Wednesday, August 31, 2005

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.

Saturday, August 20, 2005

Hear me speak Kinaray-a!

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

Anyway, there was one problem.

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

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

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

People have proposed û and ö.

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

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

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

The link is here:

I said:

iririmaw tatûn (let's get together)

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

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

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

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

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

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

Tuesday, August 09, 2005

Languages of the Southern Gateway

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

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

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

The languages are:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Monday, August 08, 2005

My ideal language policy




Here is what I propose.

Official Language at the National Level






Regionally & Provincially




This horrible pratice must come to an end.





kakaunting-kaunti lamang ang resistensya ng hangin. "


Now, that wasn't hard.








I know that.


It doesn't have to happen overnight.





Sunday, August 07, 2005

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:
kumawatumakyatto climb
migbunumag-awayto fight
sarapawlumpiadto fly
ngatte ngayontoday

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.

Saturday, August 06, 2005

Book Review: Central Tagbanwa

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

" Noun Marking Particles"

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

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

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

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

'Beto is over there in Malaya.'"

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

'The ship docked in Puerto."

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


Central Tagbanwa-English

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

English-Central Tagbanwa

pig bavoy

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

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

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

Friday, August 05, 2005

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.

Thursday, August 04, 2005

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.

Wednesday, August 03, 2005

Book Review: A Masbatenyo-English Dictionary by Elmer Wolfenden

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Here are two sample entries:

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

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

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

Here is an example.

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

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

Tuesday, August 02, 2005

Sale on my Tausug Book & Salita Blogathon!

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

See you tomorrow,