The Palawano languages are spoken in the province 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 ...

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 ...

, by the Palawano people.

Classification

There are three Palawano languages: the ''Quezon Palawano'' which is also known as Central Palawano; Brooke's Point Palawano and its dialect the ''Bugsuk Palawano'' or ''South Palawano'' and Southwest Palawano. The three Palawano languages share the island with several other Palawanic languages which are not part of the Palawano cluster, though they share a fair amount of vocabulary.

Phonology

The following overview is based on Revel-MacDonald (1979).

Consonants

Vowels

Grammar

Verb conjugations are similar to other Filipino dialects with prefixes and suffixes indicating tense, object or actor focus, as well as intention (i.e. commands). These prefixes and suffixes can be used to create various parts of speech from the same root word. For example, ''biyag'', meaning 'life', can be manipulated to mean 'to live' (''megbiyag''), 'full of food' (''mebiyag''), 'to raise to life' (''ipebiyag''), 'living' as an adjective (''biyagen''), or 'living' as a present tense verb form (''pebibiyag''). Palawano creates a diminutive prefix by copying the first CV of the base together with the final base consonant: ''kusiŋ'' ('cat'): ''kuŋ-kusiŋ'' ('kitten'), ''bajuʔ'' ('clothing'): ''bäʔ-bajuʔ'' ('child's clothing'), ''libun'' ('woman'): ''lin-libun'' ('girl'), ''kunit'' ('yellow'): ''kut-kunit'' ('yellow flycatcher' (bird)), ''siak'' ('tears'): ''sik-siak'' ('crocodile tears/false tears').

Pronouns

The following set of pronouns are the pronouns found in the Southwest Palawano language. Note: the direct/nominative case is divided between full and short forms.

Vocabulary

There are many linguistic variations among Palawan family groups with words changing from one valley to the next (i.e. ''tabon'' for 'mountain' versus ''bukid''). Tagalog is frequently used to supply words lacking in the local dialect for modern objects and actions which can cause confusion, especially among the younger generation, between Tagalog and Palawan. The more familiar a family or village is with the Tagalog lowland culture, the more common the language overlap. Some Brooke's Point Palawan words are: * or – friend * – uncle (also a term of respect for an older man) * – aunt (also a term of respect for an older woman) * – mother * – father * – get * – sack * – midday * – purchase/buy * – go * or – mountain * – eat * – good *, , – cat * – love (noun) Phrases: * – friendly way of asking "Where are you going friend?", as a form of greeting. * – means 'There, to the mountain, I will get a sack.' * – this is usually referring to the dog, as a way to say "don't bite" * – Where are you going? *. – Up the hill *. – Good morning

Comparative wordlist

The following compares the Palawano languages with other

Greater Central Philippine languages The Greater Central Philippine languages are a proposed subgroup of the Austronesian language family, defined by the change of Proto-Malayo-Polynesian ''*R'' to ''*g''. They are spoken in the central and southern parts of the Philippines, and in ...

Writing system

Latin alphabet

The spelling is controversial with multiple translators using separate spelling methods, some using Tagalog-based spelling while others use other systems. Brooke's Point Palawano uses 23 letters: a, b, d, e, g, h, i, j, k, l, m, n, ng, o, p, r, s, t, u, w, y, and ' (glottal stop). Borrowed: c, f, q, x, z. The 'e' stands for

schwa In linguistics, specifically phonetics and phonology, schwa (, rarely or ; sometimes spelled shwa) is a vowel sound denoted by the IPA symbol , placed in the central position of the vowel chart. In English and some other languages, it rep ...

and "dy" makes a 'j' sound.

Ibalnan script

In the 20th century, the Tagbanwa script was adopted from the Tagbanwa people by the

Palawan people The Palawan tribal people, also known as the Palawano or the Palaw'an, are an indigenous ethnic group of the Palawan group of islands in the Philippines. Palawanos are more popularly known as Palawans, which is pronounced faster than the name of ...

further south in the

island An island (or isle) is an isolated piece of habitat that is surrounded by a dramatically different habitat, such as water. Very small islands such as emergent land features on atolls can be called islets, skerries, cays or keys. An isla ...

. They call this alphabet ''Ibalnan'' and the vowel mark an ''ulit''.

References

External links

*Zorc, R. David. 1972.
Palawano notes
'.
Brooke's Point Palawano audio sample

Brooke's Point Palawano dictionary
Palawanic languages Languages of Palawan {{GCPhilippine-lang-stub