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
| Ilocano | |
|---|---|
| Ilokano | |
| Iloko, Iluko, Iloco, Pagsasao nga Ilokano, Samtoy, Sao mi ditoy | |
| Native to | Philippines |
| Region | Northern Luzon, many parts of Central Luzon and a few parts of Mindanao |
| Ethnicity | Ilocano |
Native speakers | 6,370,000 (2005)[1] 2 million L2 speakers (2000)[2] Third most spoken native language in the Philippines[3] |
| Latin (Ilocano alphabet), Ilokano Braille Historically Kur-itan | |
| Official status | |
Official language in | La Union[4] |
Recognised minority language in | |
| Regulated by | Komisyon sa Wikang Filipino |
| Language codes | |
| ISO 639-2 | ilo |
| ISO 639-3 | ilo |
| Glottolog | ilok1237 |
| Linguasphere | 31-CBA-a |
 | |
Ilocano (also Ilokano; /iːloʊˈkɑːnoʊ/;[6] Ilocano: Pagsasao nga Ilokano) is an Austronesian language spoken in the Philippines, primarily by Ilocano people and as a lingua franca by the Igorot people and also by the native settlers of Cagayan Valley. It is the third most-spoken native language in the country.
As an Austronesian language, it is related to Malay (Indonesian and Malaysian), Tetum, Chamorro, Fijian, Māori, Hawaiian, Samoan, Tahitian, Paiwan, and Malagasy. It is closely related to some of the other Austronesian languages of Northern Luzon, and has slight mutual intelligibility with the Balangao language and the eastern dialects of the Bontoc language.[dubious – discuss][7]
The Ilokano people had their indigenous writing system and script known as kur-itan. There have been proposals to revive the kur-itan script by teaching it in Ilokano-majority public and private schools in Ilocos Norte and Ilocos Sur.[8]
Classification
Ilocano, like all Philippine languages, is an Austronesian language, a very expansive language family believed to originate in Taiwan.[9][10] Ilocano comprises its own branch within the Philippine Cordilleran language subfamily. It is spoken as a first language by seven million people.[3]
A lingua franca of Northern Luzon and many parts of Central Luzon, it is spoken as a secondary language by more than two million people who are native speakers of Ibanag, Ivatan, Pangasinan, Sambal, and other local languages.[2]
Geographic distribution
The language is spoken in the Ilocos Region, the Babuyan Islands, the Cordillera Administrative Region, Cagayan Valley, northern parts of Central Luzon (precisely Tarlac, Nueva Ecija, and Aurora, as well as south central Zambales[11][12] and southeast Bataan),[13][14][better source needed] Batanes, some areas in Mindoro, and scattered areas in Mindanao (particularly the Soccsksargen region).[15] The language is also spoken in the United States, with Hawaii and California having the largest number of speakers,[16] and in Canada.[17] It is the most spoken non-English language in Hawaii, spoken by 17% of those speaking languages other than English at home (25.4% of the population).[18]
In September 2012, the province of La Union passed an ordinance recognizing Ilocano (Iloko) as an official provincial language, alongside Filipino, the national language, and English, a co-official language nationwide.[4] It is the first province in the Philippines to pass an ordinance protecting and revitalizing a native language, although there are other languages spoken in La Union, including Pangasinan, Kankanaey, and Ibaloi.[4]
Writing system
Modern alphabet
The modern Ilokano alphabet consists of 28 letters:[19]
Aa, Bb, Cc, Dd, Ee, Ff, Gg, Hh, Ii, Jj, Kk, Ll, Mm, Nn, Ññ, NGng, Oo, Pp, Qq, Rr, Ss, Tt, Uu, Vv, Ww, Xx, Yy, and Zz
Pre-colonial
Pre-colonial Ilocano people of all classes wrote in a syllabic system known as Baybayin prior to European arrival. They used a system that is termed as an abugida, or an alphasyllabary. It was similar to the Tagalog and Pangasinan scripts, where each character represented a consonant-vowel, or CV, sequence. The Ilocano version, however, was the first to designate coda consonants with a diacritic mark – a cross or virama – shown in the Doctrina Cristiana of 1621, one of the earliest surviving Ilokano publications. Before the addition of the virama, writers had no way to designate coda consonants. The reader, on the other hand, had to guess whether a consonant not succeeding a vowel is read or not, for it is not written. Vowel apostrophes interchange between e or i, and o or u. Due to this, the vowels e and i are interchangeable, and letters o and u, for instance, tendera and tindira ('shop-assistant').
Modern
In recent times, there have been two systems in use: the Spanish system and the Tagalog system. In the Spanish system words of Spanish origin kept their spellings. Native words, on the other hand, conformed to the Spanish rules of spelling. Most older generations of Ilocanos use the Spanish system.
In the system based on that of Tagalog there is more of a phoneme-to-letter correspondence, which better reflects the actual pronunciation of the word.[a] The letters ng constitute a digraph and count as a single letter, following n in alphabetization. As a result, numo ('humility') appears before ngalngal ('to chew') in newer dictionaries. Words of foreign origin, most notably those from Spanish, need to be changed in spelling to better reflect Ilocano phonology. Words of English origin may or may not conform to this orthography. A prime example using this system is the weekly magazine Bannawag.
Samples of the two systems
The following are two versions of the Lord's Prayer. The one on the left is written using Spanish-based orthography, while the one on the right uses the Tagalog-based system.
|
|
Comparison between the two systems
| Rules | Spanish-based | Tagalog-based | Translation |
|---|---|---|---|
| c → k | tocac | tukak | frog |
| ci, ce → si, se | acero | asero | steel |
| ch → ts | coche | lugan | car |
| f → p1 | familia | pamilia | family |
| gui, gue → gi, ge | daguiti | dagiti | the |
| ge, gi → he, hi2 | página | pahina | page |
| ll → li | caballo | kabalio | horse |
| ñ → ni | baño | kasilyas | bathroom |
| ñg, ng̃ → ng | ñgioat, ng̃ioat | ngiwat | mouth |
| Vo(V) → Vw(V) | aoan
aldao |
awan
aldaw |
nothing
day |
| qui, que → ki, ke | iquit | ikit | aunt |
| v → b | voces | boses | voice |
| z → s | zapatos | sapatos | shoe |
Notes
Ilocano and education
With the implementation by the Spanish of the Bilingual Education System of 1897, Ilocano, together with the other seven major languages (those that have at least a million speakers), was allowed to be used as a medium of instruction until the second grade. It is recognized by the Commission on the Filipino Language as one of the major languages of the Philippines.[20] Constitutionally, Ilocano is an auxiliary official language in the regions where it is spoken and serves as auxiliary media of instruction therein.[21]
In 2009, the Department of Education instituted Department Order No. 74, s. 2009 stipulating that "mother tongue-based multilingual education" would be implemented. In 2012, Department Order No. 16, s. 2012 stipulated that the mother tongue-based multilingual system was to be implemented for Kindergarten to Grade 3 Effective School Year 2012–2013.[22] Ilocano is used in public schools mostly in the Ilocos Region and the Cordilleras. It is the primary medium of instruction from Kindergarten to Grade 3 (except for the Filipino and English subjects) and is also a separate subject from Grade 1 to Grade 3. Thereafter, English and Filipino are introduced as mediums of instruction.
Literature
Ilocano animistic past offers a rich background in folklore, mythology and superstition (see Religion in the Philippines). There are many stories of good and malevolent spirits and beings. Its creation mythology centers on the giants Aran and her husband Angalo, and Namarsua (the Creator).
The epic story Biag ni Lam-ang (The Life of Lam-ang) is undoubtedly one of the few indigenous stories from the Philippines that survived colonialism, although much of it is now acculturated and shows many foreign elements in the retelling. It reflects values important to traditional Ilokano society; it is a hero's journey steeped in courage, loyalty, pragmatism, honor, and ancestral and familial bonds.
Ilocano culture revolves around life rituals, festivities, and oral history. These were celebrated in songs (kankanta), dances (salsala), poems (dandaniw), riddles (burburtia), proverbs (pagsasao), literary verbal jousts called bucanegan (named after the writer Pedro Bucaneg, and is the equivalent of the Balagtasan of the Tagalogs), and epic stories.
Phonology
Segmental
Vowels
Modern Ilocano has two dialects, which are differentiated only by the way the letter e is pronounced. In the Amianan (Northern) dialect, there exist only five vowels while the older Abagatan (Southern) dialect employs six.
- Amianan: /a/, /i/, /u/, /ɛ ~ e/, /o/
- Abagatan: /a/, /i/, /u/, /ɛ ~ e/, /o/, /ɯ/
Reduplicate vowels are not slurred together, but voiced separately with an intervening glottal stop:
- saan: /sa.ʔan/ 'no'
- siit: /si.ʔit/ 'thorn'
The letter in bold is the graphic (written) representation of the vowel.
| Front | Central | Back | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Close | i /i/ | u/o /u/
e /ɯ/ | |
| Mid | e /ɛ ~ e/ | o /o/ | |
| Open | a /a/ |
For a better rendition of vowel distribution, please refer to the IPA Vowel Chart.
