - lawit apat a laksa't mekatlung limang libu
914,257 - lalung siyam a laksa't macapat apat a libu at adwang dalan ampun mekanim pitu

For Ilokano, I refered to page 31 of Francisco López Gramática ilocana

With Ilokano, they started with the teens!

So, rather than saying sangapulo ket maysa for eleven (Tagalog: labing-isa), they said kanikadua pullot maysa. The rootword of kanikadua is dua, which is the number 2.

Some more numbers -

21 - kanikatlo pullot maysa
22 - kanikatlo pullot dua
31 - kanikappat a pullot maysa
41 - kanikalima pullot maysa
51 - kanikannem a pullot maysa
61 - kanikapito pullot maysa
71 - kanikawalo pullot maysa
81 - kanikasiam a pullot maysa
91 - kanikagasut iti maysa
100 - sangagasut
101 - kanikadua gasut iti maysa OR ma
111 - kanikadua gasut iti kanikadua pullot maysa

Interesting stuff! I tried looking for Cebuano & Hiligaynon examples, but there are no resources in the online archives.

Counting in pre 20th-century Tagalog and Waray-Waray

2005-08-04T19:54:00.000-07:00

This entry is the second in a series of articles in the first annual Seven-Day Salita Blogathon. For more information, please see this entry.

I belong to a mailing list devoted to Baybayin, the script used by certain Philippine ethnic groups (such as the Tagalogs and the Visayans) until the earlier portion of Spanish rule in the Philippines.

One of the members is Paul Morrow, who resides in in Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada. He runs the Sarisari website devoted to Baybayin and other subjects relating to the Philippines.

A month ago, Paul announced that he had posted two 17th-century Baybayin documents on his website. The first one was written in 1613 and the other was supposedly written in 1615.

Paul pointed out that Dr. Ignacio Villamor - the man who transliterated the documents in 1922 - translated "may ikatlong lima" as 15. The rationale was "three fives" equal fifteen.

Having previously encountered this construction in old Tagalog grammars, I concluded that Dr. Villamor was incorrect in his translation. The correct translation is 25. So the document was written in 1625. Many Filipinos today are unaware that Tagalog speakers used a different way of counting in their language.

In Tagalog, the word for 20 is dalawampu. To say 21, we say dalawampu't isa. 22 is dalawampu't dalawa, and so on.

In pre-20th century Tagalog, 20 was written as dalovang povo. In modern spelling (which I will use throughout for simplicity), dalawang puwo.

However, for the numbers 21-29, there was a choice. To say 21, one could choose dalawang puwo't isa which is how it is said today or maykatlong isa (originally written: meycatlon isa).

If you speak Tagalog, you can see that the rootword of maykatlo is tatlo, meaning 3. You may ask, if it is 21, then why is there a 3 in there?

The answer is that the Tagalogs had another way of looking at their numbers back then.

Look below,

01 - 10 constitute the first group of ten.
11 - 20 constitute the second group of ten.
21 - 30 constitute the third group of ten. 25 has the third five, hence it is maikatlong lima.

Note that the maika- series is not used for the first and second groups of ten. 5 is simply lima while 15 is labinlima.

Here are the rest of the numbers until 100.

31 - maykapat isa
41 - maykalimang isa
51 - maykanim isa
61 - maykapitong isa
71 - maykawalong isa
81 - maykasiyam isa
91 - maykaraan isa

Now, 91 appears to be irregular. The root word of maikaraan is daan, meaning 100.

Furthermore, this way of counting wasn't restricted to the those numbers. It extended into the hundreds and into the thousands.

100 is the same now as it was then - either sandaan or isang daan.
101 - 199 were constructed with labi sa raan. so, labi sa raan isa., labi sa raan dalawa, etc. Today we usually say sandaan at isa, sandaan at dalawa, etc.

Also, 200, 300, 400, 500, all the way to 900 were said as they are said now; dalawandaan (dalawang daan), tatlundaan (tatlong daan), and so on.

However, 201-299, 301-399, 401-499, and so on used a system similar to above.

201 - maykatlong isa (today: dalawang daan at isa)
355 - maykapat na daan maykanim lima (today: tatlong daan at limampu't lima)

I wanted to translated 999, but would 900 be maykaraan or maykalibo?

Update: I checked out the 1832 Arte y Reglas de la lengua tagala and 901-999 are indeed prefixed by maykalibo. So 999 would be maykalibong maykaraang siyam.

The thousands were the same.

1000 - sanglibo
1001 - labi sa libong isa
2000 - dalawang libo
2001 - maykatlong libong isa
10,000 - sanglaksa
10,001 - labi sa laksa isa
20,000 - dalawang laksa
20,001 - maykatlong laksa
100,000 - sangyuta
100,001 - labi sa yutang isa
200,000 - dalawang yuta
200,001 - maykatlong yutang isa

And one million was either sang-angawangaw or sampuwong yuta.

Paul pointed out to me the section in Fr. Benjamin Totanes's 18th-century Arte de la lengua tagalog (Art of the Tagalog language) talking about the numbers. I found a sentence that was particularly interesting:

"Aunque ya con la comunicación de los españoles, muchos cuentan como nosotros, y así dicen: Dalauáng pouó at isá, veinte y uno. Sang dáan at isá, ciento y cinco. Limáng dáang dalauáng pouó at limá, quinientos y veinte y cinco, y así de los demás números."

In English -

"Although now with the comunication with the Spaniards, many of them count like us, so thus they say: dalawang puwo at isa, twenty-one. Sang daan at isa, one hundred five. Limang daang dalawang puwo at lima, 525, and it is that way with the rest of the number."

So, the stage was set 300 years ago for Tagalogs to start counting the European way.

I was curious if this system existed in other languages. I have only checked Waray-Waray so far. Thanks to Harvey Fiji, I have a copy of Arte de la lengua bisaya de la provincia de Leite (Art of the Visayan language of the province of Leyte), written by P. Domingo Ezguerra in in 1747.

The short answer - it was indeed used in Waray-Waray. On page 67, it mentions how to make ordinal numbers. It goes on to say in the the towns of "Oton and Palapag, they add the lower number in this way."

The examples they give are:

24 - may icacatloan nga upat OR hingangatloan nga upat.
18 - icacaduhaan na iduha OR hingarohaan na iduha
33 - pipito na ihingapatan

But there seems to be a discrepancy. 24 appears to be literally "20 and 4" but 18 appears to be "2 less than 20" and 33 is "7 less than 30."

Unfortunately, Ezguerra does not go into more detail.

I plan on checking to see Spanish-era grammars for other Philippine languages to see what I can find out.

Book Review: A Masbatenyo-English Dictionary by Elmer Wolfenden

2005-08-03T20:24:00.000-07:00

This entry is the first in a series of articles in the first annual Seven-Day Salita Blogathon. For more information, please see this entry.

Back in February I ordered three books from the Summer Institute of Linguistics. I waited until May to find out what was going on, only to find out that they had mailed the books in March and should've arrived in April. I e-mailed again in July, and they sent them to me again. They arrived in a matter of days from the Philippines. So now, I finally have my books.

One of these three books is Elmer P. Wolfenden's A Masbatenyo Dictionary-English Dictionary, published in 2001.

Dr. Wolfenden has been studying Philippine languages for over 50 years. One page mentions that he was a Bible translator for the Isnag language in northern Luzon back in 1954. I first encountered his name in his 1971 Hiligaynon Reference Grammar.

In any case, the Masbatenyo dictionary itself will not disappoint. It is over 736 pages. And is a culmination of work by Dr. Wolfenden from 1972 to 1992.

The first few pages of the book mentions Masbatenyo's known history and genetic classification to other Philippine languages. He considers the language very close to the Bisakol of Sorsogon in Bikol and he considers their grammars to be close to Hiligaynon. Masbatenyo itself has a lot of influence from Bikol, Waray-Waray, Cebuano, Hiligaynon, and Tagalog which is why, he states, that "many semantic concepts in Masbatenyo can be expressed by from two to five alternate and different words for a single concept." Dr. Wolfenden also identifies three major dialects of Masbatenyo.

He does a good job of explaining Masbatenyo phonology, however my complaint is that he uses a modified - and in my humble opinion, rather odd - system of the Tagalog accent marks throughout the book. It is not a major obstacle, but it takes a while to get used to. For example, he writes tàóy when simply taóy will do. Furthermore, he uses a similarly modified version of IPA notation where he puts the accent mark before the vowel rather than before the syllable; i.e., [k'ita`] rather than ['kita`]. Again, not a major obstacle but it is odd.

Although it probably is not necessary, I am extremely grateful that Dr. Wolfenden included a very meaty grammatical sketch of Masbatenyo. He was very thorough; he devoted pages 11 through 82 to give his readers a thorough treatment of Masbatenyo grammar.

He puts the various articles, demonstrative & personal pronouns, and verbs in easy-to-read tables. I myself am a fan of looking at these tables, which are found in articles concerning Philippine languages. He makes it easy to compare the differences between Masbatenyo and other languages.

For good measure, he includes several example sentences outlining the words found in these table. For example, under the table for genitive pronouns he has these examples:

31. Kun igwa sin itlog ginabaligya man gihapon ninda.
If there-are eggs they are-selling them also.

32. An tiya ko an akon maninay.
My aunt-is my godmother.

33. Damo kami na urupod kaya kasurusadya namon.
We-excl had many companions so we-excl were-very-happy.

Another pecularity by Wolfenden, as evidenced by the above three examples are the dashes that connect these words. Again, this is used throughout the dictionary. In a nutshell, these are to show that these phrases are one word in Masbatenyo. Somehow, I think it's unnecessarily distracting, but I guess they are used in aiding the reader.

Dr. Wolfenden certainly covered a lot of ground; his grammatical sketch more than satisfied my curiosity and it also gave me some more insight about the nature of Visayan languages.

As for the actual dictionary itself, it is divided into two sections. Pages 85 - 531 is composed of the Masbatenyo-to-English section. What I like is that he sorts the entries by rootwords. He further includes subentries if the word has a different meaning based on a particular infix - many touristy-targeted dictionaries for Philippine languages do not do this.

Here are two sample entries:

miya [míyà] n. cat. Pakauna an miya. Have the cat eat. Syn: iding 'cat'. magpamiya-míya v [c2]. MAG- act. act cat-like. Nagapamiya-miya si Nino sa sini. Nino acted-like-a-cat in-the movie.

tangkas [tángkas] v [c8]. MAG- ag; -ON pat; -AN goal/ben; I- acc.
tangkasón v. be removed, be extracted, be detached. Nano kay gintangkas mo an mata san manika?. Why did you remove the eye of-the doll. Lit: Why was the ey of-the doll removed by-you? Dili mo pagtangkason an imo habay kay basi magsakit an imo tiyan. Do no tremove your girdle because your stomach might become-painful.
pagtángkas n. detaching, releasing, freeing. Nadugay an pagtangkas san iya matris. The detaching of her uterus took-a-long-time.
paratángkas n. remover. One whose job is to remove something.
pangtángkas n. remover, eradicator. Refers to a tool or solution. Adi an pangtangkas san mantsa. Here is the stain remover.

Pages 533-734 include the English-Masbatenyo portion of the dictionary. The entries themselves are numerous, but carry less information, which seems to be the norm among the English section of a Philippine-language dictionary.

Here is an example.

when adv. san₁; conj. kun (1); interr prn. san-o; rel prn. kun sán-o, Cf; san-o.

All in all, this dictionary was well worth the money. At $22.50, it was a great bargain. It is my hope that Masbatenyo literature will grow. The sad thing is that on page 3, Dr. Wolfenden states "... this dictionary is only the second published work on the Masbatenyo language." This book I have is just the second? I am hoping that it will not be the last.

Sale on my Tausug Book & Salita Blogathon!

2005-08-02T21:06:00.000-07:00

My dear readers (do I have any left?),

I am having a summer sale on my Tausug book. But before I let the general public know about it, I am going to let readers of my blog know first.

Paperback copies of my book are now on sale for $19 if you're a resident of the United States. Shipping is included. It was originally $24.50. If you're interested, please e-mail me at csundita@gmail.com This sale is for summer only. If you're not in the United States, e-mail me for shipping rates. It shouldn't be expensive. It's like $4.50 to mail my book to the Philippines, I learned.

Since I have been neglecting this blog lately, I've been feeling guilty. To make up for this abuse, I am going to have a 7-day Salita Blogathon. This is not affiliated with the Blogathon that is raising money for charity.

I am going to write one article a day for the next seven days. This is something that I am going to commit to. I don't know what I am going to write yet, but there will be a mix of essays, book reviews, analyzing certain Philippine languages, and whatever. The point is, I have to write something of substance once a day for the next seven days.

Am I crazy? I guess so! I still have homework and I am also in the process of writing a couple of articles for Wikipedia.

I am going to start the Salita Blogathon tomorrow on Wednesday, August 3rd, 2005 and ends on Tuesday, August 9th, 2005. So this post does not count.

So, if you're into Philippine languages the next seven days will be a treat. :-) Spread the word!

See you tomorrow,

--Chris

MUTDA: Mga Tulang Asi

2005-07-02T18:15:00.000-07:00

I apologize again for the length of time between posts. I attribute this to being busy with school and work (and partly to laziness, but don't tell anyone. Ok?). I am off from work for the next six weeks, and there are a bunch of projects that I'd love to get finished during this summer.

I am in school again and am currently taking French, statistics, and political science for the summer quarter. My spring quarter grades surprised me. They were much better than my winter quarter grades; I got a 4.0! So, I was extremely happy. Usually there's that one cursed B that ruins the whole streak. Hopefully I can pull this off again, but statistics, which involves math, really isn't my forté.

Moving on... During my hiatus from this blog, I purchased a copy of a poetry anthology in the Asi language of Romblon province. The title is Mutda: Mga Tulang ASI (Pearl: Asi poems). It was compiled by Ishmael Fabicon, a native of Banton Island whom I first met over 5 years ago in a Bikol mailing list. Lyndon Fadri and Abner Famiano also edited the anthology.

Asi is really a minority language; a little over 70,000 people speak it. So it's a real treat to have a publication in a minority language such as this since they are really hard to come by.

Here's a song that was included in the anthology. It's Kita Ay Magsadya by Quirino Ferranco.

Kita ay magsadya ag magkanta
Sa tunog, sonata't gitara
Kasubo'y war-on sa hunahuna
Maglibang kita sa kasadya
Masri kali'k damot, Oh palangga
Ag puso nakong nagyuyuha
Pag ako pinisil, kaling imo damot
Di ka mahangit it kaling pakipot

Maasran ka ak yuha
It ako mga mata
Ka naging dahilan, buksi ka ak rughan
Nak ka ak paghigugma ay gikan

Cool, huh?

What I love about Asi is its historical phonology as far as its consonants are concerned; I think this is why it is tentatively considered a separate branch in the Visayan language family.

Linguist Jason Lobel explained Asi's consonants in his Sanrokan paper, but I'll give a brief run-down here.

Many of the words that normally start with /d/ in other Philippine languages like Tagalog, are rendered as /r/. So rather than dagat, isda, and sunod there is ragat, isra, and sunor.

Where other Philippine languages have /l/, Asi has /y/. So there is yamig, yang, suyat, mahay, and wayo for lamig, lang, sulat, mahal, and walo.

Medial /y/ in most Philippine languages is /d/ in Asi. Examples: hadop (hayop), maado (maayo), nidog (niyog), and sida (siya).

And then there are a lot of familiar words that have undergone at least two of these changes: badar (bayad), raya (dala), layo (yado), and yud-a (luy-a).

What a beautiful language - I hope there will be more Asi books in the future.

Waray Songs & Contractions

2005-05-17T21:17:00.000-07:00

Just a quick update.

So I have a collection of songs in Tagalog (of course), Bikol (in the Viracnon & Legazpi dialects), Cebuano, Ilokano, Pangasinan, one in Hiligaynon (I think), and now I have a CD in Waray-Waray.

It's called Lubi-Lubi & Other Waray Folksongs.

Brackets indicate where I fixed the spelling, where known.

There are 12 songs: Lubi-Lubi, An I[r]oy nga Tuna, Daw Nasusunod, Kon Harapit na An Adlaw Matunod, Di Ak Nahuhulop, An Bulan, An Lubi, [Ginhilom] Ko, Lawiswis Kawayan, [An] Mga Hoyohoy, Limukon ug Punay, and Daw Sugad Hin Bukad.

The singers are the Mabuhay Singers. So it has that familiar traditional feeling.

One day I'd like to see pop songs in minority Philippine languages. I understand there is Cebuano rap!

And something linguistic related. I noticed one of the titles is Di Ak Nahuhulop (I am not discouraged). Until fairly recently (say, last year or so), I always associated the di ak part with Ilokano, which is written diak. So when I first bought the CD today, I was wondering why there was an Ilokano song on it. :-D

Anyway, Waray-Waray usually contracts pronouns.

ako (first person singular, absolutive) becomes ak. And in some cases, usually after a vowel, it's simply k.

kami (first person, exclusive plural, absolutive) becomes kam

kita (first person, includive plural, absolutive) becomes kit

nakon (first person singular, ergative) becomes either nak or ko.

nimo (second person singular, erg.) becomes nim or mo

imo (second person singular, oblique) becomes im

In Tagalog, it happens less frequently, it seems. I personally contract ako to ko following a word that ends in /a/. Cebuano does anywhere regardless. Also ninyo (2nd person plural ergative) is contracted to nyo.

Speaking of Cebuano, I am still sometimes confused by its speakers' contractions. KO could either come from AKO (1st person sg., absolutive) or NAKO (1st person sg., erg.). NAKO from either KANAKO or NAKO. The same with MO/KANIMO/NIMO and other oblique pronouns resembling ergative ones.

That's all for now.

Changes to Ethnologue

2005-05-01T00:16:00.000-07:00

SIL has recently made some changes to its Ethnologue. It's now in its 15th edition.

I was curious to see if there were any changes to its page on the languages of the Philippines. The first I noticed is that where were no longer 169 living languages as stated in the 14th edition, but instead there were now 171. And instead of three extinct languages, there were now *gasp* four.

Unfortunately, there appears to be no way of automatically seeing what the changes are, so I had to manually make a comparison between the two versions.

So, here are my findings. Please direct any corrections to me.

Reclassifications

Seven of the existing languages were renamed.

Bontoc, South is now Finallig
Sama, Abaknon is now Inabaknon
Adasen is now Itneg, Adasen
Kalanguya, Keley-i is now Kallahan, Keley-i
Magindanaon is now Maguindanao
Sama, Balangigi is now Balangigi

Extinctions

One language was removed from the living languages portion and moved down to the extinct language. This language is Agta, Villa Viciosa formerly spoken in Abra Province.

Additions

There were three additions.

Itneg, Banao
Itneg, Moyadan
Filipino

Filipino?! I was surprised to see Filipino. If you've been reading my posts for a while, you know that I consider Filipino a dialect of Tagalog. But upon further investigation of the language tree, Filipino has been grouped as a dialect of Tagalog along with the current Tagalog dialects. I don't think that's an accurate way of putting it. Neither do I think Filipino merits its own entry.

On related news, I've ordered some books from SIL-Philippines. One of them is a Masbatenyo dictionary. But it's taking so long for them to arrive. SIL told me they sent it via airmail on March 7th, but it's already May. I hope they didn't get lost or anything. I had to pay extra for airmail shipping so they'd get here quickly instead of 2-6 months.

Until next time...

Old Books on Philippine Languages Available Online

2005-04-10T17:36:00.000-07:00

Hi folks, it's been a while!

I recently completed the winter quarter of college and I did really well! I'm glad, I was seriously pessimistic about my grades. Anyway, I just started the Spring Quarter about two weeks ago and have been busy - it's a good thing I just had a week off from work for Spring Break. I am currently taking a composition class, psychology, and 2nd-year French. I need French and another language as requirements for the linguistics major. I plan on taking three quarters of Korean starting in the fall.

Anyway, last month ding_eab (what happened to his blog?) told me about important historic documents about the Philippines avilable online. They're available from the University of Michigan under the theme The United States and its Territories: 1870-1925.

This collection is extremely impressive. It's something that I have been waiting for. You and I now have instantaneous access to old books about the Philippines. But also, it helps knowing Spanish. Many of the books are from the Spanish colonial era and many books are aimed at Spaniards who wish to know Tagalog, Cebuano, Kapampangan, and whatever else. However, the are also books about the Philippines in English, Dutch, German, and French.

Here is just a small sample of what they have:

Tagalog - Vocabulario de la lengua tagala compuesto por varios religiosos doctos y graves

Bikol - Vocabulario de la lengua Bicol
Pangasinan - Diccionario pangasinan-español
Kapampangan - Arte de la lengua Pampanga

Ibanag - Agguiammuan tac cagui gasila ó gramática ibanag-castellana

Akeanon - Publications in Aklan dialect

Cebuano - Gramática bisaya para facilitar el estudio del dialecto bisaya cebuano

Waray-Waray - Diccionario español-bisaya para las provincias de Sámar y Leyte

Ilokano - Estudio del idioma Ilocano ante el Tagalo y el Bisayo

And there are plenty more. This site has proved useful in some recent debates with the HispanoFilipino group concerning the revision of the Tagalog alphabet as well as the supposedly insulting origins of the word Pinoy (there aren't).

This site has served a very useful on a very personal (i.e., genealogical) level for me. I managed to locate the police employment record of my Bicolano great-grandfather Lucio de los Santos Buenpacifico. According to my grandmother and her siblings, he was a policeman who held a high position. The records I found pertained to when he was a rookie on the Manila police force and was paid 440 pesos a month back in 1912. There's also a city directory for Manila in which I found the address of the house my great-grandfather lived in before he married my great-grandmother Antonia Javier Dakila. That was great and it's something I shared with my grandmother.

There are also Filipino-American magazines from the 1920's to the 1930's. It's fascinating to read about the manong generation recounting their lives here in the states.

On my current have-to-read-when-I-have-time-list is Shall the Philippines have a common language? An address .. delivered before the Catholic women's league of Manila August 31, 1931. by George Butte.

So check it out and pass it on to your friends! You will not be disappointed.

Studies in Philippine Linguistics available online!

2005-03-04T22:03:00.000-08:00

Man, it's already March. I'm kind of glad, because on the 15th is the end of the winter quarter at my college. I have so much stuff to do in the next 10 days. Then I'll be done, only to repeat the process for the spring quarter starting March 28th. I've already registered for classes, which I'll mention in a later post.

In any case, I've already known this for the past several weeks, but I waited to announce this until they've put a lot more issues up... SIL has converted their out-of-print journal Studies in Philippine Linguistics to PDF format and uploaded them to their website for everyone to download. For free!

They're available for your perusal at http://www.sil.org/asia/philippines/plb_download.html

Perhaps of particular interest are two articles about Tagalog. The first one is a very condensed version of Rosa Soberano's monograph The Dialects of Marinduque Tagalog. This one is my most favorite. It shows the grammatical features, such as conjugations, found in Visayan & Bikol languages that Luzon Tagalog lost but are preserved in Marinduque Tagalog. Though reportedly these features disappearing due to the popularity Manila Tagalog.

Another one of interest is Gloria Chan Yap's Hokkien Chinese loanwords in Tagalog. I liked this one a lot as well because it not only identifies the loanwords but also gives the hanzi (Chinese characters). This helped me in writing the section about foreign loanwords in Tagalog in the Wikipedia Article I wrote.

So enjoy. When I have time I'll be sure to check out the articles about Bolinao and Tina Sambal - two languages which are tentatively classified as being close to Kapampangan. Should be interesting

Wish me luck on my finals!

Lien du jour: Books on Philippine languages

2005-02-18T19:37:00.000-08:00

My friend/publisher/mentor/etc. Jason Lobel has opened a new website for his inventory of books he authored about the languages of the Philippines. Jason is currently obtaining his Ph.D. in linguistics at the University of Hawai'i at Manoa and has spent mid-2004 doing tons of linguistic research in the Central Philippines.

The URL is: http://www2.hawaii.edu/~lobel/

His newest book is Bikol Literature Anthology Volume Two, which he published along with my In Bahasa Sug book. I have volume 1 of his book and let me tell you it was a fascinating read. Jason went to libraries in the Bicol region and scoured decades-old, long-forgotten literary Bikol magazines to put into his anthology. These pieces were written from a different view and are thus of historical value especially for those, like myself, who have roots in Bicol.

Of greater historic interest are the old grammars and dictionaries authored by the Spanish centuries ago. Jason has archived them in CD form. There are CDs for Kapampangan, Cebuano , Pangasinan, and of course Bikol. The oldest of which is Bergaño's 1732 Kapampangan dictionary and 1736 grammar. I've only looked at similar publications for Tagalog and Waray-Waray, and it's interesting to see how much these languages have changed over the centuries.

Jason also has put books that he intends on publishing in the future. There's a polyglot Visayas phrasebook in the works; it'll include the three most-spoken Visayan languages - Cebuano, Hiligaynon, and Waray-Waray. I personally am looking forward to his book about the languages of Romblon.

