Ilokano (Ti Pagsasao nga Iloko) (also called
Ilocano,
Iluko,
Iloco,
Iloko,
Ylocano, and
Yloco) is the third most-spoken language of the Republic of the
PhilippinesThe Philippines officially known as the Republic of the Philippines, is a country in Southeast Asia with Manila as its capital city. It comprises 7,107 islands in the western Pacific Ocean....
.
An
Austronesian languageThe Austronesian languages are a language family widely dispersed throughout the islands of Southeast Asia and the Pacific, with a few members spoken on continental Asia. It is on par with Bantu, Indo-European, Afro-Asiatic and Uralic as one of the best-established ancient language families...
, it is related to such languages as
IndonesianIndonesian is the official national language of Indonesia. It is based on a version of Classical Malay of the Riau-Johor Sultanate. It was first declared the official language with the declaration of Indonesian independence in 1945, following the 1928 unifying-language declaration in the...
,
MalayMalay is a group of languages closely related to each other to the point of mutual intelligibility but that linguists consider to be separate languages. They are grouped into a group called "Local Malay", part of a larger group called "Malayan" within the Malayo-Polynesian branch of the...
,
FijianFijian is an Austronesian language of the Malayo-Polynesian family spoken in Fiji. It has 450,000 first-language speakers, which is less than half the population of Fiji, but another 200,000 speak it as a second language...
,
MaoriMāori or te reo Māori commonly te reo , is the language of the indigenous population of New Zealand, the Maori people, where it has is the status of an official language...
(of
New ZealandNew Zealand is an island country in the south-western Pacific Ocean comprising two main landmasses , and numerous smaller islands, most notably Stewart Island/Rakiura and the Chatham Islands. The indigenous Māori named New Zealand Aotearoa, commonly translated as The Land of the Long White Cloud...
),
HawaiianThe Hawaiian language is a Polynesian language that takes its name from Hawaii, the largest island in the tropical North Pacific archipelago where it developed. Hawaiian, along with English, is an official language of the state of Hawaii...
,
MalagasyMalagasy is the national language of Madagascar.-History:The Malagasy language is unrelated to nearby African languages, instead being the westernmost member of the Malayo-Polynesian branch of the Austronesian language family, a fact noted as long ago as the eighteenth century...
(of
MadagascarMadagascar, or Republic of Madagascar , is an island nation in the Indian Ocean off the southeastern coast of Africa. The main island, also called Madagascar, is the fourth-largest island in the world, and is home to 5% of the world's plant and animal species, of which more than 80% are endemic to...
),
SamoanThe Sāmoan or Samoan language is the traditional language of Samoa and American Samoa and is an official language—alongside English—in both jurisdictions. It is a member of the Austronesian family, and more specifically the Samoic branch of the Polynesian subphylum.There are...
,
TahitianTahitian, a Tahitic language, spoken by Tahitians, is one of the two official languages of French Polynesia . It is an Eastern Polynesian language closely related to Rarotongan, New Zealand Māori, and Hawaiian.- Alphabet :...
,
ChamorroChamorro is a Malayo-Polynesian language, spoken on the Mariana islands by about 47,000 people .-Chamorro speakers:...
(of
GuamGuam is an island in the western Pacific Ocean and is an organized, unincorporated territory of the United States. It is one of five U.S. territories with an established civilian government. The island's capital is Hagåtña...
and the
Northern Mariana IslandsThe Northern Mariana Islands , officially the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands , is a commonwealth in political union with the United States, occupying a strategic region of the western Pacific Ocean. It consists of fifteen islands about three-quarters of the way from Hawaii to the...
), Tetum (of
East TimorEast Timor, also known as Timor-Leste is a country in Southeast Asia. It comprises the eastern half of the island of Timor, the nearby islands of Atauro and Jaco, and Oecussi-Ambeno, an exclave on the northwestern side of the island, within Indonesian West Timor...
), and
PaiwanPaiwan is a native language of Taiwan, spoken by the Paiwan people, one tribe of the Taiwanese aborigines. Paiwan is a Formosan language of the Austronesian language family. The number of speakers is estimated to be 66,000....
(of
TaiwanTaiwan , also known as Formosa , is the largest island of the Republic of China in East Asia. Taiwan is located east of the Taiwan Strait, off the southeastern coast of mainland China...
).
History
Ilocanos are descendants of
AustronesianThe Austronesian languages are a language family widely dispersed throughout the islands of Southeast Asia and the Pacific, with a few members spoken on continental Asia. It is on par with Bantu, Indo-European, Afro-Asiatic and Uralic as one of the best-established ancient language families...
-speaking people from southern
ChinaThe People's Republic of China , commonly known as China, is the largest country in East Asia and the most populous in the world with over 1.3 billion people, approximately one-fifth of the world's population...
via
BorneoBorneo is the third largest island in the world and is located at the centre of Maritime Southeast Asia. Administratively, this island is divided among Indonesia , Malaysia and Brunei . Indonesians refer to the island as Kalimantan...
. Families and clans arrived by
viray or
bilog, meaning "boat". The term
Ilokano, as commonly accepted, originates from
i-, "from", and
looc, "cove or bay", thus "people of the bay." But some modern scholars, however, argue that as taking into consideration the Ilocano tradition of giving names to their place of residency is concerned, the i + looc etymology is not of local origin. These scholars suggest that the term Ilocano comes from "i-", "from", and "lukong", "the flat lands" or "the lowlands". Ilokanos also refer to themselves as
Samtoy, a contraction from the Ilokano phrase
sao mi ditoy, "our language here".
Classification
Ilocano comprises its own branch in the Philippine Cordilleran family of languages. It is spoken as a native language by eight million people.
A lingua franca of the northern region, it is spoken as a secondary language by more than two million people who are native speakers of
PangasinanThe Pangasinan language is one of the twelve major languages in the Philippines.The language is spoken by more than one and a half million Pangasinan people in the province of Pangasinan alone. Pangasinan is also spoken in other Pangasinan communities in the Philippines, and by Pangasinan...
,
IbanagThe Ibanag language is spoken by up to 500,000 speakers in the Philippines, in the northeastern provinces of Isabela and Cagayan, especially in Tuguegarao City, Solana, Cabagan, and Ilagan and with overseas immigrants in countries located in the Middle East, UK and the U.S.A....
,
IvatanThe Ivatan language, also known as Ibatan or Chirin nu Ibatan , is an Austronesian language spoken exclusively in the Batanes Islands...
, and other languages in Northern Luzon.
Geographic distribution
Ilocanos occupy the narrow, barren strip of land in the northwestern tip of Luzon, squeezed in between the inhospitable Cordillera mountain range to the east and the South China Sea to the west. This harsh geography molded a people known for their clannishness, tenacious industry and frugality, traits that were vital for survival. It also induced Ilokanos to become a migratory people, always in search for better opportunities and for land to build a life on. Although their homeland constitutes the provinces of
Ilocos NorteIlocos Norte is a province of the Philippines located in the Ilocos Region in Luzon. Its capital is Laoag City and is located at the northwest corner of Luzon Island, bordering Cagayan and Apayao to the east, and Abra and Ilocos Sur to the south...
,
Ilocos SurIlocos Sur is a province of the Philippines located in the Ilocos Region in Luzon. Its capital is Vigan City and borders Ilocos Norte and Abra to the north, Mountain Province to the east, and La Union and Benguet to the south...
,
La UnionLa Union or La Unión might refer to:* Places:**Argentina***La Unión, Buenos Aires**Chile***La Unión, Chile**Colombia***La Unión, Antioquia***La Unión, Nariño***La Unión, Sucre***La Unión, Valle del Cauca**El Salvador***La Unión Department...
and
AbraAbra is a landlocked province of the Philippines in the Cordillera Administrative Region in Luzon. Its capital is Bangued, and it borders Ilocos Norte and Apayao on the north, Ilocos Sur and Mountain Province on the south, Ilocos Norte and Ilocos Sur on the west, and Kalinga, and Apayao on the...
, their population has spread east and south of their original territorial borders.
Ilocano pioneers flocked to the more fertile
CagayanCagayan is a province of the Philippines in the Cagayan Valley region in Luzon. Its capital is Tuguegarao City and is located at the northeastern corner of the island of Luzon. Cagayan also includes the Babuyan Islands to the north. The province borders Ilocos Norte and Apayao to the west, and...
Valley,
ApayaoApayao is a landlocked province of the Philippines in the Cordillera Administrative Region in Luzon. Its capital is Kabugao and borders Cagayan to the north and east, Abra and Ilocos Norte to the west, and Kalinga to the south...
mountains and the
PangasinanPangasinan is one of the provinces of the Republic of the Philippines. The provincial capital is Lingayen. Pangasinan is located on the west central area of the island of Luzon along the Lingayen Gulf. The total land area of Pangasinan is 5,368.82 square kilometers. According to the latest...
plains during the 18th and 19th centuries and now constitute a majority in many of these areas. In the 20th century, many Ilokano families moved to
Metro ManilaMetropolitan Manila or the National Capital Region is the administrative region encompassing the city of Manila, the national capital of the Philippines. As of the 2007 Census, the population is 11,553,427...
and further south to
MindanaoMindanao is the second largest and easternmost island in the Philippines. It is also one of the three island groups in the country, along with Luzon and Visayas...
. They became the first Filipino ethnic group to immigrate en masse to North America (the so-called
Manong generation), forming sizable communities in the American states of
HawaiiHawaii is the newest of the 50 U.S. states, and is the only state made up entirely of islands. It is located on an archipelago in the central Pacific Ocean, southwest of the continental United States, southeast of Japan, and northeast of Australia. The state was admitted to the Union on August...
,
CaliforniaCalifornia is the most populous state in the United States, and the third largest by area. California is the second most populous sub-national entity in the Americas, behind only São Paulo, Brazil...
