WhileTagalog has the largest number of native speakers among the languages of the Philippines today, Cebuano had the largest native-language-speaking population from the 1950s until about the 1980s.[7][failed verification] It is by far the most widely spoken of theBisayan languages.[8]
Cebuano is thelingua franca of Central Visayas, the western parts of Eastern Visayas, some western parts ofPalawan, and most parts ofMindanao. The name Cebuano is derived from the island ofCebu, which is the source of Standard Cebuano.[5] Cebuano is also the primary language in Western Leyte—noticeably inOrmoc. Cebuano is assigned theISO 639-2 three-letter codeceb but not anISO 639-1 two-letter code.
TheCommission on the Filipino Language, the Philippine government body charged with developing and promoting the national and regional languages of the country, spells the name of the language in Filipino asSebwano.
Cebu Provincial Capitol's historical marker inCebu City
The termCebuano derives from "Cebu" (which is an island found in central east of the Philippines (some peoples believe that this language came from Cebu)) and "ano" which means (in this case) "people/s", a Latinate calque reflecting the Philippines' Spanish colonial heritage. Speakers of Cebuano in Cebu and even those from outside of Cebu commonly refer to the language asBisayâ.[citation needed]
The nameCebuano, however, has not been accepted by all who speak it. Cebuano speakers in certain portions ofLeyte,Northern Mindanao,Davao Region,Caraga, andZamboanga Peninsula objected to the name of the language and claimed that their ancestry traces back to Bisayâ speakers native to their place and not from immigrants or settlers from Cebu. Furthermore, they refer to their ethnicity asBisayâ instead of Cebuano and their language asBinisayâ instead of Cebuano.[9] However, there is a pushback on these objections. Some language enthusiasts insist on referring to the language as Cebuano because, as they claim, using the termsBisayâ andBinisayâ to refer to ethnicity and language, respectively, is exclusivist and disenfranchises the speakers of theHiligaynon language and theWaray language who also refer to their languages asBinisayâ to distinguish them from CebuanoBisayâ.
Existing linguistic studies on Visayan languages, most notably that of R. David Paul Zorc, has described the language spoken in Cebu, Negros Occidental, Bohol (as Boholano dialect), Leyte, and most parts of Mindanao as "Cebuano". Zorc's studies on Visayan language serves as the bible of linguistics in the study of Visayan languages. The Jesuit linguist and a native ofCabadbaran, Rodolfo Cabonce, S.J., published two dictionaries during his stays inCagayan de Oro City andManolo Fortich inBukidnon: a Cebuano-English dictionary in 1955, and an English-Cebuano dictionary in 1983.[10]
During theSpanish Colonial Period, the Spaniards broadly referred to the speakers of Hiligaynon, Cebuano, Waray,Kinaray-a, andAklanon asVisaya and made no distinctions among these languages.[11]
As of the 2020 (but released in 2023) statistics released by thePhilippine Statistics Authority, the current number of households that speak Cebuano is approximately 1.72 million[12] and around 6.5% of the country's population speak it inside their home. However, in a journal published in 2020, the number of speakers is estimated to be 15.9 million which in turn based it on a 2019 study.[13]
The Cebuano language is a descendant of the hypothesized reconstructedProto-Philippine language, which in turn descended fromProto-Malayo-Polynesian, making it distantly related to many languages inMaritime Southeast Asia, includingIndonesian andMalay. The earlier forms of the language are hard to trace as a result of lack of documents written using the language through different time periods and also because the natives used to write on easily perishable material rather than on processed paper or parchment.