Lien du jour: Austronesian Basic Vocabulary Database

2005-02-12T23:19:00.000-08:00

I recently borrowed Dr. Zorc's Core Etymological Dictionary of Filipino, which Sauvage Noble mentioned in his blog. Fascinating read and quite a refreshing change from poking my nose in non-linguistics textbooks for school. ;-) There are some Tagalog words that I hadn't realized were foreign borrowings via Malay (though can't remember them offhand...).

Anyway...

Here's today's link of the day (or at the frequency I post, perhaps link of the month!):

http://language.psy.auckland.ac.nz

I saw it mentioned in an AN-LANG post by Simon Greenhill. It is the Austronesian Basic Vocabulary Database. Even if it just opened up, it seems to be very comprehensive!

It is basically a database of common vocabulary words of Austronesian languages such as Philippine languages like Tagalog & Ibanag to non-Philippine ones like Madurese, Paiwan, and Hawaiian. Heck there's even Proto-Austronesian and Proto-Central Malayo-Polynesian.

The full list is here and as of now there are 282 languages, though there are new languages being added regularly. I hope it grows some more! Apparently many of the sources were culled from works by Drs. Bob Blust, Laurie Reid, David Zorc, and other Austronesian linguists.

And just for a start, you can see what the word for day is in other Austronesian languages.

The Filipino vs. Tagalog debate: Bisalog

2005-01-25T11:27:00.000-08:00

First I made some slight changes to my Obligatory Introductory Post.

I apologize for not having written in a while. I returned to school (taking three classes; history, math, & physics) and am still working, so I haven't had the right mood for writing any meaningful entries for this blog. I am at home, sick today. So I think I can muster up some strength to write an entry. ;-)

My blog has been mentioned in two other blogs recently; Languagehat & Sauvage Noble. I'm a regular reader of LanguageHat - the information about various languages in there simply fascinates me. I'll start reading Sauvage Noble, too, which is incidentally run by a Filipino named Angelo Mercado who's a doctoral student. I've read his blog on a couple of occasions, particularly when Language Log was having those "guess the language" quizzes. In any case, I'm grateful that they've mentioned my blog. :-) Welcome!

Anyway, I've been involved (again) recently in a bitter debate about the Philippine National Language, Filipino.

In a nutshell, Tagalog was chosen as the national language in 1937. In 1959, it was renamed to Pilipino (note the P). This was reaffirmed in the 1973 constitution (but set the spark to develop a language called Filipino). The 1987 made Filipino the national language, which "shall be further developed and enriched on the basis of existing Philippine and other languages."

From my understanding, this was supposed to be some sort of Philippine Esperanto but instead Tagalog was used the base while vocabulary from other Philippine languages was to be imported. And in a sense, it kind of has. There has been a Filipino dictionary (which I've not yet seen) published by the University of the Philippines that has imported these words. But judging from the examples that I have seen, they're not in common use.

Previously I said I debate with people about this. My view is that Filipino is a dialect of Manila Tagalog - it's virtually the Manila dialect. On the other hand, they believe that Filipino and Tagalog are two separate entities and they claim to be able to judge whether or not a sentence is in Tagalog or not. They have given me examples that they say is exclusively Filipino. But the examples are equally valid in Tagalog! I am guessing that while they see that Filipino is to be Tagalog with foreign borrowings, they see Tagalog as a language without any borrowings - even Spanish ones - and they point to the supposedly "pure" Tagalog of Batangas, Bulacan, or some rurale locale on the outer fringes of the Tagalog dialect continuum (standard Manila Tagalog & Filipino are somewhere in the middle.

If you've studied Philippine languages in depth, both you and I know that a pure Tagalog simply doesn't exist. Even before the arrival of the Spaniards, Tagalog absorbed many words from languages spoken in Luzon like Kapampangan, Ilokano, and Pangasinan. Even the Tagalog spoken in Batangas & Bulacan have their fair share of borrowings. Are these "Filipino," too?

So that is the gist of the debate. There's too much confusion and too much wishful thinking.

To further add to the confusion, someone sent this article about the Filipino dialect of Davao (down in Mindanao, far from Tagalog's homeland in Luzon) is being pushed as the Philippines' national language by outgoing University of the Philippines president Francisco Nemenzo.

Davao is home to many languages, the major ones are Davawenyo (a Central-Philippine language related to Mansakan), Davao Chabacano (a Spanish creole closely related to the Chabacano of Zamboanga), and Davao Visayan (essentially a Cebuano dialect).

This isn't the first time I've heard of Davao. It has come up in debates and I've been told that it's a whole different language. I've been under the impression that it's simply Tagalog with Visayan words thrown in. Someone has been able to locate a recent article written in Davao Tagalog. The article, written by Rene Lizada, is located here.

Here are some excerpts.

The second sentence of the first paragraph says:

Pumunta ako sa kalapit na park para mag dagan dagan
I went to a neighboring park to go running around.

Dagan (dalagan) is the Cebuano word. In Tagalog, it's takbo. And in the next sentences, takbo-takbo is used.

And the rest I'll put in a list. The Tagalog equivalent and an English translation is in parenthesis.

hoy bumaba ka na pare dahil kanina pa kaming naghulat (naghintay; wait) dito

tinali ang aso at nilipat yung iring (pusa; cat)

Wag kang bastos iba ang ibig kong sabihon (sabihin; say. In this case it was a different suffix)

Dahil malakas ang ulan ay inisip naming na mas mabut[i] kung muhawa na lang mi kay jusog[?] lagi ang ulan (umalis na lang kami kasi malakas[?]; ... for us to just leave because it's raining hard)!

And so on. If this is story is really representative of the Tagalog spoken in Davao, then to me it's nothing more than Tagalog as spoken by a Bisaya-speaking Davaoeño who codeswitches by putting Cebuano words into his Tagalog. In other words he's speaking what I affectionately call Bisalog (Bisaya & Tagalog). The randomness and word choice remind me of Taglish (Tagalog & English).

Furthermore this phenomenom is hardly exclusive to Davao. It exists everywhere in the Philippines where Tagalog is spoken as a second language. It is hardly new, either; this has been going on long before the existence of Filipino and Pilipino.

Maybe if people really want a national language for the Philippines that's really inclusive of other languages, they should just start from scratch.

A Philippine auxlang, anyone?

Hack?

2005-01-07T18:42:00.000-08:00

Looks like someone may be hacking me.

I wonder what they're looking for, though. There's no secret Philippine language stuff in my account. WYSIWYG here, folks. :-D

This email is a response to your request for information about your Blogger account. To regain access to your account, please click on the
following link:

http://www.blogger.com/XXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

Clicking on this link will take you to a web page that will let you choose a new password.

Happy New Year!

2004-12-31T18:15:00.000-08:00

To all of those who read my blog, I am wishing you and yours a Happy New Year!

Manigong Bagong Taon sa inyong lahat! (Tagalog)
Mabungahong Bag-ong Tuig kaninyong tanan! (Cebuano)
Narang-ay a Baro a Tawen kadakayo amin! (Ilokano)
Mahamungayaon nga Bag-ong Tuig sa inyong tanan (Hiligaynon)
Mamura-way na Ba-gong Taon sa indo gabos! (Bikol)
Masaplalang Bayung Banwa keko ngan! (Kapampangan)
Mainuswagon nga Bag-o nga Tuig ha iyo nga tanan! (Waray-Waray)
Maaligwas ya Balon Taon ed sikayon amin! (Pangasinan)
Mahigugmaon nga Bag-ong Dag-on kinyo tanan! (Akeanon)
Makasi Tahun Ba'gu kaniyu katantan! (Tausug)

Christmas greetings

2004-12-23T14:37:00.000-08:00

Christmas is almost here, so in the spirit of Christmas and in the spirit of the subject of this blog, here are Christmas greetings in various Philippine languages. If you have any greetings for languages not on this list or corrections, please feel free to contribute. Though I should note that I highly prefer greetings from native speakers and not the ones that come from those error-ridden lists on the internet.

Tagalog: Maligayang Pasko
Cebuano: Maayong Pasko
Ilokano: Naragsak a Paskua
Hiligaynon, Kinaray-a, Romblomanon, & Masbateño: Malipayon nga Paskwa
Bikol: Maogmang Pasko
Waray-Waray: Maupay nga Pasko
Kapampangan: Masayang Pasku
Pangasinan: Maabig ya Pasko
Akeanon: Maayad-ayad nga Paskwa
Asi: Maadong Paskwa
Onhan: Mayad nga Paskwa
Bolinao: Marigan Nabidad
Boholano: Malipajong Pasko
Philippine English: Meri Krismas :-)

Waray-Waray articles

2004-11-28T01:46:00.000-08:00

In this issue of Salita Blog, we'll explore the wonderful world of Waray-Waray markers and how they compare with other Philippine languages.

To put this into perspective, Tagalog has three markers that each fit into three categories: absolutive, which is represented by ang; ergative (genitive), which is represented by ng; and oblique, which is sa. We'll just concern ourselves with the first two categories. These are further divided into common and personal classes, and the ones I listed are the common ones which this blog entry will focus on.

For more information on Tagalog markers, check out the Wikipedia article I wrote about Tagalog grammar. But here are some examples:

Ang Republika ng Pilipinas. (The Republic of the Philippines)
Kumain ng mansanas ang lalaki. (The man ate some apples [actor focus])
Kinain ng lalaki ang mansanas. (The man ate some [object focus])

Ilokano has a simpler system. Ti covers both absolutive and ergative case when the verb is not in the actor focus. On the other hand iti is usually the oblique but if there is an actor focus verb, it marks the object.

Ti Republika ti Pilipinas.
Nangan ti lalaki iti mansanas. (actor focus)
Kinnan ti lalaki ti mansanas. (object focus)

Bikol has a more expanded system. an and si are both absolutive with si being the most "specific" of the two. Usually it refers to something that was already mentioned. nin and kan are the ergative counterparts, respectively. Tagalog has a similar system but on an ostensibly colloquial level; yung and nung. Examples for Bikol:

An Republika kan Pilipinas.
Nagkakan an lalaki nin mansanas. (The man ate some apples.)
Nagkakan si lalaki nin mansanas. (The man ate some apples. [This refers to a man that was already mentioned.])
Kinakan nin lalaki an mansanas. (The man ate the apple.)
Kinakan kan lalaki an mansanas. (The man ate the apple. [again, refering to a previously-mentioned man.)
Siisay an maduman sa Maynila?

Hiligaynon has only ang in the absolutive case but sing and sang in the ergative. Sing is indefinite while sang is definite.

Hiligaynon's system appears to be the norm among Visayan languages.

Ang Republika sang Pilipinas.
Nagkaon ang lalaki sing mansanas. (apples, indefinite)
Ginkaon sang lalaki ang mansanas. (man, definite)

Cebuano has what I find to be a peculiar system. ang is the absolutive marker but the indefinite one is 'y and appears only in certain constructions such as interrogative words. ug is the ergative marker and usually found when the verb is in the actor focus. Sa is the definitive ergative marker and the one used in genitive constructions. It is also the oblique marker, so from my Tagalog perspective it sounds odd to me.

Ang Republika sa Pilipinas.
Mikaon ang lalaki ug mansanas.
Gikaon sa lalaki ang mansanas.
Unsa'y gikaon nimo? (What did you eat?)

Now, on to Waray-Waray's very interesting system.

Waray-Waray not only has an definite and indefinite distinction, but also a temporal one! This means a distinction between past and the non-past.

Here's a run-down:

in - indefinite (all times)
an - definite past
it - definite non-past (present and future)

The genitive forms are simply the addition of h or s, depending on the dialect. I will use h since that is used in Tacloban.

In Tagalog, to express "a man called" one could say may tumawag na lalaki or tumawag ang isang lalaki; and yes, tumawag ang lalaki is also possible. In Waray-Waray, the indefinite article gets rid of the ambiguity, it'd be tinmawag in lalaki. May-ada tinmawag nga lalaki is also possible.

If it's definite, you say tinmawag an lalaki (The man called).

Other translations.

Natawag an lalaki = The man was calling. (note an, past definite)
Natawag it lalaki = The man is calling. (note it, non-past definite)
Matawag it lalaki = The man will call.

Matawag an lalaki is also possible and it could imply that the person being spoken to knows the man.

Translations of the phrases I used for other languages:

An Republika han Pilipinas.
Kinmaon an lalaki hin mansanas. (The man ate some apples).
Kinmaon an lalaki han mansanas. (The man ate the apples).
Kinaon han lalaki an mansanas. (The man ate the apples).
etc.

I find this really cool. I think it'd be great if Tagalog had a system (or dare I say had conserved a system?) like this. It's the complex things in a language which attract (and oftentimes, frustrate) me.

And that concludes today's entry, folks!

Tausug Book is Ready!

2004-11-22T18:23:00.000-08:00

For ordering information, please visit:

http://members.aol.com/linggwistik

Excellent news!!