,
WashingtonWashington is a state in the Pacific Northwest region of the United States. Washington was carved out of the western part of Washington Territory which had been ceded by Britain in 1846 by the Oregon Treaty as settlement of the Oregon Boundary Dispute. It was admitted to the Union as the...
and
AlaskaAlaska is the largest state of the United States of America by area; it is situated in the northwest extremity of the North American continent, with Canada to the east, the Arctic Ocean to the north, and the Pacific Ocean to the west and south, with Russia further west across the Bering Strait...
. Ilokano is the native language of most of the original Filipino immigrants in the United States, but Tagalog is used by more Filipino-Americans because it is the basis for Filipino, the national language of the people of the Philippines.
A large, growing number of Ilokanos can also be found in the
Middle EastThe Middle East is a region that spans southwestern Asia, southeastern Europe, and northeastern Africa. It has no clear boundaries, often used as a synonym to Near East, in opposition to Far East...
,
Hong KongHong Kong , officially the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region, is a highly autonomous territory of the People's Republic of China, facing Guangdong to the north and the South China Sea to the east, west and south...
,
Japanis an island country in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean, it lies to the east of the Sea of Japan, People's Republic of China, North Korea, South Korea and Russia, stretching from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea and Taiwan in the south...
,
SingaporeSingapore , officially the Republic of Singapore, is an island city-state located at the southern tip of the Malay Peninsula, lying north of the equator, south of the Malaysian state of Johor and north of Indonesia's Riau Islands. At , Singapore is a microstate and the smallest nation in Southeast...
,
CanadaCanada is a country occupying most of northern North America, extending from the Atlantic Ocean in the east to the Pacific Ocean in the west and northward into the Arctic Ocean...
and Europe.
Writing system
Pre-Colonial
Pre-colonial Ilocanos of all classes wrote in a syllabic system prior to European arrival. They used a system that is termed as an
abugidaAn abugida , also called an alphasyllabary, is a segmental writing system which is based on consonants, and in which vowel notation is obligatory but secondary. This contrasts with an alphabet proper, in which vowels have status equal to consonants, and with an abjad, in which vowel marking is...
, or an alphasyllabary. It was similar to the
TagalogTagalog is an Austronesian language spoken in the Philippines by about 22 million people.It is related to Austronesian languages such as Chamorro , Indonesian, Malay, Javanese and Paiwan , Cham , and Tetum...
and
PangasinanThe Pangasinan language is one of the twelve major languages in the Philippines.The language is spoken by more than one and a half million Pangasinan people in the province of Pangasinan alone. Pangasinan is also spoken in other Pangasinan communities in the Philippines, and by Pangasinan...
scripts, where each character represented a consonant-vowel, or CV, sequence. The Ilokano version, however, was the first to designate coda consonants with a diacritic mark - a cross or
viramaVirāma is a generic term for the diacritic in many Brahmic scripts, including Devanagari and East Nagari, that is used to suppress the inherent vowel that otherwise occurs with every consonant letter. The name is Sanskrit for "cessation, termination, end"...
- 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 the vowel was read or not.
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. Nowadays, only the older generation of Ilocanos use the
Spanish system.
The system based on that of Tagalog is more phonetic. Each letter receives one phonetic value, and better reflects the actual pronunciation of the word. The letters
ng, however, constitute a
digraphA digraph or digram is a pair of characters used to write one phoneme or a sequence of phonemes that does not correspond to the normal values of the two characters combined...
and counts 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 Ilokano phonology. The weekly magazine
BannawagBannawag is a Philippine weekly magazine published in the Philippines by Liwayway Publications Inc. It contains serialized novels/comics, short stories, poetry, essays, news features, entertainment news and articles, among others, that are written in Ilokano, a language common in the northern...
is known to use this system.
Samples of the Two Systems
The following are two versions of the Lord's Prayer. The one on the left is written using the Spanish-based orthography, while the one on the right uses the Tagalog-based system.
- Amami, ñga addaca sadi lañgit,
- Madaydayao coma ti Naganmo.
- Umay cuma ti pagariam.
- Maaramid cuma ti pagayatam
- Cas sadi lañgit casta met ditoy daga.
- Itedmo cadacam ita ti taraonmi iti inaldao.
- Quet pacaoanennacami cadaguiti ut-utangmi,
- A cas met panamacaoanmi
- Cadaguiti nacautang cadacami.
- Quet dinacam iyeg iti pannacasulisog,
- No di quet isalacannacami iti daques.
- Amami, nga addaka sadi langit,
- Madaydayaw koma ti Naganmo.
- Umay koma ti pagariam.
- Maaramid koma ti pagayatam
- Kas sadi langit kasta met ditoy daga.
- Itedmo kadakam ita ti taraonmi iti inaldaw.
- Ket pakawanennakami kadagiti ut-utangmi,
- A kas met panamakawanmi
- Kadagiti nakautang kadakami.
- Ket dinakam iyeg iti pannakasulisog,
- No di ket isalakannakami iti dakes.
Ilokano and Education
With the implementation of the
Bilingual EducationBilingual education involves teaching most subjects in school through two different languages - in the United States, instruction occurs in English and languages such as Spanish or Chinese, with varying amounts of each language used in accordance with the program model. The following are several...
System of 1897, Ilocano, together with the other seven
major languagesThe Philippine languages are a 1991 proposal by Robert Blust that all the languages of the Philippines and northern Sulawesi—except Sama-Bajaw and a few languages of Palawan—form a family of Austronesian 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
Komisyon sa Wikang FilipinoThe Commission on the Filipino Language is the official regulating body of the Filipino language and the official government institution tasked with developing, preserving, and promoting the various local Philippine languages...
(Commission of the Filipino Language) as one of the major languages of the
PhilippinesThe Philippines officially known as the Republic of the Philippines, is a country in Southeast Asia with Manila as its capital city. It comprises 7,107 islands in the western Pacific Ocean....
. Constitutionally, Ilocano is an auxiliary official language in the
regionsIn the Philippines, regions are administrative division that serve primarily to organize the 80 provinces for administrative convenience...
where it is spoken and serves as auxiliary media of instruction therein.
In recent years, a movement in both the Lower and the Upper House of the Congress pressed for the usage of the mother tongue as a medium of instruction until the sixth grade.
Literature
Ilocano animistic past offers a rich background in folklore, mythology and superstition (see
Religion in the PhilippinesReligion in the Philippines are spiritual beliefs held by Philippine citizens. Religion holds a central place in the life of the majority of Filipinos, including Jewish, Catholics, Muslims, Buddhists, Protestants and animists...
). There are many stories of good and malevolent spirits and beings. Its creation mythology centers on the giants Aran and her husband Angngalo, 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 (
sala), poems (
daniw), riddles (
burburtia), proverbs (
pagsasao), literary verbal jousts called
bucanegan (named after the writer Pedro Bucaneg, and is the equivalent of the Balagtasan of the
TagalogThe Tagalog people is an ethnic group in the Philippines. The name Tagalog comes from either the native term tagá-ilog, meaning 'people living along the river', or another native term, tagá-alog, meaning 'people living along the ford', a ford being a shallow part of a river or stream where people,...
s) and epic stories.
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
Abagatan (
Southern) Dialect employs six.
- Amianan: , , ,,
- Abagatan: , , ,,,
The letter in
bold is the graphic (written) representation of the vowel.
caption | Ilokano Vowel Chart
| Height |
Front |
Central |
Back |
| Close |
i |
|
e , u/o |
| Mid |
e |
|
o |
| Open |
|
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 .
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 vowelThe close back rounded vowel is a type of vowel sound, used in some spoken languages. The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents this sound is , and the equivalent X-SAMPA symbol is u....
is written differently depending on the syllable. If the vowel occurs in the
ultimaUltima may refer to:* Ultima , a series of video games* Ultima Online, a MMORPG video game* Baroque chess, known in the northeastern region of the United States as "Ultima"...
of the morpheme, it is written
o; elsewhere,
u.
Example:
Root:
luto cook
agluto to cook
lutuen to cook (something)
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 (
west). Also,
u in final stressed syllables can be pronounced [o], like for
danum (
water).
That said, the two vowels are not highly differentiated in native words, due to fact that was an
allophoneIn phonetics, an allophone is one of several similar speech sounds that belong to the same phoneme. A phoneme is an abstract unit of speech sound that can distinguish words: That is, changing a phoneme in a word can produce another word...
of 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
glideSemivowels, also known as glides or non-syllabic vowels, are vowels that form diphthongs with full syllabic vowels. That is, they are vowel-like sounds that do not form the nucleus of a syllable or mora; they are not the most prominent part of the syllable...
s when followed by another vowel. The
close back rounded vowelThe close back rounded vowel is a type of vowel sound, used in some spoken languages. The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents this sound is , and the equivalent X-SAMPA symbol is u....
becomes before another vowel; and the
close front unrounded vowelThe close front unrounded vowel is a type of vowel sound, used in many spoken languages. The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents this sound is , and the equivalent X-SAMPA symbol is i....
, .
Example:
kuarta money
paria bitter melon
In addition,
dentalIn linguistics, a dental consonant or dental is a consonant that is articulated with the tongue against the upper teeth, such as , , , and in some languages...
/
alveolarAlveolar consonants are articulated with the tongue against or close to the superior alveolar ridge, which is called that because it contains the alveoli of the superior teeth...
consonants become palatalized before . (See Consonants below).
Unstressed /i/ and /u/ are pronounced and except in final syllables, like
pintás (beauty) and
buténg (fear) but
bangir (other side) and
parabur (
grace) are pronounced and .
