| Tboli | |
|---|---|
| Tagabili | |
| Native to | Philippines |
| Region | Mindanao |
| Ethnicity | Tboli |
Native speakers | (95,000 cited 2000)[1] |
| Language codes | |
| ISO 639-3 | tbl |
| Glottolog | tbol1240 |
Tboli (IPA:[tᵊˈbɔli]), also Tau Bilil, Tau Bulul or Tagabili, is anAustronesian language spoken in the southernPhilippine island ofMindanao, mainly in theprovince ofSouth Cotabato but also in the neighboring provinces ofSultan Kudarat andSarangani. According to the Philippine Census from 2000, close to 100,000 Filipinos identifiedT'boli orTagabili as their native language.
Tboli is classified as a member of theSouth Mindanao or Bilic branch of thePhilippine language families. The closest language to it isBlaan. Both are also related toBagobo, andTiruray.
Tboli is spoken in the following areas (Ethnologue).
Dialects are Central Tboli, Western Tboli, and Southern Tboli (Ethnologue).
Awed, Underwood & Van Wynen (2004) list sevenvowelphonemes, namely/aieɛəoɔu/ and 15consonant phonemes shown in the chart below. Note that Tboli lacks/p/ as a phoneme and has/f/ instead, which is atypological rarity among Philippine languages.
| Labial | Coronal | Dorsal | Glottal | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Nasal | m | n | ŋ⟨ng⟩ | ||
| Stop | voiced | b | d | g | |
| voiceless | t | k | ʔ⟨–⟩ | ||
| Fricative | f | s | h | ||
| Approximant | w | l | j⟨y⟩ | ||
Final stress is the norm in Tboli root words; however, the stress shifts to the previous syllable if the final vowel is a schwa.[2]
Unlike most other Philippine languages and Austronesian languages in general, Tboli permits a variety ofconsonant clusters at theonset of asyllable. This is evident in the name of the language,/tbɔli/, but also in other words like/kfung/ 'dust',/sbulon/, 'one month,'/mlɔtik/ 'starry,'/hlun/ 'temporarily,'/gna/ 'before,' and others.
Awed, Underwood & Van Wynen (2004) observe impressionistically there is a very shortschwa pronounced in between the consonant cluster. However, these consonant clusters have not yet been analyzedacoustically.
Unlike other Philippine languages, Tboli does not make use ofcase-markingarticles.
Plurality is marked by the articlekem preceding the noun;kudà 'horse' (sg.),kem kudà 'horses.'
Tbolipronouns indicateperson,number,clusivity, and grammatical role.Awed, Underwood & Van Wynen (2004) group Tboli pronouns into two main categories based on what they term "focus," which appear to be related to theabsolutive-ergative case system in other Philippine languages. There are two further subcategories for each which deal with whether the singular pronouns behave as enclitics or as independent words. Their use depends on their role and position in a sentence.
| Focused | Nonfocused | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| dependent | independent | dependent | independent | |
| 1st singular | -e | ou/o | -u | dou/do |
| 2nd singular | -i | uu/u | -em/-m | kóm |
| 3rd singular | ø | du | -en/n | kun |
| 1st person dual | te | tu | te | kut |
| 1st inclusive | tekuy | |||
| 1st exclusive | me | mi | mi | kum |
| 2nd plural | ye | yu | ye | kuy |
| 3rd plural | le | lu | le | kul |
Examples using the third person plural pronoun.
Word order in Tboli is usually verb-subject-object, though there is some variation.
Mulu
planted
le
they
sfu
shoot
soging.
banana
Mulu le sfu soging.
planted they shoot banana
"They planted banana shoots."
Tboli, like other Philippine languages, makes a distinction betweentransitive andintransitive verbs. Intransitive verbs are marked with the affixme- while transitive verbs are marked withne-. Unlike Philippine languages, applicative affixes are not used in Tboli though prepositions are used instead.
Furthermore,aspect marking is not marked on the verb but with preverbal aspect markers such asdeng (completed actions) andangat (incomplete action).
Tboli makes use ofprefixes andinfixes.Awed, Underwood & Van Wynen (2004) claim thatsuffixes do not exist in the language, thoughproclitic affixes may be thought of as such.
Tboli has no official writing system, though theLatin script is usually used to write the language. The orthography is more or less similar to the one employed byTagalog: b, d, f, g, h, k, l, m, n, ng (for/ŋ/), s, t, w, and y (for/j/), though other letters may be used in writing foreign words.
Awed, Underwood & Van Wynen (2004) use a system of diacritics to accommodate the seven vowel phonemes of Tboli. The vowels are: a, i, é (for/ɛ/), e (for/ə/), ó (for/o/), u, and o (for/ɔ/).
The glottal stop/ʔ/ is usually not represented in writing. Though thegrave accent ` is used to represent it as inngà/ŋaʔ/ 'child' andgawì/gawiʔ/ 'serving spoon.' If a vowel already has a diacritic on it, then thecircumflex accent ^ is used as insdô/sdoʔ/ andbê/bɛʔ/ 'don't.'
Awed et al. note that sometimes that the apostrophe may be used to break up an initial consonant cluster as in the name of the language; that is,T'boli instead of simplyTboli. They note that native Tboli speakers have had "a very strong negative reaction" to this convention, preferring instead to writeTboli.[2]