2004-11-21T19:30:00.000-08:00

Dimatung na in mga buk ku!
Nag-abot na an sakuyang mga libro!
Simmangpeten dagiti librok!
Miabot na ang akong mga libro!
Sinmabi la saray librok!
Nag-abot na ang akon mga libro!
Dinatang na la reng libru ko!
Inmabot na an ak mga libro!
Dungmating na ang aking mga aklat!
Dumating na ang aking mga libro!

You can find out what the languages above are at the bottom of this post.

Anyway.

If you understood at least one of those sentences above, my Tausug books finally came! They came several days ago just as Jason and I were going to begin the process to submit the insurance claim and have a tracer investigation done at the post office. I'm so glad that we don't have to do that anymore. I was just jumping for joy when I saw the "you have a package" ticket at the post office.

I noticed the post office inspected my package, because it said so on a stamp. I am betting that was the cause for the delay. But I learned my lesson; opt for a more faster delivery method if ordering from Hawai'i.

In any case, the books are wonderful. The printer and the guy who did the covers did a great job! I really love looking at my books and have been showing them off to friends and relatives.

I am in the process of making a web page so it'll have all the pricing and shipping info. It will be ready by Tuesday.

For those of you who have requested to be on a waiting list for the books, I will contact you this week.

I've not had a lot of time lately, so I am glad that I have a four-day weekend coming up.

Of course, a very big thank you to Jason Lobel who's been with me on this project since day one, which was almost three years ago. The book started out as a very crude 4-page article back in March of 2002. Eventually it became an 80-page "monster." He suggested that I turn it into a book and he took care of having it published out in Camarines Sur then bringing them all the way to Hawai'i and ultimately here. I can never thank him enough.

I am extremely happy.

And the languages above are: Tausug, Bikol, Ilokano, Cebuano, Pangasinan, Hiligaynon, Kapampangan, Waray-Waray, 17th century Tagalog, and modern Tagalog. Corrections and additions (like other languages) would be appreciated. :-)

Bummed... and link of the day.

2004-11-10T05:18:00.000-08:00

The Tausug books I wrote still have not arrived. This coming Saturday will be week 7 already. I had a talk with the postal worker at my local post office and he said that was kind of odd, even for a package coming from Honolulu. He said to consider it lost and file the insurance claim.

And now I'm depressed about this.

But there is hope! I got in contact with eBay sellers who have experience mailing stuff; they have familiarity with how the US Postal Service operates. They said to fill out a "tracer" or more specifically, PS Form 1510 Mail Loss/Rifling Report. USPS will conduct an investigation to see where my package went. Usually they'll find the package in a back room, forgotten, or whatever.

In any case, the person who sent it, my friend Jason Lobel, has to initiate the search and I've already passed on the information to him on his voice mail last night.

I am keeping my fingers crossed. I am just glad I put insurance on it as well as a delivery confirmation number on it so I can make sure, via USPS's website, that it was not mistakenly delivered to whomever.

But seriously, how the hell can you lose 31 lbs of books!? This has been a frustrating experience for me. I've learned my lesson. Ship UPS or FEDEX.

And so sorry for the negative post, to make up for it I'll show you what I found last night: http://www.bohol.ph/books/Jimenez/EnglishBisayaGrammar.html

It's a grammar of Cebuano that was written in 1904. It was translated from Spanish to English. Very interesting. And when I have more time, I'll read it over more in depth.

20 Best Pangasinan Lovesongs

2004-10-10T22:16:00.000-07:00

This evening my family and I went to the nearest Philippine grocery store, which is about 25 miles away from the rural area where we live, to stock up on some Filipino goodies.

I decided to browse the music CDs and none really caught my eye until I saw a CD full of Bikol songs. I was going to get it until I saw the Pangasinan ones. I already have a lot of Bikol music so I went and ahead bought the Pangasinan one instead. It's called 20 Best Pangasinan Lovesongs Vol. 2.

The lady who helped me ask if I was from Pangasinan and Bikol. I told her that I study Philippine languages so she started speaking to me in Ilokano. So I got some practice; she didn't use difficult words and I just spoke in basic sentences. I didn't understand her when she spoke to her coworker, but it was awfully pleasant to listen to! I left her by thanking her with Agyamanak and she said you're welcome by saying Awan ania man. I wish I could practice Ilokano more with native speakers on a more frequent basis. Or any other Philippine language for that matter.

In any case, I am listening to the Pangasinan CD right now. It's hard to tell if they're native speakers. But they are pronouncing the schwa vowel e consistently.

The songs on this CD are: Pawlen Ta Ca, Saray Luluak, Matalag ya Agew, Bituen Tan Dua, Pawil Cala, Puson Nankasalanan, Mairap So Mangaro, Bituen Ko, Inan Maaro, Liwayway Bulan, Nalingwan, Puson Maermen, Nilamang Mo'y Arok, Pagbabawi, Lapud Sika, Napapagaan, Diad Kasal Ko, Pinagpabli Taka, Siknol na Aro, and Happy Birthday Bilay Ko.

By the way, the CD looks a lot like the Kapampangan love songs CD I have. But unfortunately, the Pangasinan one does not have lyrics included unlike the Kapampangan one.

PS: My blog was one of the 142 out of 365 blogs to make it to the semi-finals at the Philippine Blog Awards web site. Cool, eh?

PPS: I still have not received my books. Any day now it is expected to arrive. I'm anxious.

New Diversion: A Comparative Study of Philippine Lexicons

2004-09-29T19:54:00.000-07:00

Before I begin. To those of you who have sent me e-mails concerning ordering my book, this is just to let you know that I am in receipt of them. I intend on giving pricing and shipping information sometime after I receive the books within the next couple of weeks.

In the mean time, I have a new diversion. It's Fe Z. Aldave-Yap's A Comparative Study of Philippine Lexicons. It was published in 1977. It's a comprehensive book and it was just as I was looking for. I do own a copy of Dr. Lawrence Reid's Philippine Minor Languages: Word Lists and Phonologies, but it covers "only" 43 languages spoken mostly in Northern Luzon and Mindanao. Aldave-Yap's work expanded upon Dr. Reid's to a total of 80 languages spoken in the Philippines.

The similarities and differences vary depending on the word. For example, dila and its variants (i.e., zila, rira, jila, chila, hila, etc.) are common in about 77 of the languages listed. The other 3 use lengua (in the Zamboanga & Cavite variants of Chabacano) and limut of Kakidugen Ilongot.

For an example of the vast differences, here's the word for "face" in those languages which I posted to a mailing list today. The names and transcription methods used have been altered somewhat.

MUKHÂ - Aklanon, Tagalog, Tagarug Sinauna (a language that is related
more to Kapampangan than Tagalog), Mangyan Tadayawan
NUKÂ - Ibanag
MUKAT - Agta, Isneg

ÁNGAH - Amganad Ifugao, Keley-i Kallahan
ÁNGAS - Northern Kankanaey, Tiruray
ANGAH - Batad Ifugao, Bayninan Ifugao
BÁNGAS - Hanunoo

APÉNG - Balangaw
APÍNG - Guinaang Kalinga
PING, ÁPING - Guinaang Kalinga

BAHU' - Agusan Manobo
BÁNHU' - Dibabawon Manobo
BAYHU' - Samal, Tausug
BÁYHO' - Butuanon, Mamanwa
BÁYHO(N) - Masbateño, Waray-Waray
BAYU' - Siocon Subanon

GE'YA - Dibabawon Manobo
GYA - Kalagan
GUYÁ - Hiligaynon
UYAEN - Kalamian Tagbanwa
UYAHÓN - Aklanon, Buhid, Hanunoo, Romblomanon
PANGUYÁHEN - Kinaray-a
UYÉN - Kuyonon
UYO - Tboli

RANGÍ - Tiruray
LENGI - Maranao
LANGÁ - Ilokano
LANGLANGUAN - Ata Manobo, Tigwa Manobo

NÁWENG - Dibabawon Manobo
NAWÓNG - Hiligaynon, Waray-Waray, Cebuano
NAONG - Kinamigin (Camiguin)

MÚYUNG - Itawis
MUTÚNG - Ibanag
MÚTUNG - Gaddang

LÓPA - Guinaang Bontoc, Binongan Itneg, Botolan Sambal
LÚPA - Kayapa Kallan, Kapampangan, Pangasinan
RÚPA - Ilokano, Aborlan Tagbanwa
DOPA - Ibaloi

BENÉNG - Maguindanao
BÉNNENG - Obo Manobo

BÍAS - Maranao
BIYAS - Maguindanao, Tiruray

MUGING - Isneg
MÚYIÑ - Ivatan

GÁTI - Sarangani Sangil
HATI - Sangir

KAHIMÓ - Waray-Waray
KAIMU' - Mansaka

WALENG - Palawan Batak, Cagayano
WE'LENG - Binukid
WAYÓNG - Surigaonon

LALÁWGEN - Rinconada Bikol
LALÁWGON - Naga Bikol

ALITÁNG - Iraya Mangyan
BATUK - Tagbanwa
BAWA - Sarangani Manobo
BAWEH - Sarangani Blaan, Koronadal Blaan
BEHÁL - Balangaw
DAGWAY - Kinamigin
DANGOY - Ivatan
QA'NUP - Kakiudgen Ilongot
CARA - Zamoboanga Chabacano, Cavite Chabacano
KILAY - Kalamansig Cotabato Manobo (of forehead)
KEPIREKPIREK - Western Bukidnod Manobo
MAMMANG - Pamplona Atta
MATÂ - Casiguran Dumagat
MULU' - Sindangan Subanon
RÚSAY - Alangan Mangyan

The words are grouped by similarity. Those that cannot are at the end of the list. It's a great book. It's too bad that it's out of print.

Book Update!

2004-09-25T19:47:00.000-07:00

Jason called me from Honolulu this morning to informed me the has mailed 100 copies of my Tausug book. Allow 2 to 3 weeks for delivery.

What can I say? I'm very excited. I've been anticipating this for so long.

Today my grandma asked me "Gagawa ka pa ba ng ibang libro?" At ang sagot ko sa kaniya ay "Yep, those are my plans."

Eventually, at least.

Today's reading, which is very appropriate since Butuanon is Tausug's closest relative: Rescuing the Butuanon Language.

Filipino Classes at UH feel pinch

2004-09-07T20:47:00.000-07:00

My friend Kalani sent me the article in the link below.

http://starbulletin.com/2004/09/07/news/story4.html

I'm a bit surprised that this is happening at University of Hawai'i where leading linguists on Philippine languages have taught and continue to teach. Linguists such as Lawrence Reid and Bob Blust.

Here's hoping that things will work out. There don't appear to be programs like that in the states.

Yami

2004-08-29T01:41:00.000-07:00

I do know that the description of this blog is dedicated to the "the over 160 languages in the Republic of the Philippines." However, there is a language that is worth mentioning. It is part of the Philippine language family, and is particularly close to Ivatan and Itbayat of Batanes. This language is called Yami and it is spoken in Taiwan.

Taiwan is not only home to Chinese language such as Taiwanese, Mandarin, and Hakka but it is also home to Austronesian languages such as Atayal, Paiwan, Tsou, Rukai, Ami, and others. Yami is the only Austronesian language spoken in Taiwan that is considered part of the vast Malayo-Polynesian subfamily that includes languages as far west as Malagasy and as far east as Hawaiian and Rapa Nui.

Yami, Ivatan, and Itbayat belong to the Bashiic-Central Luzon-Northern Mindoro (henceforth, BCN) subfamily of the Northern Philippine branch. The most famous BCN language is one of the 12 most spoken languages in the Philippines, Kapampangan. The position of Kapampangan in this category is still pretty much shaky, but that's a whole other blog entry.

In any case, I have encountered a very interesting website dedicated to the Yami language. The URL is: http://www.uga.edu/~asian-lp/jpn_html/yami/content.html

Knowing that Yami is related to the languages of the Batanes Islands, I wondered if it was mutually intelligible with them. The third chapter, The Common Origin of Bashiic cultures answered that for me. Apparently if the speakers try speaking their respective languages without foreign borrowings then their mutual intelligiblity is highly increased. For an Ivatan, this meant avoiding Spanish, English, & Tagalog words and a Yami had to avoid using Chinese & Japanese words.

