Hiligaynon language

History

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 [naturales] de la playa"), whom Loarca called Yligueynes (or the more popular term Hiligaynon, also referred to by the Karay-a people as "Siná"). In contrast, the "Kinaray-a" has been used by what the Spanish colonizers called Arayas, which is most probably a Spanish misconception (as they often misinterpreted what they heard from the natives) of the Hiligaynon words Iraya or taga-Iraya, or the current and more popular version Karay-a (highlanders - people of Iraya/highlands).

Dialects

Similar to many languages in the Philippines, very little research on dialectology has been done on Hiligaynon. Some of the widely recognized varieties of the language are Standard or Urban Hiligaynon (Iloilo provincial and Iloilo City variant), simply called "Ilonggo", Bacolodnon Hiligaynon (Metro Bacolod variant), Negrense Hiligaynon (provincial Negros Occidental variant), Guimaras Hiligaynon, and Mindanao Hiligaynon. Some native speakers also consider Kinaray-a (also known as Hiniraya or Antiqueño) and Capiznon as dialects of Hiligaynon; however, these have been classified by linguists as separate (Western Visayan) languages.

Related languages

According to 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. In fact, at the early part of Spanish colonialization of 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.

Writing system

Until the second half of the 20th century, Hiligaynon was widely written based on Spanish orthography consisting of 32 letters called ABECEDARIO:

The core alphabet consists of 20 letters used for expressing consonants and vowels in Hiligaynon, each of which comes in an upper case and lower case variety.

Additional symbols

The apostrophe(') and hyphen(-) also appear in Hiligaynon writing, and might be considered letters.

The hyphen, in particular, is used medially in some words to indicate the glottal stop san-o ‘when’ gab-e ‘evening; night’. It is also used to indicate the point in a word where reduplication is present: adlaw-adlaw ‘daily, every day’, from adlaw ‘day, sun’. However, the use of this means of marking reduplication is not always consistent: pispis ‘bird’.

In addition, some English letters may be used in borrowed words.

Determiners

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.

(*)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 less Spanish loan words.

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.

Demonstrative pronouns

In addition to this, there are two verbal deictics, karí, meaning come to speaker, and kadto, meaning to go yonder.

Copula

Hiligaynon lacks the marker of sentence inversion "ay" of Tagalog/Filipino or "hay" of Akeanon. Instead sentences in SV form (Filipino: Di karaniwang anyo) are written without any marker or copula.

Examples:

"Si Maria ay maganda" (Tagalog)

"Si Maria matahum/ Si Maria guapa" (Hiligaynon) = "Maria is beautiful."

"Maria is beautiful" (English)

There is no direct translation for the English copula "to be" in Hiligaynon. However, the prefixes mangin- and nangin- may be used to mean will be and became, respectively.

Example:

Manamì mangín manggaránon.
"It is nice to become rich."

The Spanish copula "estar" (to be) has also become a part of the Hiligaynon lexicon. Its meaning and pronunciation have become corrupted. In Hiligaynon it is pronounced as "istar" and means "to live (in)/location"(Compare with the Hiligaynon word "puyô").

Example:

Nagaistar ako sa tabuc suba
"I live in tabuc suba" "tabuc suba" translates to "other side of the river" and is also a barangay in Jaro, Iloilo.

Existential

To indicate the existence of an object, the word may is used.

Example:

May idô (a)ko
"I have a dog"

Hiligaynon linkers

When an adjective modifies a noun, the linker nga links the two.

Example:

Itom nga ido
Black dog

Sometimes, if the linker is preceded by a word that ends in a vowel, glottal stop or the letter N, it becomes acceptable to contract it into -ng, as in Filipino. This is often used to make the words sound more poetic or to reduce the number of syllables. Sometimes the meaning may change as in maayo nga aga and maayong aga. The first meaning: (the) good morning; while the other is the greeting for 'good morning'.

The linker ka is used if a number modifies a noun.