Amianan and Abagatan Pronunciation of /e/
The letter
e represent two vowels in the Abagatan (Southern) dialect, in words of foreign origin and in native words, and only one in the Amianan (Northern) dialect, .
caption|Realization of 'e'
| Word |
Gloss |
Origin |
Amianan Dialect |
Abagatan Dialect |
| keddeng |
assign |
Native |
|
|
| elepante |
elephant |
Spanish |
|
|
Diphthongs
Ilokano (Ti Pagsasao nga Iloko) (also called
Ilocano,
Iluko,
Iloco,
Iloko,
Ylocano, and
Yloco) is the third most-spoken language of the Republic of the
PhilippinesThe Philippines officially known as the Republic of the Philippines, is a country in Southeast Asia with Manila as its capital city. It comprises 7,107 islands in the western Pacific Ocean....
.
An
Austronesian languageThe Austronesian languages are a language family widely dispersed throughout the islands of Southeast Asia and the Pacific, with a few members spoken on continental Asia. It is on par with Bantu, Indo-European, Afro-Asiatic and Uralic as one of the best-established ancient language families...
, it is related to such languages as
IndonesianIndonesian is the official national language of Indonesia. It is based on a version of Classical Malay of the Riau-Johor Sultanate. It was first declared the official language with the declaration of Indonesian independence in 1945, following the 1928 unifying-language declaration in the...
,
MalayMalay is a group of languages closely related to each other to the point of mutual intelligibility but that linguists consider to be separate languages. They are grouped into a group called "Local Malay", part of a larger group called "Malayan" within the Malayo-Polynesian branch of the...
,
FijianFijian is an Austronesian language of the Malayo-Polynesian family spoken in Fiji. It has 450,000 first-language speakers, which is less than half the population of Fiji, but another 200,000 speak it as a second language...
,
MaoriMāori or te reo Māori commonly te reo , is the language of the indigenous population of New Zealand, the Maori people, where it has is the status of an official language...
(of
New ZealandNew Zealand is an island country in the south-western Pacific Ocean comprising two main landmasses , and numerous smaller islands, most notably Stewart Island/Rakiura and the Chatham Islands. The indigenous Māori named New Zealand Aotearoa, commonly translated as The Land of the Long White Cloud...
),
HawaiianThe Hawaiian language is a Polynesian language that takes its name from Hawaii, the largest island in the tropical North Pacific archipelago where it developed. Hawaiian, along with English, is an official language of the state of Hawaii...
,
MalagasyMalagasy is the national language of Madagascar.-History:The Malagasy language is unrelated to nearby African languages, instead being the westernmost member of the Malayo-Polynesian branch of the Austronesian language family, a fact noted as long ago as the eighteenth century...
(of
MadagascarMadagascar, or Republic of Madagascar , is an island nation in the Indian Ocean off the southeastern coast of Africa. The main island, also called Madagascar, is the fourth-largest island in the world, and is home to 5% of the world's plant and animal species, of which more than 80% are endemic to...
),
SamoanThe Sāmoan or Samoan language is the traditional language of Samoa and American Samoa and is an official language—alongside English—in both jurisdictions. It is a member of the Austronesian family, and more specifically the Samoic branch of the Polynesian subphylum.There are...
,
TahitianTahitian, a Tahitic language, spoken by Tahitians, is one of the two official languages of French Polynesia . It is an Eastern Polynesian language closely related to Rarotongan, New Zealand Māori, and Hawaiian.- Alphabet :...
,
ChamorroChamorro is a Malayo-Polynesian language, spoken on the Mariana islands by about 47,000 people .-Chamorro speakers:...
(of
GuamGuam is an island in the western Pacific Ocean and is an organized, unincorporated territory of the United States. It is one of five U.S. territories with an established civilian government. The island's capital is Hagåtña...
and the
Northern Mariana IslandsThe Northern Mariana Islands , officially the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands , is a commonwealth in political union with the United States, occupying a strategic region of the western Pacific Ocean. It consists of fifteen islands about three-quarters of the way from Hawaii to the...
), Tetum (of
East TimorEast Timor, also known as Timor-Leste is a country in Southeast Asia. It comprises the eastern half of the island of Timor, the nearby islands of Atauro and Jaco, and Oecussi-Ambeno, an exclave on the northwestern side of the island, within Indonesian West Timor...
), and
PaiwanPaiwan is a native language of Taiwan, spoken by the Paiwan people, one tribe of the Taiwanese aborigines. Paiwan is a Formosan language of the Austronesian language family. The number of speakers is estimated to be 66,000....
(of
TaiwanTaiwan , also known as Formosa , is the largest island of the Republic of China in East Asia. Taiwan is located east of the Taiwan Strait, off the southeastern coast of mainland China...
).
History
Ilocanos are descendants of
AustronesianThe Austronesian languages are a language family widely dispersed throughout the islands of Southeast Asia and the Pacific, with a few members spoken on continental Asia. It is on par with Bantu, Indo-European, Afro-Asiatic and Uralic as one of the best-established ancient language families...
-speaking people from southern
ChinaThe People's Republic of China , commonly known as China, is the largest country in East Asia and the most populous in the world with over 1.3 billion people, approximately one-fifth of the world's population...
via
BorneoBorneo is the third largest island in the world and is located at the centre of Maritime Southeast Asia. Administratively, this island is divided among Indonesia , Malaysia and Brunei . Indonesians refer to the island as Kalimantan...
. Families and clans arrived by
viray or
bilog, meaning "boat". The term
Ilokano, as commonly accepted, originates from
i-, "from", and
looc, "cove or bay", thus "people of the bay." But some modern scholars, however, argue that as taking into consideration the Ilocano tradition of giving names to their place of residency is concerned, the i + looc etymology is not of local origin. These scholars suggest that the term Ilocano comes from "i-", "from", and "lukong", "the flat lands" or "the lowlands". Ilokanos also refer to themselves as
Samtoy, a contraction from the Ilokano phrase
sao mi ditoy, "our language here".
Classification
Ilocano comprises its own branch in the Philippine Cordilleran family of languages. It is spoken as a native language by eight million people.
A lingua franca of the northern region, it is spoken as a secondary language by more than two million people who are native speakers of
PangasinanThe Pangasinan language is one of the twelve major languages in the Philippines.The language is spoken by more than one and a half million Pangasinan people in the province of Pangasinan alone. Pangasinan is also spoken in other Pangasinan communities in the Philippines, and by Pangasinan...
,
IbanagThe Ibanag language is spoken by up to 500,000 speakers in the Philippines, in the northeastern provinces of Isabela and Cagayan, especially in Tuguegarao City, Solana, Cabagan, and Ilagan and with overseas immigrants in countries located in the Middle East, UK and the U.S.A....
,
IvatanThe Ivatan language, also known as Ibatan or Chirin nu Ibatan , is an Austronesian language spoken exclusively in the Batanes Islands...
, and other languages in Northern Luzon.
Geographic distribution
Ilocanos occupy the narrow, barren strip of land in the northwestern tip of Luzon, squeezed in between the inhospitable Cordillera mountain range to the east and the South China Sea to the west. This harsh geography molded a people known for their clannishness, tenacious industry and frugality, traits that were vital for survival. It also induced Ilokanos to become a migratory people, always in search for better opportunities and for land to build a life on. Although their homeland constitutes the provinces of
Ilocos NorteIlocos Norte is a province of the Philippines located in the Ilocos Region in Luzon. Its capital is Laoag City and is located at the northwest corner of Luzon Island, bordering Cagayan and Apayao to the east, and Abra and Ilocos Sur to the south...
,
Ilocos SurIlocos Sur is a province of the Philippines located in the Ilocos Region in Luzon. Its capital is Vigan City and borders Ilocos Norte and Abra to the north, Mountain Province to the east, and La Union and Benguet to the south...
,
La UnionLa Union or La Unión might refer to:* Places:**Argentina***La Unión, Buenos Aires**Chile***La Unión, Chile**Colombia***La Unión, Antioquia***La Unión, Nariño***La Unión, Sucre***La Unión, Valle del Cauca**El Salvador***La Unión Department...
and
AbraAbra is a landlocked province of the Philippines in the Cordillera Administrative Region in Luzon. Its capital is Bangued, and it borders Ilocos Norte and Apayao on the north, Ilocos Sur and Mountain Province on the south, Ilocos Norte and Ilocos Sur on the west, and Kalinga, and Apayao on the...
, their population has spread east and south of their original territorial borders.
Ilocano pioneers flocked to the more fertile
CagayanCagayan is a province of the Philippines in the Cagayan Valley region in Luzon. Its capital is Tuguegarao City and is located at the northeastern corner of the island of Luzon. Cagayan also includes the Babuyan Islands to the north. The province borders Ilocos Norte and Apayao to the west, and...
Valley,
ApayaoApayao is a landlocked province of the Philippines in the Cordillera Administrative Region in Luzon. Its capital is Kabugao and borders Cagayan to the north and east, Abra and Ilocos Norte to the west, and Kalinga to the south...
mountains and the
PangasinanPangasinan is one of the provinces of the Republic of the Philippines. The provincial capital is Lingayen. Pangasinan is located on the west central area of the island of Luzon along the Lingayen Gulf. The total land area of Pangasinan is 5,368.82 square kilometers. According to the latest...
plains during the 18th and 19th centuries and now constitute a majority in many of these areas. In the 20th century, many Ilokano families moved to
Metro ManilaMetropolitan Manila or the National Capital Region is the administrative region encompassing the city of Manila, the national capital of the Philippines. As of the 2007 Census, the population is 11,553,427...
and further south to
MindanaoMindanao is the second largest and easternmost island in the Philippines. It is also one of the three island groups in the country, along with Luzon and Visayas...
