Hiligaynon language

language
name=Hiligaynon
nativename=Ilonggo
familycolor=Austronesian
states=Philippines
region=Visayas
speakers= 11 million total (first language: 7 million, second language: 4 million (est.))
rank=83
fam2=Malayo-Polynesian
fam3=Borneo-Philippines
fam4=Central Philippine
fam5=Visayan
fam6=Central Visayan
script=Latin (Filipino variant);
"Historically written in Baybayin"
nation=Regional language in the Philippines
agency=Komisyon sa Wikang Filipino
(Commission on the Filipino Language)
iso2=hil|iso3=hil

Hiligaynon (or "Ilonggo") is an Austronesian language spoken in Western Visayas in the Philippines. Hiligaynon is concentrated in the provinces of Iloilo and Negros Occidental. It is also spoken in the other provinces of the Panay Island group, such as Capiz, Antique, Aklan, Guimaras, and many parts of Mindanao like Koronadal City, South Cotabato and Sultan Kudarat (It is spoken as a second language by Karay-a in Antique, Aklanon and Malaynon in Aklan, Cebuano in SiquijorFact|date=May 2008, and Capiznon in Capiz.). There are approximately 7,000,000 people in and outside the Philippines who are native speakers of Hiligaynon, and an additional 4,000,000 who are capable of speaking it with a substantial degree of proficiency.

It is a member of the Visayan language family.

The language is referred to as "Ilonggo" in Negros Occidental and in Iloilo. More precisely, "Ilonggo" is an ethnoliguistic group referring to the people living in Panay and the culture associated with the people speaking Hiligaynon. The boundaries of the dialect called Ilonggo and that called Hiligaynon are unclear. The disagreement of where what name is correct extends to Philippine language specialists and native laymen.

Writing system

The core alphabet consists of 20 letters used for expressing consonants and vowels in Hiligaynon, each of which comes in an upper case and lower case variety.

Alphabet

(*)The articles "sing" and "sing mga" means the following noun is indefinite, while "sang" tells of a definite noun, like the use of "a" in English as opposed to "the", however, it is not as common in modern speech, being replace by "sang". It appears in conservative translations of the Bible into Hiligaynon and in traditional or formal speech
(**)The plural personal case markers are not used very often and not even by all speakers. Again, this is an example of a case marker that has fallen largely into disuse, but is still occasionally used when speaking a more traditional form of Hiligaynon, using less Spanish loan words.

The case markers do not determine the which noun is subject and which is object, rather, the affix of the verb determines this. Though the "ang"-marked noun is always the topic.

Examples:Ang lalaki "nag"kaon sang tinapay
"The man ate the bread"

can mean the same as

Ang tinapay "gin"kaon sang lalaki
Literally: "The bread was eaten by the man"

but, in Hiligaynon, there is a tendency to use active voice more, so the first sentence would be more common.

Personal pronouns

Days of the week

The names of the days of the week are derived from their Spanish equivalents.

Greetings, friends and lovers

The marketplace

The Lord's Prayer

Amay namon, nga yara ka sa mga langit
Pagdayawon ang imo ngalan
Umabot sa amon ang imo ginharian
Matuman ang imo buot
Diri sa duta subong sang sa langit
Hatagan mo kami nian sing kan-on namon
Sa matag-adlaw
Kag ipatawad mo ang mga sala namon
Subong nga ginapatawad namon ang nakasala sa amon
Kag dili mo kami nga ipagpadaug sa mga panulay
Gino-o luwason mo kami sa kalaut
Amen.

Children's books

Ang Bukid Nga Nagpalangga Sang Pispis

"Ang Bukid Nga Nagpalangga Sang Pispis" is a fully illustrated, colored children's picture book. The original story is "The Mountain That Loved A Bird", by Alice McLerran. Originally published in the United States with illustrations by Eric Carle, the story has been translated to Hiligaynon by Genevieve L. Asenjo and illustrated with new art by Beaulah Pedregosa Taguiwalo drawn from the landscapes of the Philippines.

The publisher is Mother Tongue Publishing Inc., a new publishing company based in Manila, Philippines formed in November 2006 by Mario and Beaulah Taguiwalo. Their mission is to publish books in as many languages and dialects as possible. They are inspired by the words of science fiction writer Ursula K. Le Guin: “Literature takes shape and life in the body, in the wombs of the mother tongue.” They also agree with neuro-scientist Elkhonon Goldberg who refers to mother tongues as “an extremely adaptive and powerful device for modeling not only what is, but also what will be, what could be, and what we want and do not want to be.”

See also

*Languages of the Philippines
*Kinaray-a language

External links

* [http://www.bohol.ph/kved.php John Kaufmann's 1934 "Visayan-English Dictionary" On-line] .
* [http://kalibo.tukcedo.nl/dictionary-HE.pdf Hiligaynon to English Dictionary]
* [http://kalibo.tukcedo.nl/dictionary-EH.pdf English to Hiligaynon Dictionary]
* [http://www.ethnologue.com/show_language.asp?code=hil Ethnologue report for Hiligaynon]
* [http://www.bansa.org/?q=dictionaries/cmd&dict_lang=Hiligaynon Bansa.org Hiligaynon Dictionary]
* [http://www.omniglot.com/writing/hiligaynon.htm Omniglot on Hiligaynon Writing]
* [http://www.bohol.ph/diksyunaryo.php Online Hiligaynon dictionary]
* [http://www.dinagyang.com/forum/index.php Ilonggo Community & Discussion Board]
* [http://ciaran.compsoc.com/languages.html#ilonggo Some information about learning Ilonggo]