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Ivatan
Ibatan
Chirin nu Ibatan
Native to	Philippines
Region	Batanes Islands
Ethnicity	Ivatan
Native speakers	(33,000 cited 1996–2007)[1]
Language family	Austronesian Malayo-Polynesian Philippine Batanic Ivatan
Dialects	Ivasay Isamurung Babuyan
Official status
Recognised minority language in	Regional language in thePhilippines
Regulated by	Komisyon sa Wikang Filipino
Language codes
ISO 639-3	Either: ivv – Ivatan ivb – Ibatan (Babuyan)
Glottolog	ivat1242  Ivatan ibat1238  Ibatan
The location of the Ivatan language within the Batanic languages

TheIvatan language, also known asChirin nu Ivatan ("language of theIvatan people"), is anAustronesian language spoken in theBatanes Islands of thePhilippines.

Although the islands are closer toTaiwan than to Luzon, it is not one of theFormosan languages. Ivatan is one of theBatanic languages, which are perhaps a primary branch of theMalayo-Polynesian family ofAustronesian languages.

The language ofBabuyan Island (Ibatan) is sometimes classified as a dialect of the Ivatan language. Most of the Babuyan population moved toBatan Island and to Luzon mainland during the Spanish colonial period. The island became repopulated at the end of the 19th century with families from Batan, most of them speakers of one of the Ivatan dialects.^[2]

Ivatan speakers are found outside their homeland, many of them settled in mainland Luzon particularly in nearbyCagayan Valley,Ilocandia,Cordillera Administrative Region,Central Luzon,Metro Manila,Calabarzon,Mindoro andPalawan and also settled as far asMindanao. In Mindanao, a significant Ivatan-speaking minority exist mainly inBukidnon,Lanao andCotabato where they settled since the 1950s in search of economic opportunities settled down in government homesteads in these areas. Nowadays, however, their language has becoming endangered among Ivatan settlers' descendants especially newer generations born in Mindanao, due to being accustomed into a society of Cebuano-speaking majority. Like elsewhere, intermarriage between Ivatans and Mindanaoans of various ethnicities are not uncommon. Most of these Ivatans in Mindanao today speak the majority language ofCebuano,Hiligaynon,Tagalog and other Mindanao indigenous languages more than their ancestors' native language in varying fluency or none at all.^[3][4][5][6]

Ivatan is especially characterized by its words, which mostly have the letterv, as invakul,Ivatan, andvaluga. While related to the Northern Philippine group of languages, Ivatan, having been isolated, is most close to the two other members of the Bashiic sub-group of languages,Yami (Tao) andItbayat, neither of which is indigenous to Luzon. Ibatan dialect, spoken on the nearby Babuyan group of islands, is so similar to Ivatan that it is not entirely clear whether it should be classified as a dialect of Ivatan or a separate language, though each does receive its own code in ISO taxonomy.

Ivatan has two dialects; Basco Ivatan, more commonly known asIvasay, spoken on the main island of Batan, and Southern Ivatan orIsamurung, spoken on the southern half of Batan and on the most southern island, Sabtang.^[2]

In the capital of Basco and the surrounding northern half of Batan, the area encompassed by Ivasayen,t is prominent, whereas in the Isamurongen zone to the south (Mahatao, Ivana, Uyugan and Sabtang) that phoneme becomes ach.

Examples of the more visible variations of the Ivasayen and Isamurongen words and pronunciations are:

• tiban ('to look') in Basco ischiban in the southern towns
• antiyaw ('later') in Basco isanchiyaw in the southern towns
• kabatiti ('patola') in Basco iskabachichi in the southern towns
• timoy ('rain') in Basco ischimoy in the southern towns

Itbayaten is sometimes also considered a dialect. 2% of the total vocabulary does not occur in Ivatan dialects. Examples of different Ivasayen, Isamurongen and Itbayaten words that have the same English translation:

• adkan ('to kiss') in Basco and the southern towns isumahan in Itbayat.
• arava ('none') in Basco and the southern towns isaralih in Itbayat.
• bago ('pig') in Basco and the southern towns iskuyis in Itbayat.
• otioyan ('nest') in Basco isochoyan in the southern towns andhangtay in Itbayat.
• ipes ('tail') in Basco isvochivot in the southern towns and alsoipes in Itbayat.

Ivatan andFilipino words are sometimes combined, as in the Ivatan wordmapatak. It is derived frommarunong (Filipino) andchapatak (Ivatan), literally 'someone who knows', which were then compounded to form the wordmapatak. This is the result of the influence of non-Ivatans who tend to speak the language and were then eventually adopted.^{[citation needed]}

Examples ofmetathesis in Ivatan includeiskarayla foriskalayra ('stairs') andtumaraya fortumayara ('going up').

Ivatan slang includes examples such astanchew, coined frommirwa ta anchiyaw – literally 'we’ll meet again later', andnganmu, coined fromjinu ngayan mu, literally 'where are you going'. These are results of shortening Ivatan phrases or sentences into one or two words, depending on usage.

Common Ivatan expressions have various origins such as:^{[clarification needed]}

• Dios mamajes orDios Mamajes nu mapia
  Literally: 'God reward you with goodness' or 'God bless you'
  Usage: Used to show gratitude to someone
• Dios mavidin
  Literally: 'May God remain with you'
  Usage: Used by the person who is leaving
• Dios machivan
  Literally: 'May God go with you'
  Usage: Used by the person who is staying behind

/u/ can also be lowered to[ʊ]. Vowel [e] only occurs in loanwords fromSpanish,Ilocano, andTagalog.

/h/ can also be heard as a velar fricative[x]. Ivatan is one of the Philippine languages that do not exhibit [ɾ]-[d] allophony.

The following set of pronouns is found in the Ivatan language.^[8]

Coined words are two words combined to form one new word.

Ivatan is written using the Latin alphabet. As Ivatan is primarily a spoken language and seldom used in written form, there is currently no consistent way of writing the language and different conventions may be used by different writers. An orthography devised for use in public schools by the Department of Education uses the full 26-letter Latin alphabet, with three extra letters,ch,ñ, andng.^[9]

Theschwa sound, or uh, is normally represented by the lettere as inDios Mamajes, 'di-yos-ma-ma-huhs', andpalek 'pa-luhk'.^{[citation needed]}

Wikivoyage has a phrasebook forIvatan.

• Ivatan Language Packet
• The Ivatan
• Affiliation with the Yami of Taiwan
• Bansa.org Ivatan DictionaryArchived 15 December 2018 at theWayback Machine
• Ivatan-English Dictionary fromWebster's Dictionary
• IVATAN LANGUAGE: AN ANALYSIS – BatanesOnline.com
• Ivatan Language of the Batales Islands
• Batanes: Ivatan Songs composed and / or collected by Manuel Fajardo
• Uyugan, Batanes! On the Web! Batanes

• Batanic languages
• Languages of Batanes
• Languages of Cagayan

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