. They became the first Filipino ethnic group to immigrate en masse to North America (the so-called
Manong generation), forming sizable communities in the American states of
HawaiiHawaii is the newest of the 50 U.S. states, and is the only state made up entirely of islands. It is located on an archipelago in the central Pacific Ocean, southwest of the continental United States, southeast of Japan, and northeast of Australia. The state was admitted to the Union on August...
,
CaliforniaCalifornia is the most populous state in the United States, and the third largest by area. California is the second most populous sub-national entity in the Americas, behind only São Paulo, Brazil...
,
WashingtonWashington is a state in the Pacific Northwest region of the United States. Washington was carved out of the western part of Washington Territory which had been ceded by Britain in 1846 by the Oregon Treaty as settlement of the Oregon Boundary Dispute. It was admitted to the Union as the...
and
AlaskaAlaska is the largest state of the United States of America by area; it is situated in the northwest extremity of the North American continent, with Canada to the east, the Arctic Ocean to the north, and the Pacific Ocean to the west and south, with Russia further west across the Bering Strait...
. Ilokano is the native language of most of the original Filipino immigrants in the United States, but Tagalog is used by more Filipino-Americans because it is the basis for Filipino, the national language of the people of the Philippines.
A large, growing number of Ilokanos can also be found in the
Middle EastThe Middle East is a region that spans southwestern Asia, southeastern Europe, and northeastern Africa. It has no clear boundaries, often used as a synonym to Near East, in opposition to Far East...
,
Hong KongHong Kong , officially the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region, is a highly autonomous territory of the People's Republic of China, facing Guangdong to the north and the South China Sea to the east, west and south...
,
Japanis an island country in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean, it lies to the east of the Sea of Japan, People's Republic of China, North Korea, South Korea and Russia, stretching from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea and Taiwan in the south...
,
SingaporeSingapore , officially the Republic of Singapore, is an island city-state located at the southern tip of the Malay Peninsula, lying north of the equator, south of the Malaysian state of Johor and north of Indonesia's Riau Islands. At , Singapore is a microstate and the smallest nation in Southeast...
,
CanadaCanada is a country occupying most of northern North America, extending from the Atlantic Ocean in the east to the Pacific Ocean in the west and northward into the Arctic Ocean...
and Europe.
Writing system
Pre-Colonial
Pre-colonial Ilocanos of all classes wrote in a syllabic system prior to European arrival. They used a system that is termed as an
abugidaAn abugida , also called an alphasyllabary, is a segmental writing system which is based on consonants, and in which vowel notation is obligatory but secondary. This contrasts with an alphabet proper, in which vowels have status equal to consonants, and with an abjad, in which vowel marking is...
, or an alphasyllabary. It was similar to the
TagalogTagalog is an Austronesian language spoken in the Philippines by about 22 million people.It is related to Austronesian languages such as Chamorro , Indonesian, Malay, Javanese and Paiwan , Cham , and Tetum...
and
PangasinanThe Pangasinan language is one of the twelve major languages in the Philippines.The language is spoken by more than one and a half million Pangasinan people in the province of Pangasinan alone. Pangasinan is also spoken in other Pangasinan communities in the Philippines, and by Pangasinan...
scripts, where each character represented a consonant-vowel, or CV, sequence. The Ilokano version, however, was the first to designate coda consonants with a diacritic mark - a cross or
viramaVirāma is a generic term for the diacritic in many Brahmic scripts, including Devanagari and East Nagari, that is used to suppress the inherent vowel that otherwise occurs with every consonant letter. The name is Sanskrit for "cessation, termination, end"...
- 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 the vowel was read or not.
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. Nowadays, only the older generation of Ilocanos use the
Spanish system.
The system based on that of Tagalog is more phonetic. Each letter receives one phonetic value, and better reflects the actual pronunciation of the word. The letters
ng, however, constitute a
digraphA digraph or digram is a pair of characters used to write one phoneme or a sequence of phonemes that does not correspond to the normal values of the two characters combined...
and counts 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 Ilokano phonology. The weekly magazine
BannawagBannawag is a Philippine weekly magazine published in the Philippines by Liwayway Publications Inc. It contains serialized novels/comics, short stories, poetry, essays, news features, entertainment news and articles, among others, that are written in Ilokano, a language common in the northern...
is known to use this system.
Samples of the Two Systems
The following are two versions of the Lord's Prayer. The one on the left is written using the Spanish-based orthography, while the one on the right uses the Tagalog-based system.
- Amami, ñga addaca sadi lañgit,
- Madaydayao coma ti Naganmo.
- Umay cuma ti pagariam.
- Maaramid cuma ti pagayatam
- Cas sadi lañgit casta met ditoy daga.
- Itedmo cadacam ita ti taraonmi iti inaldao.
- Quet pacaoanennacami cadaguiti ut-utangmi,
- A cas met panamacaoanmi
- Cadaguiti nacautang cadacami.
- Quet dinacam iyeg iti pannacasulisog,
- No di quet isalacannacami iti daques.
- Amami, nga addaka sadi langit,
- Madaydayaw koma ti Naganmo.
- Umay koma ti pagariam.
- Maaramid koma ti pagayatam
- Kas sadi langit kasta met ditoy daga.
- Itedmo kadakam ita ti taraonmi iti inaldaw.
- Ket pakawanennakami kadagiti ut-utangmi,
- A kas met panamakawanmi
- Kadagiti nakautang kadakami.
- Ket dinakam iyeg iti pannakasulisog,
- No di ket isalakannakami iti dakes.
Ilokano and Education
With the implementation of the
Bilingual EducationBilingual education involves teaching most subjects in school through two different languages - in the United States, instruction occurs in English and languages such as Spanish or Chinese, with varying amounts of each language used in accordance with the program model. The following are several...
System of 1897, Ilocano, together with the other seven
major languagesThe Philippine languages are a 1991 proposal by Robert Blust that all the languages of the Philippines and northern Sulawesi—except Sama-Bajaw and a few languages of Palawan—form a family of Austronesian 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
Komisyon sa Wikang FilipinoThe Commission on the Filipino Language is the official regulating body of the Filipino language and the official government institution tasked with developing, preserving, and promoting the various local Philippine languages...
(Commission of the Filipino Language) as one of the major languages of the
PhilippinesThe Philippines officially known as the Republic of the Philippines, is a country in Southeast Asia with Manila as its capital city. It comprises 7,107 islands in the western Pacific Ocean....
. Constitutionally, Ilocano is an auxiliary official language in the
regionsIn the Philippines, regions are administrative division that serve primarily to organize the 80 provinces for administrative convenience...
where it is spoken and serves as auxiliary media of instruction therein.
In recent years, a movement in both the Lower and the Upper House of the Congress pressed for the usage of the mother tongue as a medium of instruction until the sixth grade.
Literature
Ilocano animistic past offers a rich background in folklore, mythology and superstition (see
Religion in the PhilippinesReligion in the Philippines are spiritual beliefs held by Philippine citizens. Religion holds a central place in the life of the majority of Filipinos, including Jewish, Catholics, Muslims, Buddhists, Protestants and animists...
). There are many stories of good and malevolent spirits and beings. Its creation mythology centers on the giants Aran and her husband Angngalo, 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 (
sala), poems (
daniw), riddles (
burburtia), proverbs (
pagsasao), literary verbal jousts called
bucanegan (named after the writer Pedro Bucaneg, and is the equivalent of the Balagtasan of the
TagalogThe Tagalog people is an ethnic group in the Philippines. The name Tagalog comes from either the native term tagá-ilog, meaning 'people living along the river', or another native term, tagá-alog, meaning 'people living along the ford', a ford being a shallow part of a river or stream where people,...
s) and epic stories.
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
Abagatan (
Southern) Dialect employs six.
- Amianan: , , ,,
- Abagatan: , , ,,,
The letter in
bold is the graphic (written) representation of the vowel.
caption | Ilokano Vowel Chart
| Height |
Front |
Central |
Back |
| Close |
i |
|
e , u/o |
| Mid |
e |
|
o |
| Open |
|
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 .
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 vowelThe close back rounded vowel is a type of vowel sound, used in some spoken languages. The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents this sound is , and the equivalent X-SAMPA symbol is u....
is written differently depending on the syllable. If the vowel occurs in the
ultimaUltima may refer to:* Ultima , a series of video games* Ultima Online, a MMORPG video game* Baroque chess, known in the northeastern region of the United States as "Ultima"...
of the morpheme, it is written
o; elsewhere,
u.
Example:
Root:
luto cook
agluto to cook
lutuen to cook (something)
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 (
west). Also,
u in final stressed syllables can be pronounced [o], like for
danum (
water).
That said, the two vowels are not highly differentiated in native words, due to fact that was an
allophoneIn phonetics, an allophone is one of several similar speech sounds that belong to the same phoneme. A phoneme is an abstract unit of speech sound that can distinguish words: That is, changing a phoneme in a word can produce another word...
of 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
glideSemivowels, also known as glides or non-syllabic vowels, are vowels that form diphthongs with full syllabic vowels. That is, they are vowel-like sounds that do not form the nucleus of a syllable or mora; they are not the most prominent part of the syllable...
s when followed by another vowel. The
close back rounded vowelThe close back rounded vowel is a type of vowel sound, used in some spoken languages. The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents this sound is , and the equivalent X-SAMPA symbol is u....
becomes before another vowel; and the
close front unrounded vowelThe close front unrounded vowel is a type of vowel sound, used in many spoken languages. The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents this sound is , and the equivalent X-SAMPA symbol is i....
, .
Example:
kuarta money
paria bitter melon
In addition,
dentalIn linguistics, a dental consonant or dental is a consonant that is articulated with the tongue against the upper teeth, such as , , , and in some languages...
/
alveolarAlveolar consonants are articulated with the tongue against or close to the superior alveolar ridge, which is called that because it contains the alveoli of the superior teeth...
consonants become palatalized before . (See Consonants below).
