Pronunciation [ˈmәranaw] Ethnicity Maranao people | Native to Philippines | |
 | ||
Region twin provinces of Lanao del Norte and Lanao del Sur Native speakers (780,000 cited 1990 census) Language family Austronesian
Malayo-Polynesian
Philippine
Mindanao
Danao
Maranao | ||
Maranao ([ˈmәranaw]) is an Austronesian language spoken by the Maranao people in the provinces of Lanao del Norte and Lanao del Sur in the Philippines, and in Sabah, Malaysia.
Contents
Iranun was once considered a dialect.
Unique among other Danao languages, Maranaoan is spoken with a distinct downstep accent, as opposed to stress accent.
Distribution
Maranao is spoken in the following areas (Ethnologue).
Orthography
Maranaoan was historically written in Arabic letters, which were known as Batang Arab. It is now written with Latin letters.
A, B, D, AE/Ë, E, G, H, I, K, L, M, N, NG, O, P, R, S, T, U, W, Y
"AE", also spelled as "Ë", is pronounced as /ə/.
Double vowels are pronounced separately. For example, "kapaar" is pronounced as /kapaʔaɾ/.
However, in some orthographies, "q" is used for the glottal stop regardless of position, and "di" is used to transcribe the /d͡ʒ/ sound, such as "radia" (from the Sanskrit word for "king", "Rāja").
"H" is only used for Malay loanwords.
Phonology
Below is the sound system of Mëranaw including underlying phonetic features.
Velar fricative [h]
According to Lobel (2013), [h] only occurs in a select number of Malay loanwords:
Consonant elongation
Consonants are also pronounced longer if preceded with a schwa ə. However, this process is not a form of gemination since consonant elongation in Mëranaw is not distinctive as seen in other Philippine languages such as Ilokano and Ibanag. Some of these are: