Ilocano language

The ilocano, also called iloko and ilokano, refers to the language and culture associated with the Ilocanos, the third largest ethnic group in the Philippine Islands. The native area of the Ilocano population is located in the northwest of the island of Luzon and constitutes the defining identity of the Ilocos Region (Region I). The first Ilocano newspaper was published in 1889, in Spanish, bearing the same name: El Ilocano, edited by Isabelo de los Reyes.

History

The Ilocanos are descendants of Malays who migrated to and colonized the northwestern Philippines for centuries. Families and clans arrived by the viray or bilog, meaning the ship. The word ilocano comes from i, meaning "of", and looc, meaning "the cove or the bay", thus "the people of the bay." Ilocanos also refer to themselves as Samtoy, a contraction of the Ilocano phrase saö mi ditoy, meaning "our language here".

The Ilocanos occupy a narrow, barren land on the northwestern tip of Luzon, between the Cordillera Mountains to the east and the South China Sea to the west. This harsh, inhospitable geography shaped a people known for their tenacious industry and frugality. This also induced the Ilocanos to become a migratory people, always looking for better opportunities.

Ilocano pioneers poured into the more fertile valley of Cagayan and the plains of Pangasinan province during the 18th century and the 19th century and now constitute a majority in many of these places. In the 20th century, many families moved south to Mindanao. They were the first ethnic Filipino group to immigrate en masse to North America, forming significant communities in the US states of Hawaii, California, Washington, and Alaska. They can also be found in the Middle East, Hong Kong, Japan, Canada and Europe.

Classification

Ilocano is a language of the Austronesian family, spoken in northern Luzon and in various parts of the country as well as in other parts of the world. It is used as a lingua franca in the northern region, it is used as a second language by other groups such as the Pangasinan, Ibanags, Ivatans and various ethnic tribes in the Mountain Province and Zambales. It is spoken by approximately nine million people.

Dialects

Linguists recognize two primary dialect groups of the Ilocano language: norteño and southerno. In general, northern dialect subgroups are characterized by the realization of the vowel e as an unrounded front semi-open vowel, or better, [ɛ]. The pronunciation is similar to the English word bed. There is no equivalent vowel in the Spanish language.

In southern dialect groups, the letter e has two realizations. In words of Spanish or foreign origin, [ɛ] is performed as well as in northern dialects. However, in indigenous words, the letter e is realized as an unrounded back close vowel, or better, [ɯ]. This vowel is found in many Philippine languages, for example in the language of the Kinaray-a, as well as in other foreign languages, for example in Japanese and Turkish.

Spelling

Precolonial

Before the arrival of the Europeans, pre-colonial Ilocanos of all social classes wrote with a syllabic system, or rather an abugida or syllabary. This system was similar to the Tagalog script and that of the Pangasinenses. Each character of these abugidas signified a sequence of a consonant followed by a vowel, CV, then a syllable. It is possible that the source language of this system did not need to write coda consonants because their own phonology did not allow them. However, syllables in Philippine languages end in a consonant and have closed syllables. For the writers, there was no method to indicate the absence of the vowel. In many cases, the reader had to guess whether the syllable ended in a vowel or a consonant.

In another way, the system of the Ilocanos is the first to designate the coda consonants with a diacritical mark - a virama in the shape of a cross, exhibited in La Doctrina Cristiana of the year 1621, a one of the oldest Ilocana publications still in existence. The virama written below the letter meant that he did not perform the vowel, he denied it.

Prayer The Our Father of the book Christian Doctrine1621.

The Colonial Era

After the arrival of the Spanish on the islands, the syllabic system was abandoned for the Spanish version of the Latin alphabet.

Today

There are two systems in use: one based on Spanish and one on Tagalog. In the Spanish system, the words of Spanish origin maintained their forms, that is, the indigenous words adapted to the rules and peculiarities of Spanish. Currently, it is only used by older people and in old publications.

Unlike the Spanish system, the Tagalog-based one is more phonetic. Each letter has only one phonetic value, and reflects the true realization of the word.¹ However, the combination of the letters ng is a digraph. It follows after the letter n in the alphabetization. It turns out that numo (humility) appears before ngalngal (chewing) in newer dictionaries. The impact on words of foreign origin, the most common coming from Spanish, is that they will need to change their forms to better reflect Ilocana phonology. The Ilocana magazine Bannawag 'El Dawn' use this system.

Comparison

Notes

Grammar

Typology

The Ilocano language employs a predicate-initial structure. That is to say that the verb or adjective occurs in the initial position in the clause. And then the rest of the sentence follows.

Ilocano uses a complex system of affixes (prefixes, suffixes, infixes, and enclitics) and reduplication to indicate a wide variety of grammatical categories.

Pronouns

Ilocano pronouns distinguish between three cases: absolutive, ergative and oblique. Also, they distinguish between three numbers: singular, dual and plural. Dual 1st person only includes the speaker and the listener. While 1st person plural distinguishes inclusion: inclusive (you and I, compare 1st person dual) and exclusive (they and I).

Absolutive pronouns have two forms: independent and enclitic.

Independent pronouns are not attached to any word.

Siák ti gayyem ni Juan.
"I am Juan's friend."

Dakami ti napan idiay Laoag.
"We are the ones who went to Laoag."

Enclitics are linked to the previous word.

Gumatgatangak iti saba.
"I am buying bananas."

Agawidkayonto kadi no Saturday?
"Are you all coming back on Saturday?"

Pronouns in the "genitive case" they are linked to nouns in reference to the possessed, or they are linked to verbs to indicate the ergative case.

The pronouns -mo and -ko are reduced to -m and -k after vowels.

Napintas ti balaymo.

"Your house is beautiful."

Ayanna daydiayk?

"Where is that dog of mine?"

Basbasaenda You daily.

"They read the diary."

Oblique pronouns indicate the indirect object.

Intedna kaniak.

"He gave it to me."

Imbagam kaniana!

"You told her!"