Unstressed /i/ and /u/ are pronounced and except in final syllables, like
pintás (beauty) and
buténg (fear) but
bangir (other side) and
parabur (
grace) are pronounced and .
Amianan and Abagatan Pronunciation of /e/
The letter
e represent two vowels in the Abagatan (Southern) dialect, in words of foreign origin and in native words, and only one in the Amianan (Northern) dialect, .
caption|Realization of 'e'
| Word |
Gloss |
Origin |
Amianan Dialect |
Abagatan Dialect |
| keddeng |
assign |
Native |
|
|
| elepante |
elephant |
Spanish |
|
|
Diphthongs
Ilokano (Ti Pagsasao nga Iloko) (also called
Ilocano,
Iluko,
Iloco,
Iloko,
Ylocano, and
Yloco) is the third most-spoken language of the Republic of the
PhilippinesThe Philippines officially known as the Republic of the Philippines, is a country in Southeast Asia with Manila as its capital city. It comprises 7,107 islands in the western Pacific Ocean....
.
An
Austronesian languageThe Austronesian languages are a language family widely dispersed throughout the islands of Southeast Asia and the Pacific, with a few members spoken on continental Asia. It is on par with Bantu, Indo-European, Afro-Asiatic and Uralic as one of the best-established ancient language families...
, it is related to such languages as
IndonesianIndonesian is the official national language of Indonesia. It is based on a version of Classical Malay of the Riau-Johor Sultanate. It was first declared the official language with the declaration of Indonesian independence in 1945, following the 1928 unifying-language declaration in the...
,
MalayMalay is a group of languages closely related to each other to the point of mutual intelligibility but that linguists consider to be separate languages. They are grouped into a group called "Local Malay", part of a larger group called "Malayan" within the Malayo-Polynesian branch of the...
,
FijianFijian is an Austronesian language of the Malayo-Polynesian family spoken in Fiji. It has 450,000 first-language speakers, which is less than half the population of Fiji, but another 200,000 speak it as a second language...
,
MaoriMāori or te reo Māori commonly te reo , is the language of the indigenous population of New Zealand, the Maori people, where it has is the status of an official language...
(of
New ZealandNew Zealand is an island country in the south-western Pacific Ocean comprising two main landmasses , and numerous smaller islands, most notably Stewart Island/Rakiura and the Chatham Islands. The indigenous Māori named New Zealand Aotearoa, commonly translated as The Land of the Long White Cloud...
),
HawaiianThe Hawaiian language is a Polynesian language that takes its name from Hawaii, the largest island in the tropical North Pacific archipelago where it developed. Hawaiian, along with English, is an official language of the state of Hawaii...
,
MalagasyMalagasy is the national language of Madagascar.-History:The Malagasy language is unrelated to nearby African languages, instead being the westernmost member of the Malayo-Polynesian branch of the Austronesian language family, a fact noted as long ago as the eighteenth century...
(of
MadagascarMadagascar, or Republic of Madagascar , is an island nation in the Indian Ocean off the southeastern coast of Africa. The main island, also called Madagascar, is the fourth-largest island in the world, and is home to 5% of the world's plant and animal species, of which more than 80% are endemic to...
),
SamoanThe Sāmoan or Samoan language is the traditional language of Samoa and American Samoa and is an official language—alongside English—in both jurisdictions. It is a member of the Austronesian family, and more specifically the Samoic branch of the Polynesian subphylum.There are...
,
TahitianTahitian, a Tahitic language, spoken by Tahitians, is one of the two official languages of French Polynesia . It is an Eastern Polynesian language closely related to Rarotongan, New Zealand Māori, and Hawaiian.- Alphabet :...
,
ChamorroChamorro is a Malayo-Polynesian language, spoken on the Mariana islands by about 47,000 people .-Chamorro speakers:...
(of
GuamGuam is an island in the western Pacific Ocean and is an organized, unincorporated territory of the United States. It is one of five U.S. territories with an established civilian government. The island's capital is Hagåtña...
and the
Northern Mariana IslandsThe Northern Mariana Islands , officially the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands , is a commonwealth in political union with the United States, occupying a strategic region of the western Pacific Ocean. It consists of fifteen islands about three-quarters of the way from Hawaii to the...
), Tetum (of
East TimorEast Timor, also known as Timor-Leste is a country in Southeast Asia. It comprises the eastern half of the island of Timor, the nearby islands of Atauro and Jaco, and Oecussi-Ambeno, an exclave on the northwestern side of the island, within Indonesian West Timor...
), and
PaiwanPaiwan is a native language of Taiwan, spoken by the Paiwan people, one tribe of the Taiwanese aborigines. Paiwan is a Formosan language of the Austronesian language family. The number of speakers is estimated to be 66,000....
(of
TaiwanTaiwan , also known as Formosa , is the largest island of the Republic of China in East Asia. Taiwan is located east of the Taiwan Strait, off the southeastern coast of mainland China...
).
History
Ilocanos are descendants of
AustronesianThe Austronesian languages are a language family widely dispersed throughout the islands of Southeast Asia and the Pacific, with a few members spoken on continental Asia. It is on par with Bantu, Indo-European, Afro-Asiatic and Uralic as one of the best-established ancient language families...
-speaking people from southern
ChinaThe People's Republic of China , commonly known as China, is the largest country in East Asia and the most populous in the world with over 1.3 billion people, approximately one-fifth of the world's population...
via
BorneoBorneo is the third largest island in the world and is located at the centre of Maritime Southeast Asia. Administratively, this island is divided among Indonesia , Malaysia and Brunei . Indonesians refer to the island as Kalimantan...
. Families and clans arrived by
viray or
bilog, meaning "boat". The term
Ilokano, as commonly accepted, originates from
i-, "from", and
looc, "cove or bay", thus "people of the bay." But some modern scholars, however, argue that as taking into consideration the Ilocano tradition of giving names to their place of residency is concerned, the i + looc etymology is not of local origin. These scholars suggest that the term Ilocano comes from "i-", "from", and "lukong", "the flat lands" or "the lowlands". Ilokanos also refer to themselves as
Samtoy, a contraction from the Ilokano phrase
sao mi ditoy, "our language here".
Classification
Ilocano comprises its own branch in the Philippine Cordilleran family of languages. It is spoken as a native language by eight million people.
A lingua franca of the northern region, it is spoken as a secondary language by more than two million people who are native speakers of
PangasinanThe Pangasinan language is one of the twelve major languages in the Philippines.The language is spoken by more than one and a half million Pangasinan people in the province of Pangasinan alone. Pangasinan is also spoken in other Pangasinan communities in the Philippines, and by Pangasinan...
,
IbanagThe Ibanag language is spoken by up to 500,000 speakers in the Philippines, in the northeastern provinces of Isabela and Cagayan, especially in Tuguegarao City, Solana, Cabagan, and Ilagan and with overseas immigrants in countries located in the Middle East, UK and the U.S.A....
,
IvatanThe Ivatan language, also known as Ibatan or Chirin nu Ibatan , is an Austronesian language spoken exclusively in the Batanes Islands...
, and other languages in Northern Luzon.
Geographic distribution
Ilocanos occupy the narrow, barren strip of land in the northwestern tip of Luzon, squeezed in between the inhospitable Cordillera mountain range to the east and the South China Sea to the west. This harsh geography molded a people known for their clannishness, tenacious industry and frugality, traits that were vital for survival. It also induced Ilokanos to become a migratory people, always in search for better opportunities and for land to build a life on. Although their homeland constitutes the provinces of
Ilocos NorteIlocos Norte is a province of the Philippines located in the Ilocos Region in Luzon. Its capital is Laoag City and is located at the northwest corner of Luzon Island, bordering Cagayan and Apayao to the east, and Abra and Ilocos Sur to the south...
,
Ilocos SurIlocos Sur is a province of the Philippines located in the Ilocos Region in Luzon. Its capital is Vigan City and borders Ilocos Norte and Abra to the north, Mountain Province to the east, and La Union and Benguet to the south...
,
La UnionLa Union or La Unión might refer to:* Places:**Argentina***La Unión, Buenos Aires**Chile***La Unión, Chile**Colombia***La Unión, Antioquia***La Unión, Nariño***La Unión, Sucre***La Unión, Valle del Cauca**El Salvador***La Unión Department...
and
AbraAbra is a landlocked province of the Philippines in the Cordillera Administrative Region in Luzon. Its capital is Bangued, and it borders Ilocos Norte and Apayao on the north, Ilocos Sur and Mountain Province on the south, Ilocos Norte and Ilocos Sur on the west, and Kalinga, and Apayao on the...
, their population has spread east and south of their original territorial borders.
Ilocano pioneers flocked to the more fertile
CagayanCagayan is a province of the Philippines in the Cagayan Valley region in Luzon. Its capital is Tuguegarao City and is located at the northeastern corner of the island of Luzon. Cagayan also includes the Babuyan Islands to the north. The province borders Ilocos Norte and Apayao to the west, and...
Valley,
ApayaoApayao is a landlocked province of the Philippines in the Cordillera Administrative Region in Luzon. Its capital is Kabugao and borders Cagayan to the north and east, Abra and Ilocos Norte to the west, and Kalinga to the south...
mountains and the
PangasinanPangasinan is one of the provinces of the Republic of the Philippines. The provincial capital is Lingayen. Pangasinan is located on the west central area of the island of Luzon along the Lingayen Gulf. The total land area of Pangasinan is 5,368.82 square kilometers. According to the latest...
plains during the 18th and 19th centuries and now constitute a majority in many of these areas. In the 20th century, many Ilokano families moved to
Metro ManilaMetropolitan Manila or the National Capital Region is the administrative region encompassing the city of Manila, the national capital of the Philippines. As of the 2007 Census, the population is 11,553,427...
and further south to
MindanaoMindanao is the second largest and easternmost island in the Philippines. It is also one of the three island groups in the country, along with Luzon and Visayas...
