Tagalog verbs

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- (gungmawa)
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

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!

The use of siya

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.

Much ado about Pinoy

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).

Of course, I am in complete disagreement. 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 1924 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 1924, contact me.

Signing off,

--Chris Sundita
A proud Pinoy

Use of linkers in Philippine languages

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

1. -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).


2. 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

1. -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).


2. 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).


3. 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

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


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

Kapampangan

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


2. 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

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


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


3. 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

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


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

Sambal Botolan

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


2. -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

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


2. 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...

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?

[insert apology for justifying my neglect of this blog]

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.

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 baquin ang 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

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.

My ideal language policy

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...

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.

13 Major Languages And Numbers in Ilokano and Kapampangan

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

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.

Old Books on Philippine Languages Available Online

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!

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!

Happy New Year!

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

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 :-)

Lake Sebu videos

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

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.

Tagalog article at Wikipedia

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!

New Tagalog blog

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.