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 Eskaya

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.

Chavacano pronouns

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."

Two new Wikipedias in two Philippine languages

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?)

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?

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!