About Opentopia
Opentopia Directory Encyclopedia Tools

Cebuano language

Encyclopedia : C : CE : CEB : Cebuano language

Cebuano redirects here. For the inhabitants of Cebu, see Cebuano people
Cebuano, also known as Sugboanon, is an Austronesian language spoken in the Philippines by about 18,000,000 people and is a subgroup or member of Bisaya, Visayan and Binisayâ. The name came from the Philippine island of Cebu, with the Spanish suffix -ano meaning native, of a place, added at the end. Cebuano is given the ISO 639-2 three letter code ceb, but has no ISO 639-1 two letter code.

Cebuano is a member of the Visayan language family.

Contents

Geographic distribution

Cebuano is spoken natively by the inhabitants of Cebu, Bohol, Negros Oriental and the people in western Leyte province and throughout Mindanao. It is also spoken in a few towns and islands in Samar. Until 1975, Cebuano surpassed Tagalog in terms of number of native speakers. Some dialects of Cebuano give different names to the language. Residents of Bohol may refer to their language as Bol-anon while Cebuano-speakers in Leyte may call their dialect Kana. Cebuano is a language with Verb Subject Object sentence order. It uses prepositions rather than postpositions. Nouns come after adjectives, but before genitives or relative phrases.

Sounds

Cebuano has sixteen consonants: p, t, k, ? (the glottal stop), b, d, g, m, n, ng, s, h, w, l, r and y. There are three vowels: i, a, and u/o. The vowels u and o are allophones, with u always being used when it is the beginning of a syllable, and o always used when it ends a syllable. Accent is also a distinguisher of words, so that dápit means "to invite", while dapít means "place".

Grammar

Pronouns

Nouns in Cebuano are inflected for person, number, and case. While there is no 1st person singular distinction of genders, there is, interestingly, a distinguishment in 1st person plural, by way of an inclusive and exclusive "we". This reflects the culture's general focus on importance of the group, as opposed to the individual.

Example:

We are going to the movies. (Exclusive- kami - You are not going.)

We are going to the movies. (Inclusive- kita - You are going.)

The four cases are nominative, preposed genitive, postposed genitive, and oblique.

  Absolutive Ergative1
(Postposed) 		Ergative2
(Preposed) 		Oblique
1st person singular ako, ko nako, ko akong kanako, nako
2nd person singular ikaw, ka nimo, mo imong kanimo, nimo
3rd person singular siya niya iyang kaniya, niya
1st person plural inclusive kita, ta nato atong kanato, nato
1st person plural exclusive kami, mi namo among kanamo, namo
2nd person plural kamo, mo ninyo inyong kaninyo, ninyo
3rd person plural sila nila ilang kanila, nila

Vocabulary and borrowed words

Cebuano has long borrowed words from Spanish, such as krus [cruz] (cross) and brilyante [brillante] (brilliant). It has several hundred loan words from English as well, which are altered to conform to the limited phonemic inventory of Cebuano: brislit (bracelet), hayskul (high school), syapin (shopping), dikstrus (dextrose), sipir (zipper), bigsyat (big shot), or prayd tsikin (fried chicken).

Recognition of Cebuano

The use of Tagalog as a basis for Pilipino drew criticism from other Philippine linguistic groups. To some extent, the use of Tagalog was actively resisted. For instance, after an attempt by the central government to enforce the use of Tagalog as the language of instruction in all public schools in the eighties, the governor of Cebu initiated the singing of the Philippine national anthem in Cebuano rather that in Pilipino (Tagalog) in the island province of Cebu. This resistance was not intended to undermine the country's national unity. On the part of the Cebuanos, it was mostly a protest against "imperial Manila" and a clamor for linguistic and regional recognition.

The Cebuano desire for special recognition finds support from the following arguments:

  1. Historically, Cebu is the first and oldest city in the Philippines, an ancient hub of trade with the Arabs and the Chinese. It was also the first city established by Legaspi. Long before Manila fell into the hands of the Spanish in the 16th century, Cebu was already an established trading and military post for the Spaniards.
  2. Linguistically, Cebuano is the country's second most widely-used language. During the period after independence until the mid-seventies, it was the largest linguistic group.
  3. Strategically and commercially, Cebu is the alternate gateway to Manila due to its geographical location, adding significance to its language. Cebuano is the native language of more regions than Tagalog, being the language with the most native speakers in Region VII (Central Visayas), Region IX (Zamboanga Peninsula), Region X (Northern Mindanao), Region XI (Davao Region), Caraga Region, and Region XII (SOCCSKSARGEN). There are also significant number of speakers in Region VI (Western Visayas, mostly in San Carlos City and neighboring areas) and Region VIII (Eastern Visayas, mostly in western Leyte and Southern Leyte). By comparison, Tagalog is the language of the majority in the NCR, Region IV-A, Region IV-B, and Region III (Central Luzon, where Kapampangan and Ilocano also dominate some areas).
  4. Politically, since the colonial days of the Spanish and Americans, the Cebuanos have resented "arrogance" from Manila. In the Marcos years, Cebu, with the exception of Durano-held Danao, was regarded as a staunch center of opposition.

Words and phrases

Numbers

However, Spanish is more commonly used for numbers above 10 ...

... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ...

Common expressions

Nasudnong Awit (Cebuano version of the Philippine National Anthem, Lupang Hinirang)

Translated into Cebuano by Jess Vestil

Yutang tabunon
Mutya nga masilakon,
Putling bahandi,
Amo kang gimahal.
Mithing gisimba,
Yuta's mga bayani,
Sa manlulupig,
Pagadapigan ka.
Ang mga buntod mo,
Ug lapyahan sa langit mong bughaw,
Nagahulad sa awit, lamdag sa
Kaliwat tang gawas.
Silaw sa adlaw ug bituon
Sa nasudnong bandila,
Nagatima-an nga buhion ta
Ang atong pagka-usa.
Yutang maanyag, duyan ka sa pagmahal,
Landong sa langit ang dughan mo;
Pakatam-ison namo nga maulipon ka
Ang kamatayom sa ngalan mo.

See also

External links

[ {{{1] of Wikipedia

 

From Wikipedia, the Free Encyclopedia. Original article here. Support Wikipedia by contributing or donating.
All text is available under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License See Wikipedia Copyrights for details.

Search Titles
0123456789
ABCDEFGHIJ
KLMNOPQRST
UVWXYZ?

E-mail this article to:

Personal Message: