Bontoc (Bontok) (also called Finallig) is the native language of the indigenous

Bontoc people The Bontoc (or Bontok) ethnolinguistic group can be found in the central and eastern portions of Mountain Province, in the Philippines. Although some Bontocs of Natonin and Paracelis identify themselves as Balangaos, Gaddangs or Kalingas, the t ...

of the Mountain Province, in the northern part of the

Philippines The Philippines (; fil, Pilipinas, links=no), officially the Republic of the Philippines ( fil, Republika ng Pilipinas, links=no), * bik, Republika kan Filipinas * ceb, Republika sa Pilipinas * cbk, República de Filipinas * hil, Republ ...

Dialects

'' Ethnologue'' reports the following locations for each of the five Bontok languages. Speaker populations from the 2007 census, as quoted in ''Ethnologue''. * Central Bontok: spoken in Bontoc municipality, Mountain Province (in Bontoc ili, Caluttit, Dalican, Guina-ang, Ma-init, Maligcong, Samoki, and Tocucan villages). 19,600 speakers. Dialects are Khinina-ang, Finontok, Sinamoki, Jinallik, Minaligkhong and Tinokukan. * Eastern Bontok: spoken in

Barlig Barlig, officially the Municipality of Barlig is a 5th class municipality in the province of Mountain Province, Philippines. According to the 2020 census, it has a population of 4,796 people. Geography Barlig is bounded in the east by Natonin i ...

municipality, eastern Mountain Province (in Barlig, Kadaklan, and Lias villages). 6,170 speakers. Dialects are Finallig, Kinajakran and Liniyas. * North Bontok: spoken in Sadanga municipality, northern Mountain Province (in Anabel, Bekigan, Belwang, Betwagan, Demang, Sacasacan, Saclit, and the municipal center of Sadanga Poblacion). There are also some speakers in southern Kalinga Province. 9,700 speakers. * Southern Bontok: spoken to the south of Bontoc municipality in Talubin, Bayyo, and Can-eo towns. 2,760 speakers. Dialects are Tinoveng and Kanan-ew. * Southwestern Bontok: spoken in Bontoc municipality, Mountain Province (in Alab, Balili, Gonogon, and villages in the Chico River valley, southwest of the municipal capital Bontoc, along Halsema Highway). 2,470 speakers. Dialects are Ina-ab, Binalili and Ginonogon. Ethnologue, Southwestern Bontok

Phonology

* The

archiphoneme In phonology and linguistics, a phoneme () is a unit of sound that can distinguish one word from another in a particular language. For example, in most dialects of English, with the notable exception of the West Midlands and the north-w ...

has , , and as its

allophone In phonology, an allophone (; from the Greek , , 'other' and , , 'voice, sound') is a set of multiple possible spoken soundsor '' phones''or signs used to pronounce a single phoneme in a particular language. For example, in English, (as in '' ...

s. The allophone occurs word-initially, adjacent to , as the second member of a consonant cluster consisting of a coronal consonant and , and as the second member of any consonant cluster preceded by . occurs in free variation with word-initially, but otherwise occurs in

complementary distribution In linguistics, complementary distribution, as distinct from contrastive distribution and free variation, is the relationship between two different elements of the same kind in which one element is found in one set of environments and the other ele ...

with it. occurs in free variation with and word-initially, and with elsewhere. These /r/ sounds are even applied to loanwords from Ilokano and Tagalog, and Spanish loanwords from the 2 languages. * The plosives , , , and have, respectively, (representing an interdental consonant), , , and as their syllable-initial allophones. * The voiced stop also has and as its allophones. Both of these allophones occur as the first member of a

geminate In phonetics and phonology, gemination (), or consonant lengthening (from Latin 'doubling', itself from '' gemini'' 'twins'), is an articulation of a consonant for a longer period of time than that of a singleton consonant. It is distinct from ...

cluster. They are in free variation. * The approximant has one allophone: . occurs after . becomes a slightly centralized when in a syllable whose coda is . When in the nucleus, and are slightly raised and is lowered. There are two degrees of stress in Bontoc: primary and secondary. Primary stress is phonemic and secondary stress is predictable. Both types are right-oriented and occur on one of the last three syllables. Stress's effects include higher pitch, louder volume, and lengthening of the syllable nucleus, though these are all subject to certain rules pertaining to word prosody.

Example text

The Lord's Prayer

References

External links