The earliest record of the Cebuano language was first documented in alist of words compiled byAntonio Pigafetta, an Italian explorer who was part ofFerdinand Magellan's 1521 expedition.[15] While there is evidence of a writing system for the language, its use appears to have been sporadic. Spaniards recorded theVisayan script,[16] which was calledkudlit-kabadlit by the natives.[17] Although Spanish chroniclersFrancisco Alcina andAntonio de Morga wrote that almost every native was literate in the 17th century CE, it appears to have been exaggerated as accounted for lack of physical evidence and contradicting reports of different accounts.[18] A report from 1567 CE describeshow the natives wrote the language, and stated that the natives learned it from the Malays, but a century later another report claimed that the Visayan natives learned it from the Tagalogs. Despite the confirmation of the usage ofbaybayin in the region, the documents of the language being written in it other than Latin between the 17th century CE and 18th century CE are now rare. In the 18th century CE, Francisco Encina, a Spanish priest, compiled a grammar book on the language, but his work was published sometime only by the early 19th century CE. The priest recorded the letters of the Latin alphabet used for the language,[19] and in a separate report, his name was listed as the recorder of the non-Latin characters used by the natives.[20]
Cebuano written literature is generally agreed to have started withVicente Yap Sotto, who wrote "Maming" in 1901, but earlier he wrote a more patriotic piece of literature that was published a year later afterMaming because of American censorship during theUS occupation of the Philippines. However, there existed a piece that was more of a conduct book rather than a fully defined story itself, written in 1852 by Fray Antonio Ubeda de la Santísima Trinidad.[21][22]
During the precolonial andSpanish period, Cebuano had only three vowel phonemes:/a/,/i/ and/u/. This was later expanded to five vowels with the introduction of Spanish. As a consequence, the vowels⟨o⟩ or⟨u⟩, as well as⟨e⟩ or⟨i⟩, are still mostlyallophones. They can be freely switched with each other without losing their meaning (free variation), though it may sound strange to a native listener, depending on their dialect. The vowel/a/ can be pronounced as either[a] or[ʌ], or as[ɔ] immediately after the consonant/w/.Loanwords, however, are usually more conservative in their orthography and pronunciation (e.g.dyip, "jeepney" from English "jeep", will never be written or spoken asdyep).[9][25]
There are only fourdiphthongs, since⟨o⟩ and⟨u⟩ are allophones. These are/aj/,/uj/,/aw/, and/iw/.[26]
For Cebuano consonants, all the stops are unaspirated. Thevelar nasal/ŋ/ occurs in all positions, including at the beginning of a word (e.g.ngano, "why"). Theglottal stop/ʔ/ is most commonly encountered in between two vowels, but can also appear in all positions.[9]
Like inTagalog, glottal stops are usually not indicated in writing. When indicated, it is commonly written as ahyphen or anapostrophe if the glottal stop occurs in the middle of the word (e.g.tu-o ortu'o, "right"). More formally, when it occurs at the end of the word, it is indicated by acircumflex accent if both a stress and a glottal stop occurs at the final vowel (e.g.basâ, "wet"); or agrave accent if the glottal stop occurs at the final vowel, but the stress occurs at the penultimate syllable (e.g.batà, "child").[27][28][29]
Below is a chart of Cebuano consonants with their corresponding letter representation in parentheses:[9][23][24][30]
In certain dialects,/l/⟨l⟩ may be interchanged with/w/⟨w⟩ in between vowels and vice versa depending on the following conditions:[9]
If⟨l⟩ is in between⟨a⟩ and⟨u⟩/⟨o⟩, the vowel succeeding⟨l⟩ is usually (but not always) dropped (e.g.lalóm, "deep", becomeslawóm orlawm).
If⟨l⟩ is in between⟨u⟩/⟨o⟩ and⟨a⟩, it is the vowel that is preceding⟨l⟩ that is instead dropped (e.g.bulan, "moon", becomesbuwan orbwan)
If⟨l⟩ is in between two like vowels, the⟨l⟩ may be dropped completely and the vowel lengthened. For example,dalá ("bring"), becomesda (/d̪aː/); andtulód ("push") becomestud (/t̪uːd̪/).[9] Except if thel is in betweenclosed syllables or is in the beginning of the penultimate syllable; in which case, the⟨l⟩ is dropped along with one of the vowels, and no lengthening occurs. For example,kalatkat, "climb", becomeskatkat (/ˈkatkat/ not/ˈkaːtkat/).