Unstressed /a/ is pronounced in all positions except final syllables, like madí ('cannot be') but ngiwat ('mouth') is pronounced . Unstressed /a/ in final-syllables is mostly pronounced across word boundaries.
Although the modern (Tagalog) writing system is largely phonetic, there are some notable conventions.
O/U and I/E
In native morphemes, the close back rounded vowel /u/ is written differently depending on the syllable. If the vowel occurs in the ultima of the morpheme, it is written o; elsewhere, u.
Example:
- Root: luto 'cook'
- agluto 'to cook'
- lutuen 'to cook (something)'; example: lutuen dayta
- agluto 'to cook'
Instances such as masapulmonto, 'You will manage to find it, to need it', are still consistent. Note that masapulmonto is, in fact, three morphemes: masapul (verb base), -mo (pronoun) and -(n)to (future particle). An exception to this rule, however, is laud /la.ʔud/ ('west'). Also, u in final stressed syllables can be pronounced , like for danum ('water').
The two vowels are not highly differentiated in native words due to fact that /o/ was an allophone of /u/ in the history of the language. In words of foreign origin, notably Spanish, they are phonemic.
Example: uso 'use'; oso 'bear'
Unlike u and o, i and e are not allophones, but i in final stressed syllables in words ending in consonants can be , like ubíng ('child').
The two closed vowels become glides when followed by another vowel. The close back rounded vowel /u/ becomes before another vowel; and the close front unrounded vowel /i/, j.
Example: kuarta /kwaɾ.ta/ 'money'; paria /paɾ.ja/ 'bitter melon'
In addition, dental/alveolar consonants become palatalized before /i/. (See Consonants below).
Unstressed /i/ and /u/ are pronounced ɪ and ʊ except in final syllables, like pintás ('beauty') pɪn.ˈtas and buténg ('fear') bʊ.ˈtɛŋ, bʊ.ˈtɯŋ but bangir ('other side') and parabur ('grace/blessing') are pronounced ˈba.ŋiɾ and pɐ.ˈɾa.buɾ. Unstressed /i/ and /u/ in final syllables are mostly pronounced ɪ and ʊ across word boundaries.
Pronunciation of ⟨e⟩edit
The letter ⟨e⟩ represents two vowels in the non-nuclear dialects (areas outside the Ilocos provinces) ɛ ~ e in words of foreign origin and ɯ in native words, and only one in the nuclear dialects of the Ilocos provinces, ɛ ~ e.
| Word | Gloss | Origin | Nuclear | Non-nuclear |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| keddeng | 'assign' | Native | kɛd.dɛŋ, ked.deŋ | kɯd.dɯŋ |
| elepante | 'elephant' | Spanish | ʔɛ.lɛ.pan.tɛ, ʔe.le.pan.te | |
Diphthongsedit
Diphthongs are combination of a vowel and /i/ or /u/. In the orthography, the secondary vowels (underlying /i/ or /u/) are written with their corresponding glide, y or w, respectively. Of all the possible combinations, only /aj/ or /ej/, /iw/, /aw/ and /uj/ occur. In the orthography, vowels in sequence such as uo and ai, do not coalesce into a diphthong, rather, they are pronounced with an intervening glottal stop, for example, buok 'hair' /bʊ.ʔok/ and dait 'sew' /da.ʔit/.
| Diphthong | Orthography | Example |
|---|---|---|
| /au/ | aw (for native words) / au (for spanish loanwords) | kabaw 'senile', autoridad ‘authority’ |
| /iu/ | iw | iliw 'home sick' |
| /ai/ | ay (for native words) / ai (for spanish loanwords) | maysa 'one', baile ‘dance’ |
| /ei/[b] | ey | idiey 'there' (regional variant; standard idiay) |
| /oi/, /ui/[c] | oy, uy | baboy 'pig' |
The diphthong /ei/ is a variant of /ai/ in native words. Other occurrences are in words of Spanish and English origin. Examples are reyna /ˈɾei.na/ (from Spanish reina, 'queen') and treyner /ˈtɾei.nɛɾ/ ('trainer'). The diphthongs /oi/ and /ui/ may be interchanged since /o/ is an allophone of /u/ in final syllables. Thus, apúy ('fire') may be pronounced /ɐ.ˈpoi/ and baboy ('pig') may be pronounced /ˈba.bui/.
As for the diphthong /au/, the general rule is to use /aw/ for native words while /au/ will be used for spanish loanword such as the words ’’autoridad, autonomia, automatiko’’. The same rule goes to the diphthong /ai/.