| Abellen | |
|---|---|
| Ayta Abellen | |
| Native to | Philippines |
| Region | Tarlac andBotolan |
Native speakers | 4,450 (2020)[1] |
| Language codes | |
| ISO 639-3 | abp |
| Glottolog | aben1249 |
| ELP | Abellen Ayta |
Abellen,Abenlen,Aburlin, orAyta Abellen, is aSambalic language. It has about 4,400 speakers and is spoken in a fewAeta communities inTarlacprovince,Philippines.[2] Ayta Abellen itself is part of theSambalic language family in the Philippines and is closely related to not only the five other Ayta dialects but also theBotolan dialect of Sambal.Ethnologue reports 45monolinguists.[3]
Abellen Ayta speakers can be found in the following locations:
The Ayta Abellen people are historically a semi-nomadic people. Also known asNegritos, they are said to be descendants of the earliest inhabitants of the Philippines, dating back to the latePleistocene Era.[5] The Ayta Abellen are distinguishable by their curly black hair, and darker skin tone as compared to other Filipinos.[6] Since their language is similar to otherAustronesian languages, there is a theory of an Austronesian migration that occurred. In this theory, there were two different migrations, one from the southern coast ofSundaland eastward and fromWallacea toMindanao, causing there to be a separation of Ayta people and theMamanwa for about 20,000 to 30,000 years. Prior to the Austronesian migration, there was not much similarity between the original languages of the Negritos.[5]
After the eruption ofMt. Pinatubo in the 1990s, some of the Ayta Abellen have relocated from the mountains and have intermarried and mixed in with the localIlocano people.[7] As a result, there areIlocano loan words in the language.[6] Much of the population also speaks Ilocano as a second language along withTagalog as well. The Ayta people rely on natural resources; however, due to shrinking forests, it has become harder to sustain that life style. This problem, along with diseases and remoteness from modern health care centers, is correlated with the higher death rate as compared to the birth rate among the Ayta Abellen people.[8]
| Labial | Alveolar | Palatal | Velar | Glottal | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Nasal | m | n | ŋ | |||
| Plosive | voiceless | p | t | k | ʔ | |
| voiced | b | d | ɡ | |||
| Fricative | h | |||||
| Lateral | l | |||||
| Semivowel | w | j | ||||
| Front | Back | |
|---|---|---|
| Close | i | o |
| Open | a | ə |
| Phonemes | Orthographic symbols |
|---|---|
| /p/ | P |
| /b/ | B |
| /t/ | T |
| /d/ | D |
| /k/ | K |
| /g/ | G |
| /ʔ/ | - |
| /h/ | H |
| /m/ | M |
| /n/ | N |
| /ŋ/ | Ng |
| /l/ | L |
| /w/ | W |
| /j/ | Y |
| /i/ | I |
| /a/ | A |
| /a/ | Ā |
| /«/ | E |
| /o/ | O |
Additionally, s, r, c (for [k]), j, among other phonemes, are used in loanwords and names.[6] In the Sambal and Ayta languages, the glottal stop tends to replace a word final non-obstruent when proceeded by a stressed high central vowel.
Ayta Abellen shares the sameverb–subject–object sentence structure as other languages in the Philippines.[6] It shares similar phonology with other Ayta dialects as well as Botolan Sambal. Not only does it share an identical pronoun system with other Sambalic languages, but between other Ayta languages, it is around 70% similar.[11] This language is a CV (consonant and vowel) and CVC language, although sometimes it is ambiguously a VC and V language. In this language, vowel deletion as well as consonant deletion are evident when words are combined.[6] In this language, placement ofstress can be unpredictable. Poly-syllabic words have primary stress whereas words with more than three syllables contain a secondary stress. However, suffixation also causes a shift in stress placement.[6]
Ayta Abellen is written using Latin text.[10] Ilocano is a second language to much of the Abellen and the lingua franca of where many of the Abellen people reside, while Tagalog is the national language of the Philippines. Transcribers are trying to document the language in text that is similar to both Ilocano and Tagalog. Many of the hymnals used in the area are written in Botolan Sambal, and thus they are also trying to have Ayta Abellen orthography conform to it as well.[6]