Example:

Anum ka ido
six dogs

Interrogative words

The interrogative words of Hiligaynon are as follows: diin, san-o, sin-o, nga-a, kamusta, ano, and pila

Diin means where.
Example:
Diin ka na subong?
"Where are you now?"

A derivation of diin, tagadiin, is used to inquire the birthplace or hometown of the listener.
Example:
Tagadiin ka?
"Where are you from?"

San-o means when
Example:
San-o inâ?
"When is that?"

Sin-o means who
Example:
Sin-o imo abyan?
"Who is your friend?"

Nga-a means why
Example:
Nga-a indi ka magkadto?
"Why won't you go?"

Kamusta means how, as in "How are you?"
Example:
Kamusta ang tindahan?
"How is the store?"

Ano means what
Example:
Ano ang imo ginabasa?
"What are you reading?"

A derivative of ano, paano, means how, as in "How do I do that?"
Example:
Paano ko makapulî?
"How can I get home?"

A derivative of paano is paanoano an archaic phrase which can be compared with kamusta
Example:
Paanoano ikaw?
"How art thou?"

Pila means how much/how many
Example:
Pila ang maupod sa imo?
"How many are with you?"

A derivative of pila, ikapila, asks the numerical order of the person, as in, "What place were you born in your family?"(first-born, second-born, etc.) This word is notoriously difficult to translate into English, as English has no equivalent.
Example:
Ikapila ka sa inyo pamilya?
"What place were you born into your family?"

A derivative of pila, tagpila, asks the monetary value of something, as in, "How much is this beef?"
Example:
Tagpila ini nga karne sang baka?
"How much is this beef?"

Focus

As it is essential for sentence structure and meaning, focus is a key concept in Hiligaynon and other Philippine languages. In English, in order to emphasize a part of a sentence, variation in intonation is usually employed – the voice is stronger or louder on the part emphasized. For example:

1. The man is stealing rice from the market for his sister.
2. The man is stealing rice from the market for his sister.
3. The man is stealing rice from the market for his sister.
4. The man is stealing rice from the market for his sister.

Furthermore, active and passive grammatical constructions can be used in English to place focus on the actor or object as the subject:

In contrast, sentence focus in Philippine languages is built into the construction by grammatical elements. Focus is marked by verbal affixes and a special particle prior to the noun in focus. Consider the following Hiligaynon translations of the above sentences:

1. Nagakawat ang lalaki sang bugas sa tinda para sa iya utod.
2. Ginakawat sang lalaki ang bugas sa tinda para sa iya utod.
3. Ginakawatan sang lalaki sang bugas ang tinda para sa iya utod.
4. Ginakawatan sang lalaki sang bugas sa tinda para sa iya utod.

Reduplication

Hiligaynon, like other Philippine languages, employs reduplication, the repetition of a root or stem of a word or part of a word for grammatical or semantic purposes. Reduplication in Hiligaynon tends to be limited to roots instead of affixes, as the only inflectional or derivational morpheme that seems to reduplicate is -pa-. Root reduplication suggests 'non-perfectiveness' or 'non-telicity'. Used with nouns, reduplication of roots indicate particulars which are not fully actualized members of their class. Note the following examples.

Reduplication of verbal roots suggests a process lacking a focus or decisive goal. The following examples describe events which have no apparent end, in the sense of lacking purpose or completion. A lack of seriousness may also be implied. Similarly, reduplication can suggest a background process in the midst of a foreground activity, as shown in (5).

When used with adjectival roots, non-telicity may suggest a gradualness of the quality, such as the comparison in (6). In comparative constructions the final syllables of each occurrence of the reduplicated root are accented. If the stress of the second occurrence is shifted to the first syllable, then the reduplicated root suggests a superlative degree, as in (7). Note that superlatives can also be created through prefixation of pinaka- to the root, as in pinaka-dakô. While non-telicity can suggest augmentation, as shown in (7), it can also indicate diminishment as in shown in (9), in contrast with (8) (note the stress contrast). In (8b), maàyoáyo, accented in the superlative pattern, suggests a trajectory of improvement that has not been fully achieved. In (9b), maàyoayó suggests a trajectory of decline when accented in the comparative pattern. The reduplicated áyo implies sub-optimal situations in both cases; full goodness/wellness is not achieved.