I found the following passage, under "intercomprehension", particularly fascinating:

... In 1986 I succeeded in taking along a Yami friend named Si-Mogaz (male, 39), when I traveled from Irala to Ivatan and to Itbayat. My main curiosity was to see how well, after several hundreds of years of isolation, they could communicate with each other. Now we had living people at hand with a strong desire to communicate, which made the testing of mutual comprehension very different from the previous attempts with the recordings. The results showed themselves within the first hours of conversation. Si-Mogaz felt uncomfortable with the negative form of the Ivatan verb and was somewhat discouraged by the Spanish and English loanwords. As the hours passed, however, his conversation became more self-confident and a few very clear communication behavior patterns started surfacing. Both sides had realized by then that Spanish, English, and Tagalog loanwords on the one side, or Chinese and Japanese loanwords on the other, did not work, so they started eliminating them by looking for synonyms in their own languages. This spontaneous, instinctive response caused an unusual feeling of excitement for the conversants, as if they had understood subconsciously that they were making efforts to reconstruct the language of their common ancestors. Almost every time they succeeded in finding a proper synonym for a native word or bypassed an acculturated element of their contemporary vocabulary by finding a commonly understood synonym, they had to pause to express their excitement by saying: "we are relatives indeed," or "we surely have common origin." In the case of those Spanish words for which there were no Ivatan synonyms, or which were so strongly embedded in usage that the Ivatans could not work their way around them, to my greatest amazement Si-Mogaz started picking them up. At the end of the day he was using correctly the word siguro, which comes from the Spanish "sure." In Ivatanen it is used for "perhaps" and there is no exact Yami equivalent for it. ...

Very cool. Please be sure to read the transcriptions of two stories in Yami to get a feel for the language and to see similarities with other Philippine languages; Nikapowan no tawo do yayo (The creation myth of Yayo) and Nikapowan no tawo do tawo d'Iranmilek (The Creation Myth of Iranmilek). The list of Yami vocabulary is worth visiting as well.

The site also includes an extremely brief grammar & phonology. There are phonemes that are not prevalent in other Philippine languages such as a uvular stop found in Arabic and retroflex stops. On Dr. Rubino's page, you can read a brief description of Ivatan grammar.

And below is a map of the Bashiic area. Click it to enlarge. Enjoy!

Languages or Dialects?

2004-08-26T09:14:00.000-07:00

I do apologize for not updating as often. I had just started working again, so I have a giant distraction now.

In any case, here's an essay that I have written a few years ago. I got so tired of explaining to people that Cebuano or Ilokano or what have you is not dialect but a language that I decided to write it.

The title is Languages or Dialects? Understating the Native Tongues of the Philipines

My essay has gained some notoriety in the Philippines and published in a couple of newspapers (I've never seen the actual papers, though) and people from DILA have printed it out to give as fliers. So hopefully people's perceptions have changed at least somewhat. ;-)

Whenever I'm not working or on the computer, I am working on Waray-Waray verbs for now. I came into contact with a good set of Waray books and making the most out of them. Apparently Waray doesn't have a separate affix for instrumental focus. An example in Tagalog would be Ipambili niya ng bigas ang pera ng kaniyang ina.

Until next time...

Lake Sebu videos

2004-08-19T15:08:00.000-07:00

I recently found these videos of the peoples living at Lake Sebu - mainly the Tbolis. You can hear the Tboli language in these videos. Tboli is unlike other Philippine languages I've encountered, which is probably why it's not classified in the same family other Philippine languages. It is Austronesian though.

The language reminds me of Khmer (of Cambodia) or a Slavic language like Czech with complex consonant clusters at the beginning of a word. The name of the language should exemplifies this. There are other words like sdo (fish), kdaw (day), mkik (cry), and tnilos (to cut meat).

Here are the videos...

http://www.acpc.ph/downloads/lakesebu.wmv - A woman singing in Tboli and then another woman talking in Tagalog.

http://www.acpc.ph/downloads/rosie.wmv - Rosie Sula talks about Tboli culture in Tagalog. Then it shows an elderly lady (her grandmother?) talking in Tboli about preserving culture for future generations.

http://www.acpc.ph/downloads/baekiram.wmv - Bae Kiram Connie Saturno is a Higaonon woman talking in Cebuano about education of indigenous peoples.

http://www.acpc.ph/downloads/datuconrad.wmv - Datu Conrado Binayao is a Bukidnon man who talks in Tagalog about education. Then there's a teacher teaching the natives using Cebuano.

http://www.acpc.ph/downloads/ending_high.wmv - The ending has a Tboli woman praying to a goddess about preserving her culture and bringing back her ancestors' land.

Bill 1563: Filipino as medium of instruction

2004-08-12T20:43:00.000-07:00

Consider yourselves lucky - two blog entries in one day.

I heard from fellow linguaphile Viktoro about a proposed bill in the Philippine House of Representatives which seeks to make Tagalog as the medium of instruction in schools.

The full article is here. And below is an excerpt.

The bill's authors said use of the national language in the country's schools would better promote love of Filipino. They said the national language is much easier for students to understand.

The bill cited that there are more subjects being taught in English than Filipino including Science, Mathematics and the Makabayan subjects that covers music, values, practical arts and physical education. It noted that only Pilipino, Araling Panlipunan and Kasaysayan are taught using the national language.

Acquaintances of mine who are against Tagalog being the medium of instruction in non-Tagalog schools will probably disagree with me when I say that this is a step in the right direction. And I sincerely believe it is.

Ideally, I want Cebuano, Bikol, Ilokano, etc. used as mediums of instruction in their respective regions. But when that isn't possible, the next logical step would be to choose a language that's even remotely related to those languages. And that language is Tagalog. I do understand that many non-Tagalogs are not too fond of this idea, but I think the most important thing is to set aside all differences so that the children understand the subjects that they are learning. They cannot do that effectively in English or Spanish or what not. The languages will not disappear as long as it is spoken at home, on the streets, or anywhere in the child's life.

As I said, this is a first step. Hopefully the next will be Cebuano. Good luck to Bill 1563.

Non-Tagalog TV

2004-08-12T20:08:00.000-07:00

One word. Awesome.

I learned that there are three Cebuano soap operas on a channel called Pinoy Central TV; Kapalaran, La Roca Negra, and This Life. I got curious and decided find out more about this channel, which is available on satellite dish here in the United States.

I managed to locate a programming guide and was overjoyed to find that there were not only Cebuano soap operas, but also Cebuano news (TV Patrol Central Visayas) and talk & variety shows (Chikahay Ta & Sabado na Gyud).

It just doesn't end there.

There are also regional varieties of TV Patrol airing in their native languages; TV Patrol Naga (Bikol), TV Patrol Northern Luzon (Ilokano), and TV Patrol Iloilo (Hiligaynon).

Wow, exciting.

You can see a 6MB clip of of a sample of Pinoy Central TV's showings by clicking here. The first minute of the clip has to do with the regional language program offerings. But they showed only Hiligaynon shows (which is fine, Hiligaynon's a beautiful language) but I wanted to see more. What a tease. The other two minutes are about some other things.

So now I am thinking about getting satellite TV, hopefully it's affordable. Or maybe I can bum tapes of broadcastings off of people. heh. ;-)

Tagalog article at Wikipedia

2004-08-09T22:12:00.000-07:00

For the past few weeks, I've been working on article about Tagalog at Wikipedia. Wikipedia is basically an online encyclopedia and everyone can contribute. There was one for Tagalog and I gave it a complete overhaul.

The new article is at: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tagalog

This article will be edited by other users and that's perfectly fine, since that's the nature of Wikipedia. But copies of past edits are saved. The copy I did is here

Enjoy!

My Tausug Book

2004-08-03T15:47:00.000-07:00

As many of you know, I wrote a book about the Tausug language titled In Bahasa Sug: An Introduction to Tausug. It's been published by my friend Jason Lobel who is currently in the Philippines. The book is done and I should be getting it when he returns to the USA in September. I have not seen the final product yet, and I am very anxious to see.

So it's kind of a tease (grin) when Sonny Villafania wrote to me saying that Jason showed him my book when they met Dr. David Zorc at De La Salle University in Manila. heh. heh. Then last night, Dr. Carl Rubino e-mails me saying that Dr. Zorc, who returned to the Washington D.C. area, showed him a copy of my book. So a copy of my book is across the country (I'm in the "other" and "greener" Washington. hehe.). Wow!

I think that I - the book's author - will be the last person to see it. I'll bet that even my mother will see it before I do. haha. That's ok. This is totally worth the wait.

Anyway, you can see the front & back cover of the book below. Click to see an enlarged photo.

The book will be in hardcover and paperback. There is a very limited supply of hardcover versions (20 or so) and much more of paperback. I have not determined the prices yet and I will make an announcement sometime after I receive the books.

If you're interested, please e-mail me and I will put you on my list which is short right now.

Dr. Rubino asked me if I'll be doing more books on other Philippine languages.

In a word?

Definitely.

Nominated

2004-07-28T16:19:00.000-07:00

I've nominated this blog at Philippine Blog Awards, and now it's part of the list. Click on the link to see or you can nominate a blog (even your own) on that site.

Wish me luck? ;-P

News about Chabacano / Chavacano

2004-07-26T01:06:00.000-07:00

I participate (read: debate) on a mailing list dedicated to the Philippines' Spanish heritage. Many of the members favor reviving it there. Anyway, back in March a member living in Spain saw a report on Chavacano on channel TVE. Another Spain-based member taped them and were ultimately made available on a website.

The following three links have the video. It's mostly the same; the report itself does not differ it's just that the report was shown three different times and so the people at newsdesk changed.

One Two Three

I personally thought the report was interesting. It was nice to see the extent of Chabacano used in Zamboanga - to the point that it's used in newscasts and in radio.

However, the report had some inaccuracies.

The reporters prefaced the report with: "Chavacano no es sólo algo de mal gusta. Es también un idioma criollo del español que todavía se habla en una zona de Filipinas en la isla de Luzón. El chavacano mantiene las palabras del español y las sostiene con una gramática prestada del tagalo. Es un idioma que está a punto de desaparecer." (Translation: Chabacano is not only something of bad taste. It's also a creole language of Spanish that's still spoken in a part of the Philippines on the island of Luzon. Chabacano maintains words from Spanish and sustains them with a grammar borrowed from Tagalog. It's a language that is going to disappear.)

So far, there really is nothing really wrong. When I first encountered this, I thought they were refering to the Chabacano spoken in Cavite. Or perhaps that of Ermita - which some say is extinct or has only one speaker left.

But then, the person actually presenting the report, Rosa María Calaf, begins the report by saying: "La bienvenida no es a un barrio en España o Hispanoamérica. Es en la ciudad de Zamboanga. En Filipinas." (The welcome is not for a town in Spain or in Latin America. It's for a city in Zamboanga. In the Philippines.)

Totally wrong.

First, Zamboanga is not on the Luzon (in the north) instead it's in western Mindanao which is hundreds of miles away.

Second, since Zamboanga is not in Luzon, then the bulk of its grammar and vocabulary does not come from Tagalog. Instead, it comes from Visayan languages like Cebuano & Hiligaynon and perhaps other languages indigenous to Mindanao.

Third, Zamboangueño will not be disappearing anytime soon. The 2000 census says there are about 358,729. From my understanding, it's widely used as a second language.

On the other hand, In Luzon, there are 7,044 speakers of Ternateño (not the Portuguese creole) and 202,312 speakers of Caviteño. These languages are probably threatened by Tagalog according to this dissertation.

On Mindanao there are 20,545 Cotabateño speakers. There are 327,802 Davaweño speakers. Davaweño refers to both the creole and an Austronesian language so there may be confusion there. Though 17,873 are reported to speak the creole (listed as Davao-Chavacano) specifically.

Lastly, Rosa María Calaf says "... [N]i el tiempo ni otras lenguas alejaron al chabacano del castellano perfecto sino que los españoles no se lo enseñaron bien ..." (Neither time nor other languages distanced Chabacano from perfect Castilian but it's the Spaniards who didn't teach it [their language] well to them.)

Perhaps, in reality, the Spanish did not teach the language well. But creoles are the products of pidgins. Pidgins are created when two diverse linguistic groups strip their language to the bare essentials and try to communicate with each other. No formal teaching involved. The pidgins turn into creoles when the children & subsequent generations speak the pidgin as a native language.

In any case.. ¡Viva el chavacano!

English as the Medium of Instruction

2004-07-21T03:22:00.000-07:00

I am a member of a mailing list called Defenders of the Indigenous Languages of the Archipelago or for short, DILA. The group was founded by Oregon-based Ernesto "Ernie" Turla, a native speaker of Kapampangan. I respect Ernie highly and am grateful for his work and help on the Kapampangan language.

On Monday, Ernie forwarded to the group an article titled [Department of Education] promoting English as medium of instruction.

Ernie prefaced his e-mail with "this is good news." For the life of me, I am having trouble seeing this.

I find this well-intentioned idea detrimental.

As it stands, English is reserved for certain subjects such as math and science and Tagalog for social studies. The DepEd wants to increase the use of English.

I would like to make clear beforehand that I am not anti-English, which would be a silly concept since this is the primary language of my blog and the primary language of my everyday life.