. They became the first Filipino ethnic group to immigrate en masse to North America (the so-called
Manong generation), forming sizable communities in the American states of
HawaiiHawaii is the newest of the 50 U.S. states, and is the only state made up entirely of islands. It is located on an archipelago in the central Pacific Ocean, southwest of the continental United States, southeast of Japan, and northeast of Australia. The state was admitted to the Union on August...
,
CaliforniaCalifornia is the most populous state in the United States, and the third largest by area. California is the second most populous sub-national entity in the Americas, behind only São Paulo, Brazil...
,
WashingtonWashington is a state in the Pacific Northwest region of the United States. Washington was carved out of the western part of Washington Territory which had been ceded by Britain in 1846 by the Oregon Treaty as settlement of the Oregon Boundary Dispute. It was admitted to the Union as the...
and
AlaskaAlaska is the largest state of the United States of America by area; it is situated in the northwest extremity of the North American continent, with Canada to the east, the Arctic Ocean to the north, and the Pacific Ocean to the west and south, with Russia further west across the Bering Strait...
. Ilokano is the native language of most of the original Filipino immigrants in the United States, but Tagalog is used by more Filipino-Americans because it is the basis for Filipino, the national language of the people of the Philippines.
A large, growing number of Ilokanos can also be found in the
Middle EastThe Middle East is a region that spans southwestern Asia, southeastern Europe, and northeastern Africa. It has no clear boundaries, often used as a synonym to Near East, in opposition to Far East...
,
Hong KongHong Kong , officially the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region, is a highly autonomous territory of the People's Republic of China, facing Guangdong to the north and the South China Sea to the east, west and south...
,
Japanis an island country in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean, it lies to the east of the Sea of Japan, People's Republic of China, North Korea, South Korea and Russia, stretching from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea and Taiwan in the south...
,
SingaporeSingapore , officially the Republic of Singapore, is an island city-state located at the southern tip of the Malay Peninsula, lying north of the equator, south of the Malaysian state of Johor and north of Indonesia's Riau Islands. At , Singapore is a microstate and the smallest nation in Southeast...
,
CanadaCanada is a country occupying most of northern North America, extending from the Atlantic Ocean in the east to the Pacific Ocean in the west and northward into the Arctic Ocean...
and Europe.
Writing system
Pre-Colonial
Pre-colonial Ilocanos of all classes wrote in a syllabic system prior to European arrival. They used a system that is termed as an
abugidaAn abugida , also called an alphasyllabary, is a segmental writing system which is based on consonants, and in which vowel notation is obligatory but secondary. This contrasts with an alphabet proper, in which vowels have status equal to consonants, and with an abjad, in which vowel marking is...
, or an alphasyllabary. It was similar to the
TagalogTagalog is an Austronesian language spoken in the Philippines by about 22 million people.It is related to Austronesian languages such as Chamorro , Indonesian, Malay, Javanese and Paiwan , Cham , and Tetum...
and
PangasinanThe Pangasinan language is one of the twelve major languages in the Philippines.The language is spoken by more than one and a half million Pangasinan people in the province of Pangasinan alone. Pangasinan is also spoken in other Pangasinan communities in the Philippines, and by Pangasinan...
scripts, where each character represented a consonant-vowel, or CV, sequence. The Ilokano version, however, was the first to designate coda consonants with a diacritic mark - a cross or
viramaVirāma is a generic term for the diacritic in many Brahmic scripts, including Devanagari and East Nagari, that is used to suppress the inherent vowel that otherwise occurs with every consonant letter. The name is Sanskrit for "cessation, termination, end"...
- 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 the vowel was read or not.
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. Nowadays, only the older generation of Ilocanos use the
Spanish system.
The system based on that of Tagalog is more phonetic. Each letter receives one phonetic value, and better reflects the actual pronunciation of the word. The letters
ng, however, constitute a
digraphA digraph or digram is a pair of characters used to write one phoneme or a sequence of phonemes that does not correspond to the normal values of the two characters combined...
and counts 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 Ilokano phonology. The weekly magazine
BannawagBannawag is a Philippine weekly magazine published in the Philippines by Liwayway Publications Inc. It contains serialized novels/comics, short stories, poetry, essays, news features, entertainment news and articles, among others, that are written in Ilokano, a language common in the northern...
is known to use this system.
Samples of the Two Systems
The following are two versions of the Lord's Prayer. The one on the left is written using the Spanish-based orthography, while the one on the right uses the Tagalog-based system.
- Amami, ñga addaca sadi lañgit,
- Madaydayao coma ti Naganmo.
- Umay cuma ti pagariam.
- Maaramid cuma ti pagayatam
- Cas sadi lañgit casta met ditoy daga.
- Itedmo cadacam ita ti taraonmi iti inaldao.
- Quet pacaoanennacami cadaguiti ut-utangmi,
- A cas met panamacaoanmi
- Cadaguiti nacautang cadacami.
- Quet dinacam iyeg iti pannacasulisog,
- No di quet isalacannacami iti daques.
- Amami, nga addaka sadi langit,
- Madaydayaw koma ti Naganmo.
- Umay koma ti pagariam.
- Maaramid koma ti pagayatam
- Kas sadi langit kasta met ditoy daga.
- Itedmo kadakam ita ti taraonmi iti inaldaw.
- Ket pakawanennakami kadagiti ut-utangmi,
- A kas met panamakawanmi
- Kadagiti nakautang kadakami.
- Ket dinakam iyeg iti pannakasulisog,
- No di ket isalakannakami iti dakes.
Ilokano and Education
With the implementation of the
Bilingual EducationBilingual education involves teaching most subjects in school through two different languages - in the United States, instruction occurs in English and languages such as Spanish or Chinese, with varying amounts of each language used in accordance with the program model. The following are several...
System of 1897, Ilocano, together with the other seven
major languagesThe Philippine languages are a 1991 proposal by Robert Blust that all the languages of the Philippines and northern Sulawesi—except Sama-Bajaw and a few languages of Palawan—form a family of Austronesian 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
Komisyon sa Wikang FilipinoThe Commission on the Filipino Language is the official regulating body of the Filipino language and the official government institution tasked with developing, preserving, and promoting the various local Philippine languages...
(Commission of the Filipino Language) as one of the major languages of the
PhilippinesThe Philippines officially known as the Republic of the Philippines, is a country in Southeast Asia with Manila as its capital city. It comprises 7,107 islands in the western Pacific Ocean....
. Constitutionally, Ilocano is an auxiliary official language in the
regionsIn the Philippines, regions are administrative division that serve primarily to organize the 80 provinces for administrative convenience...
where it is spoken and serves as auxiliary media of instruction therein.
In recent years, a movement in both the Lower and the Upper House of the Congress pressed for the usage of the mother tongue as a medium of instruction until the sixth grade.
Literature
Ilocano animistic past offers a rich background in folklore, mythology and superstition (see
Religion in the PhilippinesReligion in the Philippines are spiritual beliefs held by Philippine citizens. Religion holds a central place in the life of the majority of Filipinos, including Jewish, Catholics, Muslims, Buddhists, Protestants and animists...
). There are many stories of good and malevolent spirits and beings. Its creation mythology centers on the giants Aran and her husband Angngalo, 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 (
sala), poems (
daniw), riddles (
burburtia), proverbs (
pagsasao), literary verbal jousts called
bucanegan (named after the writer Pedro Bucaneg, and is the equivalent of the Balagtasan of the
TagalogThe Tagalog people is an ethnic group in the Philippines. The name Tagalog comes from either the native term tagá-ilog, meaning 'people living along the river', or another native term, tagá-alog, meaning 'people living along the ford', a ford being a shallow part of a river or stream where people,...
s) and epic stories.
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
Abagatan (
Southern) Dialect employs six.
- Amianan: , , ,,
- Abagatan: , , ,,,
The letter in
bold is the graphic (written) representation of the vowel.
caption | Ilokano Vowel Chart
| Height |
Front |
Central |
Back |
| Close |
i |
|
e , u/o |
| Mid |
e |
|
o |
| Open |
|
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 .
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 vowelThe close back rounded vowel is a type of vowel sound, used in some spoken languages. The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents this sound is , and the equivalent X-SAMPA symbol is u....
is written differently depending on the syllable. If the vowel occurs in the
ultimaUltima may refer to:* Ultima , a series of video games* Ultima Online, a MMORPG video game* Baroque chess, known in the northeastern region of the United States as "Ultima"...
of the morpheme, it is written
o; elsewhere,
u.
Example:
Root:
luto cook
agluto to cook
lutuen to cook (something)
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 (
west). Also,
u in final stressed syllables can be pronounced [o], like for
danum (
water).
That said, the two vowels are not highly differentiated in native words, due to fact that was an
allophoneIn phonetics, an allophone is one of several similar speech sounds that belong to the same phoneme. A phoneme is an abstract unit of speech sound that can distinguish words: That is, changing a phoneme in a word can produce another word...
of 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
glideSemivowels, also known as glides or non-syllabic vowels, are vowels that form diphthongs with full syllabic vowels. That is, they are vowel-like sounds that do not form the nucleus of a syllable or mora; they are not the most prominent part of the syllable...
s when followed by another vowel. The
close back rounded vowelThe close back rounded vowel is a type of vowel sound, used in some spoken languages. The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents this sound is , and the equivalent X-SAMPA symbol is u....
becomes before another vowel; and the
close front unrounded vowelThe close front unrounded vowel is a type of vowel sound, used in many spoken languages. The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents this sound is , and the equivalent X-SAMPA symbol is i....
, .
Example:
kuarta money
paria bitter melon
In addition,
dentalIn linguistics, a dental consonant or dental is a consonant that is articulated with the tongue against the upper teeth, such as , , , and in some languages...