Sounds

Hiligaynon has sixteen consonants: /p t k b d ɡ m n ŋ s h w l ɾ j/. There are three main vowels: /a/, /ɛ ~ i/, and /o ~ ʊ/. [i] and [ɛ] (both spelled i) are allophones, with [i] in the beginning and middle and sometimes final syllables and [ɛ] in final syllables. The vowels [ʊ] and [o] are also allophones, with [ʊ] always being used when it is the beginning of a syllable, and [o] always used when it ends a syllable. Consonants [d] and [ɾ] were once allophones but cannot interchange as in other Philippine languages: patawaron (to forgive) [from patawad, forgiveness] but not patawadon, and tagadiín (from where) [from diín, where] but not tagariín.

Loan words

Hiligaynon has a large number of words that derive from Spanish words including nouns (e.g., santo from santo, saint), adjectives (e.g., berde from verde, green), prepositions (e.g., antes from antes, before), and conjunctions (e.g., pero from pero, but). Moreover, Spanish provides the Ilonggo base for items introduced by Spain, e.g., barko (barco, ship), sapatos (zapatos, shoes), kutsilyo (cuchillo, knife), kutsara (cuchara, spoon), tenedor (fork), plato (plate), kamiseta (camiseta, shirt), and kambiyo (cambio, change, as in money).

Spanish verbs used in Hiligaynon often remain unconjugated (have the verb endings -ar, -er or -ir) which in Filipino would almost always be conjugated in the 'vos' form, e.g., komparar, mandar, pasar, tener, disponer, mantener, and asistir.

Days of the week

The names of the days of the week are derived from their Spanish equivalents.

Months of the year

The first set of Hiligaynon names of the months are derived from Spanish.

The Lord's Prayer

Amay namon, nga yara ka sa mga langit
Pagdayawon ang imo ngalan
Umabot sa amon ang imo ginharian
Matuman ang imo buot
Diri sa duta siling sang sa langit
Hatagan mo kami nian sing kan-on namon
Sa matag-adlaw
Kag patawaron mo kami sa mga sala namon
Siling nga ginapatawad namon ang nakasala sa amon
Kag dili mo kami ipagpadaug sa mga panulay
Hinunuo luwason mo kami sa kalaut
Amen.

Translation of Catholic version Ten Commandments written in photo:
1.Believe in God and worship only him
2.Do not use the name of God without purpose
3.Honor the day of the Lord
4.Honor your father and mother
5.Do not kill
6.Do not pretend to be married against virginity (don't commit adultery)
7.Do not steal
8.Do not lie
9.Do not have desire for the wife of your fellow man
10.Do not covet the riches of your fellow man

Universal Declaration of Human Rights

Article 1 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (Ang Kalibutánon nga Pahayag sang mga Kinamaatárung sang Katáwhan)

Ang Bukid nga Nagpalangga sang Pispis

Ang Bukid nga Nagpalangga sang Pispis is a fully illustrated, colored children's picture book. The original story is The Mountain That Loved A Bird by Alice McLerran. Originally published in the United States with illustrations by Eric Carle, the story has been translated to Hiligaynon by Genevieve L. Asenjo and illustrated with new art by Beaulah Pedregosa Taguiwalo drawn from the landscapes of the Philippines.

The publisher is Mother Tongue Publishing Inc.[1], a new publishing company based in Manila, Philippines formed in November 2006 by Mario and Beaulah Taguiwalo. Their mission is to publish books in as many languages as possible. They are inspired by the words of science fiction writer Ursula K. Le Guin: “Literature takes shape and life in the body, in the wombs of the mother tongue.” They also agree with neuro-scientist Elkhonon Goldberg who refers to mother tongues as “an extremely adaptive and powerful device for modeling not only what is, but also what will be, what could be, and what we want and do not want to be.”

Noted Hiligaynon writers