English is not the first language of the vast majority of Filipinos. Hence, it is a foreign language. And as such, it should be treated as a foreign language. There is a world of difference between treating something as a foreign language and having a language used as a medium of instruction in schools.

Here's an example. Whenever I set out to learn something new, I want to make sure the subject at hand has my full comprehension. If not, then why bother? I speak Spanish and French with a decent amount of fluency. Given the option of learning a new concept in English, Spanish, or French, I'd overwhelmingly choose to learn it in English. Why? English is by far my strongest language, thus ensuring that I'll understand the subject thoroughly.

Similarly, if I were teaching a class of Tagalog-speaking children math - a subject some find difficult - I'd do it in Tagalog rather than in English. Why? My answer is very simple. I want them to learn without unnecessary obstacles such as the language barrier. I want them to understand. I want them to succeed.

Unfortunately, my opinion is not very popular.

I've debated this issue at length with people who disagree with me. They point out that it's neither Tagalog nor Cebuano that puts food on the table, but English. They point out that it's English that has benefited millions of Filipino families overseas such as mine.

This gives me the impression that these people care only about fluency in English but very little about other academic subjects. I hope this isn't true.

Now, I said above that I am not anti-English. But where do I feel is English's place in the Philippine education system? As I said, it's a foreign language. So, treat it as a subject that one learns about and not a vehicle for learning new things.

The Japanese learn in their language. So do the Finns, French, Spaniards, Catalans, Indonesians, Chinese, Turks, and even the Icelanders! So why not Filipinos?

I support the use of English as a subject as early as possible. In kindergarten, perhaps. I teach Spanish to children. I have also taught them math and handwriting. I dare not use Spanish to teach those subjects or else they won't fully understand. And that is the point.

Yes, providing the path to fluency in English at a young age is a step in the right direction. But doing it correctly is an important step.

Using English as the medium of instruction, however, is not. Using Tagalog, Cebuano, Ilokano, Maranao, et. al. is.

New Tagalog blog

2004-07-16T16:25:00.000-07:00

A new Philippine language blog has arrived on the blogging scene. The main subject and, incidentally, the name of the blog is Tagalog translation.

The author is Joseph Rosaceña, a native of Manila now living in Cornellà de Llobregat, Barcelona, Catalonia, Spain. I met him on the Seasite Tagalog forum.
Joseph's an accomplished professional translator who works with English, Tagalog, Spanish, & Catalan.

He already has some interesting entries now and I look forward to many more.

His blog is now linked to the right sidebar.

Eight Major Languages No More

2004-07-15T00:07:00.000-07:00

One of the most frequently-repeated facts about the languages of the Philippines is that there are eight major languages (or if they must, dialects.); Tagalog, Cebuano, Ilokano, Hiligaynon, Bikol, Waray-Waray, and Pangasinan. The reason for this, from my understanding, is that each of these languages have at least one million native speakers.

With the release of the mother tongue statistics of the Philippine Census of 2000, four more languages have become members of the "million club." This brings the number up to 12 major Philippine languages.

The twelve major languages of the Philippines are:

Tagalog (21,485,927) - central & south Luzon.

Cebuano (est. 18,000,000) - central Visayas & northern Mindanao.

Ilokano (6,920,760) - northern Luzon

Hiligaynon (est. 7,000,000) - western Visayas

Bikol (4,583,034) - southeastern Luzon

Waray-Waray (est. 3,000,000) - eastern Visayas

Kapampangan (2,312,870) - central Luzon

Pangasinan (1,362,142) - Pangasinan province

Kinaray-a (est. 1,051,968) - western Visayas

Maranao (1,035,966) - Mindanao

Maguindanao (1,008,424)- Mindanao

Tausug (918,069) - Sulu archipelago

If my math is right, the grand total is 68,679,160 who speak one of the twelve major languages out of 76,332,470 Filipinos. That's almost 90% of Filipinos! All the languages above are a much more inclusive representation of the languages of the Philippines, with the addition of three languages spoken either in or near Mindanao.

The census results are not perfect, however. Three of the languages whose numbers I estimated are spoken in the Visayas; Cebuano, Hiligaynon, and Waray-Waray. Kinaray-a may as well be in this group. The reason I estimated is that because in the Census, their numbers have decreased. For example, the census in 1995 said that where 14,486,196 Cebuanos (Boholanos included) but in 2000 there were 11,868,028.

This has also happened to Hiligaynon & Waray-Waray which, according to the 2000 census, have suffered losses of 464,339 and 42,443 speakers respectively.

Uh, so just where did these 3,124,950 Visayans go? Short of being abducted by aliens or mass genocide, the answer is in the census. As I've said, the census isn't perfect. Or more accurately, the methods used to calculate the mother tongue statistics aren't perfect.

Filipinos have a tendancy to give different names for their languages. If you have two different people that speak the same language, they might give you different names. The folks at the Philippine Census recognize this and consolidated the numbers where they could. But they didn't catch all of them. For example Kinaray-a was listed as three: Hamtikanon, Karay-a, and Kiniray-a.

In the Visayas, this happens frequently. There is the generic name Bisaya or Binisaya and the local name (and there can be a handful of local names). According to linguist R. David Zorc, there are about three dozen Visayan languages. So it is no surprise that in the census that there are about 5,778,435 "Bisaya/Binisaya" speakers.

I've double checked the percentages with the Philippine yearbook. Cebuano speakers have numbered at about 24% of the population since 1960. Hiligaynon at around 9-10%. And Waray-Waray at about 4-5%. So, my estimations are not too farfetched.

Furthermore, Tagalog is at about 32% according to the census of 2000 but 29.3% in 1995. Quite a leap if you ask me. Perhaps there were those who considered Tagalog their native tongue, even if it isn't.

Also, I have chosen to place Tausug on the list even if it's at 918,069. There are Tausugs in Sabah as well which bring the number over 1 million. It's an important language that's used as a lingua franca in the region.

What are the least-spoken languages? The five least-spoken languages are:

Pinangal - spoken by 68. I don't know where this language is spoken. It's not listed on Ethnologue.

Karolano - spoken in Negros Island (Visayas) by 71 people. Info here.

Malbog - spoken by 197. Again, I don't know where.

Tabangnon - spoken by 264 in Quezon Province to Paracale in Camarines Norte. Info about them here.

Kabihug - 300 in Camarines Norte. Article here.

Now it's time to wait for the 2005 census....

Kapampangan Pronoun Combinations

2004-07-07T16:04:00.000-07:00

Since the late 1950's, my family has had ties of some sort to Pampanga province, due to the former Clark Air Base. My relatives aren't from Pampanga, but from Manila. I've also lived there myself for a period of five years and my now-18 year old brother was born there as well.

Looking back, my exposure to Kapampangan in Angeles City & Clark was rather scant. Though, I admit that at a young age I could have mistaken it for Tagalog. I was aware of phrases like me keni (come here) and that the locals didn't speak Tagalog the way my parents do. My mother, on the other hand, attended elementary school (Holy Family) in the 1960's and was exposed to it constantly. She understands it well, but cannot speak it fluently.

I left Pampanga in 1989 and it took about 12 year for me to develop a curiosity for the language spoken there; Kapampangan.

This curiosity led to fascination.

What can I say about Kapampangan? Perhaps, unpredictible, bizarre, unique, and, uh... cool? After studying Ilokano, Bikol, & the Visayan languages, I can say that the language is certainly an oddball. And that's what I love about it.

Conjugating took some time getting used to. In Tagalog, sumulat means "wrote" in the actor focus. In Kapampangan, it means "will write." On the other hand susulat means "will write" in Tagalog but means "is writing" in Kapampangan. The past tense in Kapampangan is sinulat. And this resembles the past tense of the object focus in Tagalog!

Also, in Kapampangan you have, for the verb "to read" (object focus): basan (future), babasan (progressive), and binasa (past).

But for the verb "to do" (object focus): gawan (future), gagawan (progressive), and not *ginawa, but gewa.

For "to eat" (again, object focus): kanan, kakanan, and you'd expect to see maybe *kinan. But no, it's pengan!

Ay naku, what a challenge. What fun.

Another interesting feature of Kapampangan is the the fact that a pronoun must always be present even when the noun it stands for is present. Dr. Reid calls these verbal agreement forms.

Kap: Malagu ya i Maria.
Tag: *Maganda siya si Maria. (literal translation)
Tag: Maganda si Maria. (free translation)
Eng: Mary is beautiful.

Kap: Silatanan na kang Pedru.
Tag: *Sinulatan ka niya ni Pedro. (literal)
Tag: Sinulatan ka ni Pedro. (free)
Eng: Peter wrote you.

Kap: Mamasa yang libru i Cristobal.
Tag: *Bumabasa siya ng libro si Cristobal. (literal)
Tag: Bumabasa si Cristobal ng libro. (free)
Eng: Christopher is reading a book.

Furthermore, Kapampangan has a set of merged pronouns that occur with the 3rd person singular & plural pronouns. Tagalog and its Central Philippine cousins typically have one that represents ko ikaw. Tagalog has kita, Bikol has taka, Cebuano has tikaw, Tausug has ta kaw, etc.

Kap: Ikit ke.
Tag: Nakita ko siya.
Eng: I saw him.

Kap: Dinan mong ebun.
Tag: Bigyan mo sila ng itlog.
Eng: Give them an egg.

Kap: Dinan meng ebun.
Tag: Bigyan mo siya ng itlog
Eng: Give him an egg.

Sometimes, they take different forms. The 3rd person singular forms usually do it around the word naman; kya naman rather than *ke naman. The plural ones change because they cannot end a sentence; Ikit ku la rather than *Ikit ko.

In any case, I made a chart that shows the pronoun combinations in Kapampangan. It's been very helpful to me, and so I'd like to share it with you. I compiled the information from sources written by Ernesto Turla, Hiroaki Kitano, Leatrice Mirikitani, and Michael Forman. Some entries might have two variants. The one on top is the short form and the bottom is the long one. Dashes indicate combinations which are deemed impossible. And the "ing sarili [pronoun]" represents a reflex action; myself, yourself, etc.

Also, Kapampangan writers may usually write words like da ka or yu ke as one word, daka or yuke. I've decided to keep them separate since particles can split them; da pin ka.

I've included a similar chart for Tagalog for comparison. I've listed the dual pronoun (you and I) in Tagalog, kata (or kita), which isn't used anymore these days. However, its Kapampangan counterpart is very much in use.

Some more examples:

Kap: Kaluguran da ka.
Tag: Mahal kita. OR Mahal ka namin. OR Mahal ka nila.
Eng: I love you. OR We love you. OR They love you.

Kap: Sulatanan na kong Isabel.
Tag: Susulatan kayo ni Isabel.
Eng: Isabel will write to you (plural).

Kap: Sibli no ring lapis.
Tag: Isinauli niya ang mga lapis.
Eng: He returned the pencils.

Chart of Kapampangan pronoun combinations
by Christopher Sundita

Genitive
(Ergative)

Nominative
(Absolutive)

yaku
1 sg

ika
2 sg

ya
3 sg

ikata
1 dual

ikatamu
1 pl inc.

ikami
1 pl exc.

ikayu
2 pl

ila
3 pl

ku
1 sg

(ing sarili ku)

da ka

ke
kya

da ko
da kayu

ko
ku la

mu
2 sg

mu ku

(ing sarili mu)

me
mya

mu ke
mu kami

mo
mu la

na
3 sg

na ku

na ka

ne
nya
(ing sarili na)

na kata

na katamu

na ke
na kami

na ko
na kayu

no
nu la

ta
1 dual inc.

te
tya

(ing sarili ta)

to
ta la

tamu
1 pl inc.

ta ya

(ing sarili tamu)

ta la

mi
1 pl exc.

da ka

mi ya

(ing sarili mi)

da ko
da kayu

mi la

yu
2 pl

yu ku

ye
ya

yu ke
yu kami

(ing sarili yu)

yo
yu la

da
3 pl

da ku

da ka

de
dya

da kata

da katamu

da ke
da kami

da ko
da kayu

do
da la
(ing sarili da)

Chart of Tagalog pronoun combinations
by Christopher Sundita

Genitive
(Ergative)

Nominative
(Absolutive)

ako
1 sg

ikaw
2 sg

siya
3 sg

kata
1 dual

tayo
1 pl inc.

kami
1 pl exc.

kayo
2 pl

sila
3 pl

ko
1 sg

(ang sarili ko

kita

ko siya

ko kayo

ko sila

mo
2 sg

mo ako

(ang sarili mo)

mo siya

mo kami

mo sila

niya
3 sg

niya ako

ka niya

niya siya
(ang sarili niya)

niya kata

niya tayo

niya kami

niya kayo

niya sila

nita
1 dual inc.

nita siya

(ang sarili nita)

nita sila

natin
1 pl inc.

siya natin

(ang sarili natin)

natin sila

namin
1 pl exc.

ka namin

namin siya

(ang sarili namin)

namin kayo

namin sila

ninyo
2 pl

ninyo ako

ninyo siya

ninyo kami

(ang sarili ninyo)

ninyo sila

nila
3 pl

nila ako

ka nila

nila siya

nila kata

nila tayo

nila kami

nila kayo

nila sila
(ang sarili nila)

Miscellany

2004-07-02T08:51:00.000-07:00

This blog is now listed on Tanikalang Ginto. I've been visiting that site for 9 years now. Check them out!

