A | B | C | D | E | F | G | H | CH | I | J | K | L | M | N | O | P | Q | R | S | T | U | V | W | X | Y | Z | 0 | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9
| Hiligaynon | |
|---|---|
| Ilonggo | |
| Hiniligaynon, Inilonggo | |
| Pronunciation | /hɪlɪˈɡaɪnən/ |
| Native to | Philippines |
| Region | Western Visayas, Soccsksargen, western Negros Oriental, southwestern portion of Masbate, coastal Palawan, some parts of southern Mindoro, some parts of Romblon and a few parts of Northern Mindanao |
| Ethnicity | Hiligaynon |
Native speakers | 7.8 million (2010)[1][needs update] 9.1 million total speakers[2] 4th most spoken native language in the Philippines[3] |
Austronesian
| |
| Dialects |
|
| Latin (Hiligaynon alphabet) Hiligaynon Braille Historically Baybayin (c. 13th–19th centuries) | |
| Official status | |
Recognised minority language in | |
| Regulated by | Komisyon sa Wikang Filipino |
| Language codes | |
| ISO 639-2 | hil |
| ISO 639-3 | hil |
| Glottolog | hili1240 |
 Areas where Hiligaynon is spoken in the Philippines | |
Hiligaynon, also often referred to as Ilonggo or Binisayâ/Bisayâ nga Hiniligaynon/Inilonggo, is an Austronesian regional language spoken in the Philippines by about 9.1 million people, predominantly in Western Visayas and Soccsksargen, most of whom belong to the Hiligaynon people.[4] It is the second-most widely spoken language in the Visayas and belongs to the Bisayan languages, and it is more distantly related to other Philippine languages.
It also has one of the largest native language-speaking populations of the Philippines, despite it not being taught and studied formally in schools and universities until 2012.[5] Hiligaynon is given the ISO 639-2 three-letter code hil, but has no ISO 639-1 two-letter code.
Hiligaynon is mainly concentrated in the regions of Western Visayas (Iloilo, Capiz, Guimaras, and Negros Occidental), as well as in South Cotabato (including General Santos), Sultan Kudarat, and North Cotabato in Soccsksargen. It is spoken in other neighboring provinces, such as Antique and Aklan in Western Visayas, Negros Oriental in Central Visayas, Masbate in Bicol Region, and southern parts of Mindoro, Romblon and Palawan in Mimaropa.
It is spoken as a second language by Kinaray-a speakers in Antique, Aklanon/Malaynon speakers in Aklan, Capiznon speakers in Capiz, Cebuano speakers in Negros Oriental,[6] and spoken and understood by native speakers of Maguindanaon, Cebuano, Ilocano, Blaan, Tboli and other settler and indigenous languages in Soccsksargen in Mindanao.[7] There are approximately 9,300,000 people in and out of the Philippines who are native speakers of Hiligaynon and an additional 5,000,000 capable of speaking it with a substantial degree of proficiency.[8]
Nomenclature
Aside from Hiligaynon, the language is also referred to as Ilonggo, also spelled Ilongo, as it originated in Iloilo. Many speakers outside Iloilo argue, that this is an incorrect usage of the word Ilonggo. In precise usage, these people opine that Ilonggo should be used only in relation to the ethnolinguistic group of native inhabitants of Iloilo and the culture associated with native Hiligaynon speakers in that place, including their language. The disagreement over the usage of Ilonggo to refer to the language extends to Philippine language specialists and native laypeople.[9]
Historically, the term Visayan had originally been applied to the people of Panay. In terms of language, Visayan is more used today to refer to what is known as Cebuano. As pointed out by H. Otley Beyer and other anthropologists, the term Visayan was first applied only to the people of Panay and to their settlements eastward in the island of Negros, especially its western portion, and northward in the smaller islands, which now compose the province of Romblon.[10]
At the early part of Spanish Colonization in the Philippines, the Spaniards used the term Visayan only for these areas. While the people of Cebu, Bohol and Leyte were for a long time known only as Pintados. The name Visayan was later extended to these other islands because, as several of the early writers state, their languages are closely allied to the Visayan dialect of Panay.[11]
History
 | This section needs expansion. You can help by adding to it. (December 2020) |
Historical evidence from observations of early Spanish explorers in the Archipelago shows that the nomenclature used to refer to this language had its origin among the people of the coasts or people of the Ilawod ("los de la playa") in Iloilo, Panay, whom Spanish explorer Miguel de Loarca called Yligueynes[12] (or the more popular term Hiligaynon, also referred to by the Karay-a people as Siná).
The term Hiligaynon came from the root word ilig ('to go downstream'), referring to a flowing river in Iloilo. In contrast, the Kinaray-a has been used by what the Spanish colonizers called Arayas, which may be a Spanish misconception of the Hiligaynon words Iraya or taga-Iraya, or the current and more popular version Karay-a ('highlanders' – people of Iraya/highlands).[13]
Dialects
Similar to many languages in the Philippines, very little research on dialectology has been done on Hiligaynon. Standard Hiligaynon, simply called Ilonggo, is the dialect that is used in the province of Iloilo, primarily in the northern and eastern portions of the province. It has a more traditional and extensive vocabulary, whereas the Urban Hiligaynon dialect spoken in Metro Iloilo has a more simplified or modern vocabulary.
For example, the term for 'to wander,' 'to walk,' or 'to stroll' in Urban Hiligaynon is lágaw, which is also widely used by most of the Hiligaynon speakers, whereas in Standard Hiligaynon, dayán is more commonly used, which has rarely or never been used by other dialects of the language. Another example, amó iní, ('this is it') in Standard Hiligaynon can be simplified in Urban Hiligaynon and become 'mó'ní.