A final⟨l⟩ can also be replaced with⟨w⟩ in certain areas in Bohol (e.g.tambal, "medicine", becomestambaw). In very rare cases in Cebu,⟨l⟩ may also be replaced with⟨y⟩ in between the vowels⟨a⟩ and⟨e⟩/⟨i⟩ (e.g.tingali, "maybe", becomestingayi).[9]
In some parts of Bohol and Southern Leyte,/j/⟨y⟩ is also often replaced withd͡ʒ⟨j/dy⟩ when it is in the beginning of a syllable (e.g.kalayo, "fire", becomeskalajo). It can also happen even if the⟨y⟩ is at the final position of the syllable and the word, but only if it is moved to the initial position by the addition of theaffix-a. For example,baboy ("pig") can not becomebaboj, butbaboya can becomebaboja.[9]
All of the above substitutions are considered allophonic and do not change the meaning of the word.[9]
In rarer instances, the consonant⟨d⟩ might also be replaced with⟨r⟩ when it is in between two vowels (e.g. Boholanoidô for standard Cebuanoirô, "dog"), but⟨d⟩ and⟨r⟩ are not considered allophones,[9] though they may have been in the past.[31]
Stress accent is phonemic, which means that words with different accent placements, such asdapít (near) anddápit (place), are considered separate. The stress is predictably on thepenult when the second-to-last syllable isclosed (CVC or VC). On the other hand, when the syllable isopen (CV or V), the stress can be on either the penultimate or the final syllable (although there are certain grammatical conditions or categories under which the stress is predictable, such as with numbers and pronouns).[32]
The Cebuano language is written using the Latin script and thede facto writing convention is based on theFilipino orthography. Though it was recorded that the language used a different writing system prior to the introduction of the Latin script, its use was so rare that there is hardly any surviving accounts of Cebuano being written in what was calledbadlit. Modern Cebuano uses 20 letters from the Latin alphabet, and it consists of 5 vowels and 15 consonants. The letters c, f, j, q, v, x and z are also used but in foreign loanwords, while the "ñ" is used for Spanish names (e.g.Santo Niño). The "Ng" digraph is also present in the alphabet since it is part of the phonology of most Philippine languages representing the sound of thevelar nasal/ŋ/ (e.g.ngipon, "teeth" andngano, "why").[33]
There is no standardized orthography for Cebuano, but spelling in print usually follow the pronunciation of Standard Cebuano. Standard Cebuano is based on theCarcar-Dalaguete dialect (also historically known as the Sialo dialect) in southeastern Cebu, which was adopted by theCatholic Church in early Latin script transcriptions of the Cebuano language. The spelling rules of Standard Cebuano is usually applied regardless of how it is actually spoken by the speaker. For example,baláy ("house") is pronounced/baˈl̪aɪ/ in Standard Cebuano and is thus spelled "baláy", even in Urban Cebuano where it is actually pronounced/ˈbaɪ/.[9][34] Another example is in Boholano Cebuano, where its characteristic/dʒ/ sound is still written as 'y' not 'j'.[34]
An exception to this are dialects which replace the 'l' with 'w', in which case it is usually written as 'w'. For example, Standard Cebuanolalom ("deep"), becomeslawom in Urban Cebuano.[34]
The letters 'i' and 'u' can also sometimes be interchanged with 'e' and 'o' (and vice versa), especially in the final syllable. This is due to the fact that historically, Cebuano did not distinguish between these sounds.[34][35]
Other than the use of Standard Cebuano spellings, different Cebuano-language publications also have varying internal guidelines for spelling, syntax, morphology, style, and usage that they use.[34]
Cebuano shares many cognates with otherAustronesian languages and its descendants. Early trade contact resulted in the adoption of loanwords fromMalay (despite belonging in the same language family) like "sulát" ("to write")[36], "pilak" ("silver"),[37] and "balísa" ("anxious");[38] it also adopted words fromSanskrit like "bahandì" ("wealth, goods, riches") from "भाण्ड,bhānda" ("goods"), andbása ("to read") is taken from "वाचा,vācā" ("sacred text")[39] andArabic like the word"alam" ("to know") is said to be borrowed from Arabic "عَالَم,ʕālam" ("things, creation, existing before")[40], and "salamat" ("expression of gratitude, thanks, thank you") from "سَلَامَات,salāmāt" ("plural form ofsalāma, meaning "good health"),[41] both of which were indirectly transmitted to Cebuano through Malays.
The biggest component of loanwords that Cebuano uses is from Spanish, being moreculturally influenced by Spanish priests from the late 16th century and invigorated by the opening of theSuez Canal in the 1860s that encouraged European migrations to Asia, most notably its numeral system. English words are also used extensively in the language and mostly among the educated ones,even sometimes using the English word rather than the direct Cebuano. For example, instead of saying"magpalít" ("to buy", in future tense), speakers would often say"mag-buy"[42].