I've also added an icon to the blog. if you're not familiar with it, it's in Baybayin and the word is "salita." Baybayin is the syllabic script that Filipino ethnic groups used before the arrival of the Spaniards. The script is no longer used except by Hanunoos & Tagbanwas on Mindoro Island.

You may find more information about Baybayin in the links below:

A Philippine Leaf by Hector Santos. This site was the first to introduce me to Baybayin 9 years ago. Beforehand, I had no idea it existed.

Sarisari, etc. by Paul Morrow. An excellent site which talks about Baybayin. Paul is based in Winnipeg, Manitoba.

And you can also read Omniglot's entries about Baybayin as used by Tagalogs, Tagbanwas, and Hanunoos.

Also, I've added some links on the right margin of this blog. They're links worth checking out.

Rinconada Bikol

2004-06-29T22:12:00.000-07:00

Just a little note before I begin. Today I obtained via Interlibrary Loan Tagalog Texts with Grammatical Analysis written in 1917 by linguist Leonard Bloomfield (1887-1949). Interesting book. You can expect to read my comments about this book sometime after I'm done reading it.

Anyway, there are a total of four main languages spoken in the Bicol region. The region is rich in linguistic diversity. They are, according to Jason Lobel:

North Coastal Standard Bikol - three main dialect groups spoken from: Daet, Camarines Norte; much of Camarines Sur including Naga and excluding the southern coast region; eastern Albay including Legazpi; northern Sorsogon; and the southern end of Catanduanes Island. The dialects of Naga & Legazpi are considered the standard.

Southern Coastal & Inland Bikol - Rinconada Bikol, which is spoken in the southern part of Camarines Sur which includes the cities of Buhi, Iriga, Nabua, and Balatan; Libon; and eastern & western Miraya (from southern Camarines Sur, western Legazpi, and part of Northern Sorsogon.

Northern Catanduanes - The (surprise!) northern end of Catanduanes island.

Bisakol - Comprised of the words Bisaya and Bikol. This includes Central & Southern Sorsogon, Masbate island, and Ticao island.

Anyway, this entry is about Rinconada Bikol. A couple of months ago, I wrote a message in a mailing list showing the differences between the Naga standard dialect of Bikol, Rinconada Bikol, and Tagalog. I formulated the sentences from Jason Lobel's Rinconada Phrasebook and a draft copy of his Rinconada textbook.

RNC - Rinconada Bikol. NAG - Naga Bikol. TAG - Tagalog. ENG - English.

-UM- verbs
note 1: Naga Bikol doesn't make use of the -UM- prefix.
note 2: -UM- and MAG- prefixes are interchangeable and thus don't
affect meaning in Rinconada Bikol unlike in Tagalog.

RNC: Kumaon
NAG: Magkakan
TAG: Kumain
ENG: To eat (infinitive)

RNC: Kinnaon ya.
NAG: Nagkakan siya.
TAG: Kumain siya.
ENG: He ate.

RNC: Kinnakaon ya.
NAG: Nagkakakan siya.
TAG: Kumakain siya.
ENG: He is eating.

RNC: Kumkaon ya OR Kumakaon ya. (Note loss of vowel after -UM-)
NAG: Mákakan siya.
TAG: Kakain siya.
ENG: He will eat.

MAG- verbs

RNC: Magtutturo
NAG: Magtukdo
TAG: Magturo
Eng: To teach.

RNC: Nagtutturo sira.
NAG: Nagtukdo sinda.
TAG: Nagturo sila.
ENG: They taught.

RNC: Nagtututturo sira.
NAG: Nagtutukdo sinda.
TAG: Nagtuturo sila.
ENG: They are teaching.

RNC: Migtutturo sira.
NAG: Mátukdo sinda.
TAG: Magtuturo sila.
ENG: They will teach.

And some miscellany...

RNC: Isadto ya sa baloy namo.
NAG: Yaon siya duman sa harong mi.
TAG: Nandoon siya sa bahay namin.
ENG: He's there at our house.

RNC: Ono 'di?
NAG: Ano ini?
TAG: Ano ito?
ENG: What's this?

RNC: Agko ka igin?
NAG: Igwa kang aki?
TAG: Mayroon ka bang anak?
ENG: Do you have any kids?

RNC: Migtrabawo a agom ko sa Maynila udma.
NAG: Mátrabaho an agom ko sa Maynila saaga.
TAG: Magtatrabaho ang asawa ko sa Maynila bukas.
ENG: My husband will work in Manila tomorrow.

Book Review: Intermediate Ilokano by Precy Espiritu

2004-06-27T20:37:00.000-07:00

Twenty years ago, the University of Hawai'i Press published Let's Speak Ilokano. It was authored by Precy Espiritu, then a Ph.D. student studying applied linguistics at UCLA. At almost 300 pages, this book does a rather decent job in teaching the basics of the Ilokano language, so I recommend her book highly.

For the past year, I've been impatiently anticipating the arrival of Intermediate Ilokano; the sequel of the book published in 1984. In finally received it a couple of weeks ago and have been reading it ever since. What can I say? Dr. Espiritu has really outdone herself.

The book is much larger; there are over 400 pages and it's about an inch wider than its predecessor. Not to mention that there's also an eye-catching cover. Espiritu has employed illustrator Junix Jimenez to breathe life into the book with his delightful illustrations depicting life in the Ilocos Region.

As for the content of the book itself, Espiritu discards the use of dialogs in favor of short stories. Each of the stories has a morale illustrating Philippine or Ilokano values. They are further explained in the cultural notes section at the end of each of the twelve lessons. There are also activities based on the new vocabulary and grammatical concepts introduced in the short stories. What I like is that the grammatical concepts are easily accessible via their own table of contents, right after the main table of contents in the beginning of the book.

Although there are many activities geared toward Ilokano learners in a classroom setting (Ilokano is taught as a class at the post-secondary level in Hawai'i, something not done in the Philippines!), a person learning via self-study can still benefit from the exercises.

There are some minor things which concerns me somewhat. In written Ilokano, pronouns are usually attached to the preceding work to make one new word. For example, in Tagalog there is the phrase nag-aral ako 'I studied'. The Ilokano equivalent would not be written as nagadal ak but nagadalak.

Perhaps it's this way since the pronouns ko 'my' & mo 'your' are reduced to k and m if the preceding words ends in a vowel. For example asawa ko 'my spouse' and libro mo 'your book' become asawak and librom. You gotta admit that asawa k and libro m look pretty darn silly.

[Addendum: July 25, 2004]: Carl Rubino chimed in saying that another reason for this is that ak is pronounced as part of the word; [na.ga.da.lak] rather than Tagalog's [nag.?a.ral.?a.ko].

This can make things rather confusing for an Ilokano learner since it's sometimes difficult identifying a pronoun in a word. Espiritu is evidently aware of this and to combat this she italicizes the pronouns.

The following is from the first two paragraphs of the first story in the book on page 2:

Maysa nga aldaw, inayaban ti maysa a baket dagiti lima a kaarrubana, ket sinaludsodna, "Sinno ti mayat nga agdalus iti lugartayo?"

"Ay, dispensarem, Ina. Saan a siak, ta adu ti trabahok," kinuna ti umuna a simmungbat.

One day, an old lady called her five neighbors, and she asked, "Who wants to clean up our place?"

"Oh, (you) forgive me, Ma'am. I can't, because my work is many," said the first one who answered.

I wonder, though, if it has a place in a book for intermediate learners. It would have been definitely useful in Espiritu's first book. I also wish she would have included diacritic markers indicating stress like she did in the first one, too. However, they are marked in the glossary section but in bold. Even something of greater use would have been an audio CD to practice aural comprehension.

But like I said, these are minor and do not in any manner affect the quality of this book. All in all this is a great book in building up proficiency in Ilokano. All the grammatical concepts are explained in a straightforward manner with accompanying examples. Though, I admit that perhaps the calls for cultural discussions are somewhat unnecessary.

Serious learners of Ilokano should not be without Espiritu's two books as well as Dr. Carl Rubino's masterpiece, his indispensable Ilocano Dictionary and Grammar which is also available from the University of Hawai'i Press. My review for Dr. Rubino's book is on that Amazon.Com page, too.

Now, if only other Philippine languages had quality learning materials such as those I mentioned above.

External link: Dr. Precy Espiritu's Home Page

Giliw Ko - A Philippine film from 1939

2004-06-24T16:30:00.000-07:00

Last July I heard that Philippines-based KabayanCentral.Com was selling vintage films. I resolved to get the oldest movie they have, Giliw Ko. After much procrastination, I finally ordered it on June 1st and the film arrived today. From Singapore. Go figure.

The movie was made in 1939. Only one copy, deteriorated to the say the least, was found and restored by a film restoring organization in Australia. They did it as a gift to the Philippines. Anyway, 1939 was a couple of years before World War II and I was awfully curious about times back then; my grandparents were preadolescents then.

The film is basically about a country girl named Guia (Mila del Sol) who dreams of singing on the radio. She loves her childhood friend, played by Fernando Poe, Sr. and also the music teacher (or whatever he is), Ely Ramos.

My impression is that, culturally, very little has changed. Yes, it was from a dramatically different era, but it was more familiar. Personally I felt a bit more connected to the characters; they remind of relatives & acquaintances. This is contrast with American films of the era, where they have a more foreign feeling to me. This is a bit surprising since I am considerably more American in my ways. Did I make sense?

Since I'm a language nut, you can bet that I analyzed the speech of the characters in this film.

The Tagalog they spoke was totally comprehensible. It sounded a lot like Tagalog does now. However, it had a certain an archaic flavor to it. But it was considerably less than the English I hear in old American films.

I noticed that a lot of the characters used Spanish words that aren't normally heard among the younger generation (I'd include my parents who are late baby boomers).

The variations of señor (señora, señorito, señorita. I don't think señorito is used much in Spanish either!).

pues (then)

bueno (well)

mamá & papá (mom & dad)

hijo & hija (son & daughter.. or simply, child)

I also heard Tagalog words that aren't used much nowadays... sapagkat (because), subalit (but), ngunit (but), pumaroon (go there), pumarito (come here), etc.

One expression they kept on using was siyanga ba. I translated it as "really?" These days, it's talaga here. I do say siyanga pala, meaning "by the way."

And the English is kept to a bare minimum which is unlike the prevalence of Taglish today. The only Taglish I heard in the film was when the maid tried to get Mila del Sol's character to change from her bathing suit as she rushed to get married. "Ay! Nakabathing suit! Susmaryosep!" (Oh! She's in a bathing suit! Goodness!). The Filipinos who do speak English in the film do so with a Filipino accent. But the accent isn't very strong unlike those I hear today.

There is a part that surprised me and I guess one could say reflected the attitudes of Manileños at the time. It was between Mila del Sol's character and her music teacher, played by Ely Ramos. She was singing an English song called "I am in love with you." And her singing wasn't up to Ely's taste.

Ely: Ano? Ano ang nangyayari sa iyo? Hindi ganiyan ang pagkanta niyan! Kantahin mo kagaya ng dati. (What? What's happening to you? It isn't sung that way! Sing it like before.)

Mila: Bakit 'nyo kong pinipilit na kantahin ng Inggles? Sinabi ko na sa inyo na hindi ko maari. Bakit hindi 'nyo ko pakantahin ng Tagalog? (Why are you forcing me to sing in English? I already said I couldn't. Why don't you have me sing in Tagalog?)

Ely: Oy, alamin mo na tayo'y nasa Maynila at ang dapat mong kantahin ay Inggles, sapagka't ang makikinig nasusuya sa kantang Tagalog. (Hey, keep in mind that we're in Manila and English is what you should be singing, because the listeners are getting tired of Tagalog songs.)

In any case, it was an interesting movie. I was fascinated by it. If only there were earlier ones.