Some of the other widely recognized dialects of the language, aside from Standard Hiligaynon and Urban Hiligaynon, are Bacolodnon Hiligaynon (Metro Bacolod dialect), Negrense Hiligaynon (provincial Negros Occidental dialect that is composed of three sub-variants: Northern, Central and Southern Negrense Hiligaynon), Guimaras Hiligaynon, and Mindanao Hiligaynon (which incorporated some Cebuano and other languages due to the mass influx of migrants from Cebu, Bohol, Siquijor and Cebuano-speaking parts of Mindanao reside in the Soccsksargen area). [14]
Some native speakers also consider Kinaray-a (also known as Hiniraya or Antiqueño) and Capiznon dialects of Hiligaynon. However, linguists have classified Kinaray-a as a Western Bisayan language, while Capiznon is a Central Bisayan language closely related to Hiligaynon.[15][16]
Phonology
Consonants
| Labial | Dental/ Alveolar |
Palatal | Velar | Glottal | ||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Nasal | m | n | ŋ | |||||||
| Stop | p | b | t | d | k | ɡ | ʔ | |||
| Fricative | s | h | ||||||||
| Flap | ɾ | |||||||||
| Approximant | w | l | j | |||||||
Consonants and were once allophones but cannot interchange as in other Philippine languages: patawaron ('to forgive') but not patawadon, and tagadiín ('from where') but not tagariín.
Vowels
There are four main vowels: /a/, /i ~ ɛ/, /o ~ ʊ/, and /u/. and (both spelled i) are allophones, with in the beginning and middle and sometimes final syllables and in final syllables. The vowels and are also allophones, with always being used when it is the beginning of a syllable, and always used when it ends a syllable.
Writing system
Hiligaynon is written using the Latin script. Until the second half of the 20th century, Hiligaynon was widely written largely following Spanish orthographic conventions. Nowadays there is no officially recognized standard orthography for the language and different writers may follow different conventions. It is common for the newer generation, however, to write the language based on the current orthographic rules of Filipino.
A noticeable feature of the Spanish-influenced orthography absent in those writing following Filipino's orthography is the use of "c" and "qu" in representing /k/ (now replaced with "k" in all instances) and the absence of the letter "w" ("u" was formerly used in certain instances).
The core alphabet consists of 20 letters used for expressing consonants and vowels in Hiligaynon, each of which comes in an uppercase and lowercase variety.
Alphabet
| Symbol | A a | B b | K k | D d | E e | G g | H h | I i | L l | M m | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Name | a | ba | ka | da | e | ga | ha | i | la | ma | |||
| Pronunciation | aj | b | k | d | ɛ/e | ɡ | h | ɪ/i | ɪo | l | m | ||
| in context | a | aw/ao | ay | b | k | d | e | g | h | i | iw/io | l | m |
| Symbol | N n | Ng ng | O o | P p | R r | S s | T t | U u | W w | Y y | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Name | na | nga | o | pa | ra | sa | ta | u | wa | ya | |||
| Pronunciation | n | ŋ | ɔ/o | oj | p | r | s | ʃʲ | t | ʊ/u | w | w | j |
| in context | n | ng | o | oy | p | r | s | sy | t | u | ua | w | y |
Additional symbolsedit
The apostrophe ⟨'⟩ and hyphen ⟨-⟩ also appear in Hiligaynon writing, and might be considered separate letters.
The hyphen, in particular, is used medially to indicate the glottal stop san-o 'when' gab-e 'evening; night'. It is also used in reduplicated words: adlaw-adlaw 'daily, every day', from adlaw 'day, sun'. This marking is not used in reduplicated words whose base is not also used independently, as in pispis 'bird'.
Hyphens are also used in words with successive sounds of /g/ and /ŋ/, to separate the letters with the digraph NG. Like in the word gin-gaan 'was given'; without the hyphen, it would be read as gingaan /gi.ŋaʔan/ as opposed to /gin.gaʔan/.
In addition, some English letters[which?] may be used in borrowed words.
Grammaredit
Determinersedit
Hiligaynon has three types of case markers: absolutive, ergative, and oblique. These types in turn are divided into personal, that have to do with names of people, and impersonal, that deal with everything else, and further into singular and plural types, though the plural impersonal case markers are just the singular impersonal case markers + mga (a contracted spelling for /maŋa/), a particle used to denote plurality in Hiligaynon.[17]
| Absolutive | Ergative | Oblique | |
|---|---|---|---|
| singular impersonal | ang | sang, sing* | sa |
| plural impersonal | ang mga | sang mga, sing mga* | sa mga |
| singular personal | si | ni | kay |
| plural personal** | sanday | nanday | kanday |
(*)The articles sing and sing mga means the following noun is indefinite, while sang tells of a definite noun, like the use of a in English as opposed to the; however, it is not as common in modern speech, being replaced by sang. It appears in conservative translations of the Bible into Hiligaynon and in traditional or formal speech.
(**)The plural personal case markers are not used very often and not even by all speakers. Again, this is an example of a case marker that has fallen largely into disuse, but is still occasionally used when speaking a more traditional form of Hiligaynon, using fewer Spanish loan words.[clarification needed]
The case markers do not determine which noun is the subject and which is the object; rather, the affix of the verb determines this, though the ang-marked noun is always the topic.
| Ang lalaki nagkaon sang tinapay. | ≈ | Ang tinapay ginkaon sang lalaki. |
| 'The man ate the bread' | 'The bread was eaten by the man' (literal) |