/
alveolarAlveolar consonants are articulated with the tongue against or close to the superior alveolar ridge, which is called that because it contains the alveoli of the superior teeth...
consonants become palatalized before . (See Consonants below).
Unstressed /i/ and /u/ are pronounced and except in final syllables, like
pintás (beauty) and
buténg (fear) but
bangir (other side) and
parabur (
grace) are pronounced and .
Amianan and Abagatan Pronunciation of /e/
The letter
e represent two vowels in the Abagatan (Southern) dialect, in words of foreign origin and in native words, and only one in the Amianan (Northern) dialect, .
caption|Realization of 'e'
| Word |
Gloss |
Origin |
Amianan Dialect |
Abagatan Dialect |
| keddeng |
assign |
Native |
|
|
| elepante |
elephant |
Spanish |
|
|
Diphthongs
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 /ai/ or /ei/, /iu/, /ai/ and /ui/ occur. In the
orthographyThe orthography of a language specifies the correct way of using a specific writing system to write the language. Where more than one writing system is used for a language, for example for Kurdish, there can be more than one orthography. Orthography is derived from Greek ὀρθός orthós and γράφειν...
, vowels in sequence such as
uo and
ai, do not coelesce into a diphthong, rather, they are pronounced with an intervening glottal stop, for example,
buok hair and
dait sew .
caption|Diphthongs
| Diphthong |
Orthography |
Example |
| /au/ |
aw |
kabaw "senile" |
| /iu/ |
iw |
iliw "home sick" |
| /ai/ |
ay |
maysa "one" |
| /ei/ |
ey |
idiey "there" (Regional variant. Standard: "idiay") |
| /oi/, /ui/ |
oy, uy |
baboy "pig" |
The diphthong is a variant of in native words. Other occurrences are in words of Spanish and English origin. Examples are
reyna (from Spanish
reina,
queen) and
treyner (
trainer). The diphthongs and may be interchanged since is an allophone of in final syllables. Thus,
apúy (fire) may be pronounced and
baboy (pig) may be pronounced .
Consonants
|
BilabialIn phonetics, a bilabial consonant is a consonant articulated with both lips. The bilabial consonants identified by the International Phonetic Alphabet are:...
|
DentalIn linguistics, a dental consonant or dental is a consonant that is articulated with the tongue against the upper teeth, such as , , , and in some languages...
/
AlveolarAlveolar consonants are articulated with the tongue against or close to the superior alveolar ridge, which is called that because it contains the alveoli of the superior teeth...
|
PalatalPalatal consonants are consonants articulated with the body of the tongue raised against the hard palate...
|
VelarVelars are consonants articulated with the back part of the tongue against the soft palate, the back part of the roof of the mouth, known also as the velum)....
|
GlottalGlottal consonants, also called laryngeal consonants, are consonants articulated with the glottis. Many phoneticians consider them, or at least the so-called fricatives, to be transitional states of the glottis without a point of articulation as other consonants have; in fact, some do not consider...
|
| Stops A stop, plosive, or occlusive is a consonant sound produced by stopping the airflow in the vocal tract. The terms plosive and stop are usually used interchangeably, but they are not perfect synonyms. Plosives are oral stops with a pulmonic egressive airstream mechanism. The term is also used to...
|
Voiceless |
p |
t |
|
k |
(# ) |
| Voiced |
b |
d |
|
g |
|
| Affricates Affricates are consonants that begin as stops but release as a fricative rather than directly into the following vowel.- Samples :...
|
Voiceless |
|
|
(ts, tiV) |
|
|
| Voiced |
|
|
(diV) |
|
|
| Fricatives Fricatives are consonants produced by forcing air through a narrow channel made by placing two articulators close together. These may be the lower lip against the upper teeth, in the case of ; the back of the tongue against the soft palate, in the case of German , the final consonant of Bach; or...
|
|
s |
(siV) |
|
h |
| Nasals A nasal consonant is produced with a lowered velum in the mouth, allowing air to escape freely through the nose. The oral cavity still acts as a resonance chamber for the sound, but the air does not escape through the mouth as it is blocked by the lips or tongue...
|
m |
n |
(niV) [nj] |
ng |
|
LateralsLaterals are "L"-like consonants pronounced with an occlusion made somewhere along the axis of the tongue, while air from the lungs escapes at one side or both sides of the tongue....
|
|
l |
(liV) [lj] |
|
|
FlapsIn phonetics, a flap or tap is a type of consonantal sound, which is produced with a single contraction of the muscles so that one articulator is thrown against another.-Contrast with stops and trills:...
|
|
r |
|
|
|
| Trills |
|
(rr [r]) |
|
|
|
| Semivowel Semivowels, also known as glides or non-syllabic vowels, are vowels that form diphthongs with full syllabic vowels. That is, they are vowel-like sounds that do not form the nucleus of a syllable or mora; they are not the most prominent part of the syllable...
s |
(w, CuV) w |
|
(y, CiV) [j] |
|
|
All consonantal phonemes except are may be a syllable
onsetOnset may refer to:*Onset , the beginning of a musical note or sound*Interonset interval, a term in music*Syllable onset, a term in phonetics and phonology*Onset, Massachusetts, village in the United States...
or
codaIn phonology, a syllable coda comprises the consonant sounds of a syllable that follow the nucleus, which is usually a vowel. The combination of a nucleus and a coda is called a rime. A coda is not required in syllables...
. The phoneme /h/ is a borrowed sound and rarely occurs in coda position. Although, the Spanish word,
reloj,
clock, would have been heard as [re.loh], the final /h/ is dropped resulting in /re.lo/. However, this word also may have entered the Ilokano lexicon at early enough a time that the word was still pronounced , with the
j pronounced as in
FrenchThis article mainly discusses the phonological system of standard French based on the Parisian dialect. French is notable for its uvular r, nasal vowels, and two processes affecting word-final sounds: liaison, a certain type of sandhi, wherein word-final consonants are not pronounced unless...
, resulting in /re.los/ in Ilokano. As a result, both /re.lo/ and /re.los/ occur.
The glottal stop is not permissible as coda; it can only occur as onset. Even as an onset, the glottal stop disappears in affixation. Take for example the root
aramat,
use. When prefixed with
ag-, the expected form is *
ag-aramat . But, the actual form is, in fact,
agaramat ; the glottal stop disappears. In a reduplicated form, the glottal stop returns and participates in the template, CVC,
agar-aramat .
Stops are pronounced without aspiration. When they occur as coda, they are not released, for example,
sungbat answer, response.
Ilokano is one of the Philippine languages which is excluded from - allophony, as /r/ in many cases is derived from a Proto-Austonesian */G/, compare
dugo (Tagalog) and
dara (Ilokano)
blood.
The language marginally has a trill [r] which was spelled as “rr”, for example,
serrek to enter. But it is different in proper names of foreign origin, mostly Spanish, like
Serrano, which is correctly pronounced . Some speakers, however, pronounce
Serrano as .
Lexical
Stress is phonemic or lexical in Ilokano. This results in
minimal pairIn phonology, minimal pairs are pairs of words or phrases in a particular language, which differ in only one phonological element, such as a phone, phoneme, toneme or chroneme and have a distinct meaning...
s such as
káyo (
wood) and
kayó (
you (plural or polite)) or
kíta (
class, type, kind) and
kitá (
see). In written Ilokano, stress is not indicated, thus
kayo and
kita.
Regardless of that fact, phonemic patterns can be found that give a good indication how to determine the primary stress of a given root.
Pitch
Primary stressed syllables are lower in pitch compared to the rest of the prosodic word.
Grammar
Ilokano is typified by a predicate-initial structure. Verbs and adjectives occur in the first position of the sentence, then the rest of the sentence follows.
Ilokano uses a highly complex list of affixes (prefixes, suffixes, infixes and enclitics) and
reduplicationReduplication, in linguistics, is a morphological process by which the root or stem of a word, or part of it, is repeated.Reduplication is used in inflections to convey a grammatical function, such as plurality, intensification, etc., and in lexical derivation to create new words...
s to indicate a wide array of grammatical categories. Learning simple root words and corresponding affixes goes a long way in forming cohesive sentences.
Borrowings
Ilokano's vocabulary has a closer affinity to languages from
BorneoBorneo is the third largest island in the world and is located at the centre of Maritime Southeast Asia. Administratively, this island is divided among Indonesia , Malaysia and Brunei . Indonesians refer to the island as Kalimantan...
. Foreign accretion comes largely from
SpanishSpanish or Castilian is a Romance language in the Ibero-Romance group that originated in northern Spain and gradually spread in the Kingdom of Castile, evolving into the principal language of government and trade in the Iberian peninsula...
, followed by
EnglishEnglish is a West Germanic language that developed in England during the Anglo-Saxon era. As a result of the military, economic, scientific, political, and cultural influence of the British Empire during the 18th, 19th, and early 20th centuries, and of the United States since the mid 20th century,...
and smatterings of Hokkien (
Min NanThe Southern Min language, or Min Nan , is a family of Chinese languages which are spoken in southern Fujian and neighboring areas, and by descendants of emigrants from these areas in diaspora. In common parlance, Southern Min usually refers to the Hokkien, in particular the Amoy and Taiwanese...
),
ArabicArabic is a Central Semitic language, thus related to and classified alongside other Semitic languages such as Hebrew and the Neo-Aramaic languages. In terms of speakers, the Arabic macrolanguage is the largest member of the Semitic language family. It is spoken by more than 280 million people as...
and
SanskritSanskrit is a historical Indo-Aryan language, one of the liturgical languages of Hinduism and Buddhism, and one of the 22 official languages of India. It is also declared as a classical language by the government of India....
.