Link about this film: http://www.pia.ops.gov.ph/philtoday/pt01/pt0109.htm

Alternative pronouns in Kinaray-a, Akeanon, and Onhan

2004-06-22T16:01:00.000-07:00

Sometime last year a language named Kinaray-a caught my eye. It's spoken on the island on Panay in the provinces of Antique and Iloilo. The reason it interested me was because it was one of a handful of Central Philippine languages that had the fourth "schwa" vowel in its phonemic inventory. This phoneme, an unrounded back vowel, is prevalent in the languages of Northern Luzon such as Ilokano & Pangasinan, where it's represented by the letter "e". Many Visayan languages just have three; /a/ /i/ and /u/.

In any case, I decided to join a Kinaray-a mailing list to observe the participants use their language. The language certainly "felt" Visayan, but it was quite different from Hiligaynon, another language I've been exposed to which is spoken on Panay. Despite this, it's widely believed that Kinaray-a is a dialect of Hiligaynon or vice-versa even though they both occupy different branches of the Visayan family.

I noticed that they used the letter "u" and to represent the schwa vowel and one member wasn't too fond of my proposal to use "e".

Another thing that caught my eye and heard vaguely about was what I call the T-series pronouns.

Pronouns in Philippine languages are separated into categories. I'll use Tagalog as an example:

Nominative (Absolutive) - ako, ikaw (ka), siya, kami, tayo, kayo, sila
Genitive (Ergative) - ko, mo, niya, namin, natin, ninyo, nila
Oblique - sa akin, sa iyo, sa kaniya, sa amin, sa atin, sa inyo, sa kanila

In Kinaray-a, there are two sets of nominative pronouns. They appear to be based upon the genitive ones. Kinaray-a's pronouns are as follows:

Nominative (Absolutive) #1 - ako, ikaw (kaw), [none], kami, kita, kamo, sanda
Nominative (Absolutive) #2 - taken, timo, tana, tamen, taten, tinyo, tanda
Genitive (Ergative) - ko, mo, na, namen, naten, ninyo, nanda
Oblique - kanaken, kimo, kana, kanamen, kanaten, kaninyo, kananda

I found this rather odd. Even more odd was the fact that there is no 3rd person pronoun in the first series. I guess there is no need for one. In Tagalog, it is usually possible to leave out "siya" in a sentence.

I asked around and received a bunch of native speaker opinions on what the T-series pronouns could be used for. The best one was from Gail. Who said:

If someone told me "iririmaw kita" [let's get together], my knee jerk reaction would be to say, "amo ri-a abi mo" [that's what you delude yourself with]. but if he says "iririmaw tatun" [let's get together], aba okay ako diyan! [I'm ok with that] hehehe.

I concluded that it had to either be some kind of politeness marker or some kind of "softening" marker. I knew that this system existed in Aklanon, another Western Visayan language. So I consulted Dr. R. David Zorc, a fluent Aklanon speaker who is married to a native Aklanon.

An excerpt from his e-mail:

The differences are more pragmatic (i.e., discourse sensitive or oriented) than cultural. One set does not show more or less respect, as opposed to more emphasis, bringing the audience in to the fineries of the discussion or tale. They are limited to informal speech, rarely do they make it to writing, except in folktales where people or animals engage in extended discourse. They take quite a while to appear. For example, if I were telling of a bumpy plane trip to Manila, I would run through all the basic stuff using aku', e.g., umadtu aku sa erport ag naghuEa't aku' it mabu:hay
went - I - to - airport - and -waited - I - quite a while
Once we got up in the air, and the bumpy flight started, the airplane
or the weather could be characterized as:
ma7u'ndag gid 7it'7a:na 'it was very bumpy'
and what was going on in my stomach as:
masaki't gid 7it'7a:kun tyan, tumalig7ab 7a:nay aku', tapus sumukah gid
7it'7a:kun.
'my stomach was really sick, at first I belched, afterwards I just
vomited

And from another e-mail. This really explained things very well for me:

The Kinaray-a uses you describe ARE cultural, and so are some of the Aklanon
uses. ... What I believe is and has been going on is a long process of detopicalization. Object focus constructions allow the speaker to deemphasize himself or to be
deemphasized (gin-baligya7-a'n mo 'Did you sell it?', gin-baligya7'a'n ko 'I sold
it'; gin-Ea'bh-an ko 'I washed it'). In W.Bisayan dialects, the process is taken one step further by using an object-marked set instead of the topic marked set. I once heard Tagalogs say of Peace Corps Volunteers who always used the actor focus that they were "arrogant Americans." The lady's reaction to the IRIRIRMAW KITA smacks of the same thing. In the sick-on-airplane snippet I talked about, once the action gets
going, the actor removes himself from topicalization.

And he's right. In Tagalog, we usually switch from the nominative to the genitive. But in the three Western Visayan languages that I have looked at, there is another option. This, I find fascinating. I'd bet it'd be useful in Tagalog.

I also was told that there is another use for the t-series pronouns. Using two nominative pronouns in a row provides emphasis.

Kinaray-a: Ako taken ang nagabantay kang aken mga bata.
Tagalog: Ako mismo ang nagbabantay ng aking mga bata.
English I, myself, am watching over my children.

And I'll end this long post by showing Akeanon & Onhan's pronoun systems. I am corresponding with a native Onhan speaker about their pronouns. So it may need corrections later. Note that there is a hyphen in the Aklanon forms. It stands for a glottal stop.

Aklanon

Nominative #1 - ako, ikaw (ka), imaw, kami, kita, kamo, sanda
Nominative #2 - t-akon, t-imo, t-ana, t-amon, t-aton, t-inyo, t-anda
Genitive - ko (nakon), mo (nimo), na (nana), namon, ta (naton), ninyo, nanda
Oblique - kakon, kimo, kana, kamon, katon, kinyo, kanda

Onhan

Nominative #1 - ako, ikaw (kaw), imaw, kami, kita, kamo, sanda
Nominative #2 - takon, timo, tana(?), tamon, taton, tinyo, tanda(?)
Genitive - ko (nakon), mo (nimo), na (nana), namon, ta (naton), ninyo, nanda
Oblique - akon, imo, ana, amon, aton, inyo, anda

I discovered Onhan's last night from this site. There are other Western Visayan languages, but I am unsure of them as I don't have resources about them.

The obligatory introductory post

2004-06-21T18:43:00.000-07:00

This post has been updated on ~~September 24, 2005~~ December 23, 2006.

Well... I finally went and did it. I've been wanting to something like this for quite a while. ~~Now that summer has arrived, I work fewer hours at my job. This means that I have more time to dedicate to this project of mine.~~

To introduce myself, my name's Christopher or just "Chris." I'm 26 years old and live in a rural area of Washington State. I've been an ardent enthusiast of languages for as long as I can remember and I have been studying Philippine languages in general for about eight years now.

Here's some more about me in FAQ format. In this case, FAQ stands for "fictitiously asked questions." ;-)

What does "salita" mean?

Salita is a Tagalog word of Sanskrit origin. Its meanings include word, speech, talk/speak and language. I wanted a word that not only reflects the subject of this blog, but also something that is found in a number of Philippine languages. So far, I have found six more; Ilokano (sarita), Kapampangan (salita), Pangasinan (salita), Rinconada Bikol (sarita), Botolan Sambal (halita), and Tina Sambal (salita).

On a side note, I once proposed this name for a group defending Philippine languages. But it was turned down. They went with dila (tongue), which is a word found in virtually all Philippine languages.

Are you Filipino?

Yes, I am. Three of my grandparents are Filipinos and my late maternal grandfather was an American of Cornish, Irish, German, and Swiss descent.

However, I was born in the United States. I did live in the Philippines in Angeles City & Clark Air Base, Pampanga for five years during my childhood.

My ancestors come from various parts of the Philippines and came to settle in the Metro Manila area in the 20th century, particularly in places like Makati. They're from Batangas, Cagayan (Ibanag-speaking part), Camarines Norte (Daet), Camarines Sur (Libmanan), and Quezon Province. My great-great-great grandmother Luisa Orlanda was born in the Philippines, and she reportedly spoke only Spanish.

So, you're a US-born Filipino. Do you speak Tagalog?

Yes, I do speak Tagalog but this was not always the case. Although my parents have been speaking Tagalog among for as long as I can remember, they speak to me in English. As a result, I saw no need to speak Tagalog as a child even if I could understand it. I started strengthening my Tagalog during my teenage years and I speak it rather well with occasional mistakes. Tagalog is part of my everyday life.

What other languages do you speak?

I started learning Spanish 11 years ago and French 8 years ago. I speak the two rather well and am fairly confident with them. I have also studied many other languages. To keep it short, I have devoted a lot of attention to Catalan, Japanese, Korean, Portuguese, Italian, Bulgarian, and German. Not to mention Philippine languages like Bikol, Kapampangan, Cebuano, Ilokano, etc.

Are you a linguist?

I'm not a linguist in the professional sense. That is, I don't have a university degree in linguistics (though that'll change in a few years). My knowledge of linguistics over the years is self-taught. I'm a linguist in the sense that I study languages and know a thing or two about'em (or at least I'd like to think so!).

What's your job?

I am currently a teacher assistant at a private elementary school. One of my jobs is teaching Spanish.

What else do you do?

I go to school full-time at Pierce College in Lakewood, Washington. I am taking math, physics, and history. I have just recently returned to school on January 3, 2005.

That free time I spoke of? It's gone! ;-)

I graduated with my Associate in Arts & Sciences Degree on June 16, 2006. I am going to be studying in the University of Washington in Seattle in Fall 2007.

Have you written anything about Philippine languages?

I wrote a book called In Bahasa Sug: An Introduction to Tausug. My friend & linguist Jason Lobel is in the Philippines right now having it published and doing research.

My book is now available at http://members.aol.com/linggwistik

I've also written an essay about languages and dialects.

I have also helped out in editing Dr. Carl Rubino's Tagalog Dictionary.

What is your pet peeve?

Phrases such as "the Cebuano dialect."

Life must be rough living out in the sticks. Where would you rather be right now?

Either Barcelona, Spain or Montréal, Québec.

Gawd, you're such a language nerd. What else do you like to do?

Genealogy.

That's it for now. Stay tuned for more posts. I'm still getting used to this Blogger site.

--Chris

Salita Blog

*taps mic* hello?

ABS-CBN NOW finally adds three more

TV Patrol in Waray-Waray now available online!

Bikol Wikipedia is now open

TV Patrol Pampanga

ABS-CBN Regional Programming

Playing around with making movies...

Buhay pa 'ko!

Philippine Blog Awards Update

Tagalog verbs

Imperative affixes

The infix -um- and its derivatives

Verbal affixes in other Tagalog dialects

Some final thoughts

Language maps

Mentioned in YES!

Salita Blog is a finalist for Philippine Blog Awards

Where art thou, Panaghoy?

The Eskaya

Kapampangan music video

Jesus Film in Philippine languages

Chavacano pronouns

Language Barrier, a microdocumentary on Cebuano

Link of the day: Yami Language Learning Center

Two new Wikipedias in two Philippine languages

The use of siya

Philippine Independence Day

10-ICAL papers

Much ado about Pinoy

Use of linkers in Philippine languages

Ang Pasko ay Sumapit...

Ilokano & Waray Wikipedias / Tayabas Tagalog / Why?

Baybayin & Coca Cola

Hear me speak Kinaray-a!

Languages of the Southern Gateway

My ideal language policy

Who are the Tagarugs? The Tagarug Mystery...

Book Review: Central Tagbanwa

13 Major Languages And Numbers in Ilokano and Kapampangan

Counting in pre 20th-century Tagalog and Waray-Waray

Book Review: A Masbatenyo-English Dictionary by Elmer Wolfenden

Sale on my Tausug Book & Salita Blogathon!

MUTDA: Mga Tulang Asi

Waray Songs & Contractions

Changes to Ethnologue

Old Books on Philippine Languages Available Online

Studies in Philippine Linguistics available online!

Lien du jour: Books on Philippine languages

Lien du jour: Austronesian Basic Vocabulary Database

The Filipino vs. Tagalog debate: Bisalog

Hack?

Happy New Year!

Christmas greetings

Waray-Waray articles

Tausug Book is Ready!

Excellent news!!

Bummed... and link of the day.

20 Best Pangasinan Lovesongs

New Diversion: A Comparative Study of Philippine Lexicons

Book Update!

Filipino Classes at UH feel pinch

Yami

Languages or Dialects?

Lake Sebu videos

Bill 1563: Filipino as medium of instruction

Non-Tagalog TV

Tagalog article at Wikipedia

My Tausug Book

Nominated

News about Chabacano / Chavacano

English as the Medium of Instruction

New Tagalog blog

Eight Major Languages No More

Kapampangan Pronoun Combinations

Miscellany

Rinconada Bikol

Book Review: Intermediate Ilokano by Precy Espiritu

Giliw Ko - A Philippine film from 1939

Alternative pronouns in Kinaray-a, Akeanon, and Onhan

taps mic hello?