Isinai (also spelled Isinay) is a
Northern Luzon language primarily spoken in
Nueva Vizcaya province
A province is an administrative division within a country or sovereign state, state. The term derives from the ancient Roman , which was the major territorial and administrative unit of the Roman Empire, Roman Empire's territorial possessions ou ...
in the northern
Philippines
The Philippines, officially the Republic of the Philippines, is an Archipelagic state, archipelagic country in Southeast Asia. Located in the western Pacific Ocean, it consists of List of islands of the Philippines, 7,641 islands, with a tot ...
. By
linguistic classification, it is more divergent from other
Central Cordilleran languages, such as
Kalinga,
Itneg or
Ifugao
Ifugao, officially the Province of Ifugao (; ), is a landlocked province of the Philippines in the Cordillera Administrative Region in Luzon. Its capital is Lagawe and it borders Benguet to the west, Mountain Province to the north, Isabela t ...
and
Kankanaey.
According to the ''Ethnologue'', Isinai is spoken in
Bambang,
Dupax del Sur, and
Aritao municipalities, alongside Ilocano.
Dialects
''
Ethnologue
''Ethnologue: Languages of the World'' is an annual reference publication in print and online that provides statistics and other information on the living languages of the world. It is the world's most comprehensive catalogue of languages. It w ...
'' reports Dupax del Sur, Aritao and Bambang as dialects of Isinai. However, ''Ethnologue'' also reports that the Aritao dialect is moribund.
[
]
Phonology
Isinai is also one of the Philippine languages which is excluded from - allophone.
Grammar
Isinai contains a definite article with three different forms that vary depending on the relation of the noun. The forms of the definite article are: , , and .
References
*Perlawan, Sarah Eve. 2015
''Grammatical Sketch of Isinay Dupax''
m.s. University of the Philippines, Diliman.
*Reid, Lawrence A., and Analyn Salvador-Amores (2016).
Guide to Isinay Orthography
'. Baguio: Cordillera Studies Center, University of the Philippines, Baguio.
Languages of Nueva Vizcaya
South–Central Cordilleran languages
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