Examples of Borrowing
| Word | Source | Original Meaning | Ilokano meaning |
|---|
| arak |
Arabic |
drink similar to sake |
generic alcoholic drink |
| karma |
Sanskrit |
deed (see BuddhismBuddhism, as traditionally conceived, is a path of salvation attained through insight into the ultimate nature of reality. It encompasses a variety of traditions, beliefs and practices, largely based on teachings attributed to Siddhartha Gautama, commonly known as the Buddha...
) |
spirit |
| sanglay |
Hokkien |
to deliver goods |
to deliver/Chinese merchant |
| agbuldos |
English |
to bulldoze |
to bulldoze |
| kuarta |
Spanish |
cuarta ("quarter", a kind of copper coin) |
money |
| kumusta |
Spanish |
greeting: ¿Cómo está? ("How are you?") |
how are you |
Common expressions
| English | Ilokano |
|---|
| Yes |
Wen |
| No |
Saan
Haan |
| How are you? |
Kumusta ka?
Kumusta kayo? (polite and plural) |
| Good day |
Naimbag nga aldawmo.
Naimbag nga aldawyo. (polite and plural) |
| Good morning |
Naimbag a bigatmo.
Naimbag a bigatyo. (polite and plural) |
| Good afternoon |
Naimbag a malemmo.
Naimbag a malemyo. (polite and plural) |
| Good evening |
Naimbag a rabiim.
Naimbag a rabiiyo. (polite and plural) |
| What is your name? |
Ania ti naganmo? (often contracted to Aniat' naganmo?)
Ania ti naganyo? |
| Where's the bathroom? |
Ayanna ti banio? |
| I cannot understand |
Diak matarusan.
Saanko maawatan. |
| I love you |
Ay-ayatenka.
Ipatpategka. |
| I'm sorry. |
Pakawan.
Dispensar. |
| Goodbye. |
Agpakadaakon.
Kastan/Kasta pay. (Till then)
Sige. (Okay)
Innakon. (I'm going)
Inkamin. (We are going)
|
Numbers (Bilang)
Ilokano uses two number systems, one native and the other derived from Spanish.
Numbers
| 0 |
ibbong
awan (lit. none)
sero (English zero)
itlog (slang egg) |
sero |
| 0.25 (1/4) |
kakappat |
|
| 0.50 (1/2) |
kagudua |
|
| 1 |
maysa |
uno |
| 2 |
dua |
dos |
| 3 |
tallo |
tres |
| 4 |
uppat |
kuatro |
| 5 |
lima |
singko |
| 6 |
innem |
sais |
| 7 |
pito |
siete |
| 8 |
walo |
otso |
| 9 |
siam |
nuebe |
| 10 |
sangapulo (lit. a group of ten) |
dies |
| 11 |
sangapulo ket maysa |
onse |
| 20 |
duapulo |
bainte |
| 50 |
limapulo |
singkuenta |
| 100 |
sangagasut (lit. a group of one hundred) |
sien, siento |
| 1,000 |
sangaribo (lit. a group of one thousand) |
mil |
| 10,000 |
sangalaksa (lit. a group of ten thousand) |
dies mil |
| 1,000,000 |
sangariwriw (lit. a group of one million) |
milion |
| 1,000,000,000 |
sangabilion (American English, billion) |
bilion |
Ilokano uses a mixture of native and Spanish numbers. Traditionally Ilokano numbers are used for quantities and Spanish numbers for time or days and references.
Examples:
Spanish:
- Mano ti tawenmo? (How old are you?)
- Beintiuno. (Twenty one.)
- Luktanyo dagiti Bibliayo iti libro ni Juan kapitulo tres bersikolo diesiseis.
- Open your Bibles to the book of John chapter three verse sixteen.
Ilokano:
- Mano a kilo a bagas ti kayatmo? (How many kilos of rice do you want?)
- Sangapulo laeng. (Ten only.)
- Adda dua nga ikan kenkuana.
- He has two fish. (lit. There are two fish with him.)
Days of the week (Aldaw ti Lawas)
Days of the week are directly borrowed from Spanish.
Days of the Week
| Monday |
Lunes |
| Tuesday |
Martes |
| Wednesday |
Mierkoles |
| Thursday |
Huebes |
| Friday |
Biernes |
| Saturday |
Sabado |
| Sunday |
Domingo |
Months (Bulan)
Like the days of the week, the names of the months are taken from Spanish.
Months
| January |
Enero |
|
July |
Hulio |
| February |
Pebrero |
|
August |
Agosto |
| March |
Marso |
|
September |
Septiembre |
| April |
Abril |
|
October |
Oktubre |
| May |
Mayo |
|
November |
Nobiembre |
| June |
Hunio |
|
December |
Disiembre |
Units of time
The names of the units of time are either native or are derived from Spanish. The first entries in the following table are native; the second entries are Spanish derived.
Units of time
| second |
kanito
segundo |
| minute |
daras
minuto |
| day |
aldaw |
| week |
lawas
dominggo (lit. Sunday) |
| month |
bulan |
| year |
tawen
anio |
To mention time, Ilokanos use a mixture of Spanish and Ilokano:
- 1:00 a.m. A la una iti bigat (One in the morning)
- 2:30 p.m. A las dos imedia iti malem (in Spanish, Son las dos y media de la tarde or "half past two in the afternoon")
More Ilokano words
- ading = younger brother/sister
- awan = none
- adda = there is
- al-alya = ghost/spirit
- ama = father
- apay = why
- apong = grandparent
- apong baket = grandmother
- an-nay! = ouch!
- aso = dog
- aysus! = oh, Jesus/oh, my God!
- apong lakay = grandfather
- babae = female
- baboy = pig
- bado = clothing / attire
- badok = traditional jendo martial arts uniform/my attire/my uniform/my clothing
- baket = old women / wife
- balla = crazy
- bangsit = stink
- barok = young boy
- basang = young girl
- (ag)basa = (to) read
- basit= small
- basul = fault, wrongdoing
- bisin = hunger
- (ag)buya = (to) watch
- dadael = destroy/ruin
- digos = bath
- buneng = bladed tool / sword
- gayyem = friend
- kaanakan = niece / nephew
- kabalyo = horse
- kabsat = sibling
- kanayon = always
- kasinsin = cousin
- katawa = laugh
- kuddot = pinch
- ina/inang/nanang = mother
- laing = intelligence
- lakay = old man / husband
- lalaki = male
- mabisin = hungry
- manang = older sister or relative; can also be applied to women a little older than the speaker
- mangan = eat
- manong = older brother or relative; can also be applied to men a little older than the speaker
- mari = female friend/mother
- naimas = taste/feel good/delicious
- nana = grandmother
- nasam-it = sweet
- naalsem = sour
- napait = bitter
- naapgad = salty
- (na)pintas = beautiful (woman)
- nataraki = cute (man, slightly impolite connotation, but properly used on an animal, as for a rooster
A rooster, also called a cock or chanticleer, is a male chicken with the female being called a hen. Immature male chickens of less than a year's age are called cockerels. The oldest term is "cock," from Old English coc. It is sometimes replaced by the term "cockerel" in the United Kingdom, and...
), usually interchanged with 'handsome'
- nataengan = adult
- (na)guapo = handsome (man)
- (na)rago, (na)laad = ugly
- pari = close male friend
- padi = father (priest)
- (na)peggad = danger(ous)
- pusa= cat
- pustaan = bet, wager
- pimmusay(en)= died
- riing = wake up
- rupa = face
- sala = dance
- (na)sakit = (it) hurts
- (ag)sangit = (to) cry
- (ag)surat = (to) write
- takrot/tarkok = coward/afraid
- tata = grandfather
- tatang = father
- (ag)takder = (to) stand
- (ag)tugaw = (to) sit
- (na)tawid = inherit(ed)
- tun-bigat = tomorrow
- turog = sleep
- ubing = child
- ulo = head
External links
- The Online Ilokano Dictionary Project (TOIDP) - A free Ilokano dictionary application for people to utilize so that they may overcome the language barriers existing between the English and Ilokano languages.
- Ethnologue entry for Ilokano
- Bansa.org Ilokano Dictionary
- Ilocano.org A project for building an online Ilokano dictionary. Also features Ilokano songs, and a community forum.
- Ilocano: Ti pagsasao ti amianan - Webpage by linguist Dr. Carl R. Galvez Rubino, author of dictionaries on Iloko and Tagalog
Tagalog is an Austronesian language spoken in the Philippines by about 22 million people.It is related to Austronesian languages such as Chamorro , Indonesian, Malay, Javanese and Paiwan , Cham , and Tetum...
.
- Iluko.com popular Ilokano web portal featuring Ilokano songs, Iloko fiction and poetry, Ilokano riddles, and a lively Ilokano forum (Dap-ayan).
- mannurat.com blog of an Ilokano fictionist and poet written in Iloko and featuring original and Iloko fiction and poetry, literary analysis and criticism focused on Ilokano Literature
Ilokano literature or Iloko literature pertains to the literary works of writers of Ilocano ancestry regardless of the language used - be it Iloko, English, Spanish or other foreign and Philippine languages. The terms "Iloko" and "Ilokano" are different...
, and literary news about Iloko writing and writers and organization like the GUMILGUMIL Filipinas or Ilokano Writers Association of the Philippines, is one of the most active group of regional writers in the Philippines. It has hundreds of active writer-members in provincial and municipal chapters as well as in overseas chapters in the mainland U.S...
(Gunglo dagiti Mannurat nga Ilokano).
- samtoy.blogspot.com Yloco Blog maintained by Ilokano writers Raymundo Pascua Addun and Joel Manuel
- Austronesian Basic Vocabulary Database
- dadapilan.com - an Iloko literature portal featuring Iloko works by Ilokano writers and forum for Iloko literary study, criticism and online workshop.