Boondocks Boondocks The boondocks is an American expression that stems from the Tagalog word "bundók" ("mountain"). It originally referred to a remote rural area, but now it is often applied to an out-of-the-way city or town considered backward and unsophisticated. It can also designate a 'mountain'. The expression was introduced to English by U.S. military personnel fighting in the Philippine–American War (1899-1902). It derives from the Tagalog word ""bundók"", which means "mountain". According to military historian Paul A. Kramer, the term originally had "connotations of bewilderment and confusion", due to the guerrilla warfare in which the soldiers were engaged. In the
Proto-Austronesian language acknowledges that some of the reconstructed consonants are still controversial and debated. The symbols below are frequently used in reconstructed Proto-Austronesian words. The Proto-Austronesian vowels are a, i, u, and ə. The diphthongs, which are diachronic sources of individual vowels, are: In 2010, John Wolff published his Proto-Austronesian reconstruction in "Proto-Austronesian phonology with glossary". Wolff reconstructs a total of 19 consonants, 4 vowels (*i, *u, *a, *e, where *e = /ə/), 4 diphthongs (*ay, *aw, *iw, *uy), and syllabic stress. The following table shows how Wolff's Proto-Austronesian phonemic system differs from Blust's system. Major differences without one-to-one correspondences are highlighted