Cuyonon is a regional Bisayan language spoken on the coast of

Palawan Palawan (), officially the Province of Palawan ( cyo, Probinsya i'ang Palawan; tl, Lalawigan ng Palawan), is an archipelagic province of the Philippines that is located in the region of Mimaropa. It is the largest province in the country in t ...

and the Cuyo Islands in 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 ...

.Palawan Tourism Council
Accessed August 28, 2008. Cuyonon had been the

lingua franca A lingua franca (; ; for plurals see ), also known as a bridge language, common language, trade language, auxiliary language, vehicular language, or link language, is a language systematically used to make communication possible between groups ...

(language used for communication) of the

province A province is almost always an administrative division within a country or state. The term derives from the ancient Roman ''provincia'', which was the major territorial and administrative unit of the Roman Empire's territorial possessions out ...

of Palawan until recently when migration flow into the region rapidly increased. 43% of the total population of Palawan during the late 1980s spoke and used Cuyonon as a language. Later studies showed a significant decrease in the number of speakers due to an increase of

Tagalog Tagalog may refer to: Language * Tagalog language, a language spoken in the Philippines ** Old Tagalog, an archaic form of the language ** Batangas Tagalog, a dialect of the language * Tagalog script, the writing system historically used for Taga ...

-speaking immigrants from Luzon. The Cuyonon language is classified by the Summer Institute of Linguistics as belonging to the Central Philippine, Western Bisayan, Kuyan subgroup. The largest number of speakers lives in the Cuyo Group of Islands, which is located between Northern Palawan and Panay Island.

Phonology

Consonants

Vowels

Unlike most Philippine languages, it only consists of one close vowel. The close vowel only occurs in loanwords from Spanish, either directly or through Tagalog.

Simple greetings

*Good afternoon – *Good evening/night – *How are you? – *I'm fine/good and you? – *I'm just fine, by the grace of God – *Thank you – *Where are you going? – *What are you doing? – *Oh, nothing in particular. – *Please come in. – *Long time no see. –

Common expressions

Parts of the body

References

External links

Cuyonon Language and Culture Project
cuyonon.org
Linguistic map of the PhilippinesLinguistic map of the Philippines
Languages of Palawan Visayan languages {{CPhilippine-lang-stub