Currently, the native system is mostly used as cardinal numbers and more often as ordinal numbers, and the Spanish-derived system is used in monetary and chronological terminology and is also commonly used in counting from 11 and above, though both systems can be used interchangeably regardless. The table below shows the comparison of native numerals and Spanish-derived numerals, but observably Cebuano speakers would often just use the English numeral system instead, especially for numbers more than 100.[42]
The language uses a base-ten numeral system, thence the sets of ten are ultimately derived from the unit except the first ten which is"napulò", this is done by adding a prefixka-, then followed by a unit, and then the suffix-an. For example,20 is spoken aska-duhá-an (lit. "the second set of ten"). The numbers are named from one to ten, for values after ten, it is spoken asaten and aunit. For example,11 is spoken as "napulò ug usá", shortened to "napulò'g usá" (lit. "ten and one"),111 is spoken as"usa ka gatós, napulò ug usá", and1111 is spoken as"usá ka libo, usá ka gatós, napulò ug usá". The ordinal counting uses the prefixika-, and then the unit, except for "first" which is"una". For example,ika-duhá means "second".[citation needed]
Ang tanáng katawhan gipakatawo nga adunay kagawasan ug managsama sa kabililhon. Silá gigasahan sa pangisip ug tanlag ug kinahanglang mag-ilhanáy sa usá'g-usá dihâ sa diwà sa panág-higsuonáy.
All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights. They are endowed with reason and conscience and should act towards one another in a spirit of brotherhood.[43]
Cebuano (taken from the official prayer of Minor Basilica of the Holy Child of Cebu)
English (taken from Matthew 6: 9-13 from the New International Version)
Amahán namò nga anaa sa mga langit, pagdaygon ang imong ngalan, umabót kanamò ang imong gingharian, matuman ang imong pagbuót, dinhí sa yutà maingón sa langit. Ang kalan-on namò sa matag adlaw, ihatag kanamò karóng adlawa. Ug pasayloa kamí sa among mga salâ, ingón nga nagapasaylo kamí sa mga nakasalâ kanamò. Ug dilì mo kamí itugyan sa panuláy, hinunua luwasá kamí sa daután. Amen.
Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name, your kingdom come, your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven. Give us today our daily bread. And forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors. And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from the evil one. Amen.
Cebuano is spoken natively over a large area of the Philippines and thus has numerous regional dialects. It can vary significantly in terms oflexicon and phonology depending on where it is spoken.[9] Increasing usage of spoken English (being the primary language of commerce and education in the Philippines) has also led to the introduction of new pronunciations and spellings of old Cebuano words.Code-switching forms of English and Bisaya (Bislish) are also common among the educated younger generations.[47][48]
There are four main dialectal groups within Cebuano aside from Standard Cebuano and Urban Cebuano. They are as follows:[49][50][51][52]
TheBoholano dialect ofBohol shares many similarities with the southern form of Standard Cebuano.[clarification needed] It is also spoken in some parts ofSiquijor and parts of Northern Mindanao. Boholano, especially as spoken in central Bohol, can be distinguished from other Cebuano variants by a fewphonetic changes:
The semivowely is pronounced[dʒ]:iyá is pronounced[iˈdʒa];
Akó is pronounced as[aˈho];
Intervocalicl is occasionally pronounced as[w] when followingu oro:kulang is pronounced as[ˈkuwaŋ] (the same asMetro Cebu dialect).
Southern Kanâ is a dialect of both southernLeyte andSouthern Leyte provinces; it is closest to the Mindanao Cebuano dialect at the southern area and northern Cebu dialect at the northern boundaries. Both North and South Kana are subgroups ofLeyteño dialect. Both of these dialects are spoken in western and central Leyte and in the southern province, but Boholano is more concentrated inMaasin City.[citation needed]
Northern Kanâ (found in the northern part ofLeyte), is closest to the variety of the language spoken in northern part of Leyte, and shows significant influence from Waray-Waray, quite notably in its pace which speakers from Cebu find very fast, and its more mellow tone (compared to the urban Cebu City dialect, which Kana speakers find "rough"). A distinguishing feature of this dialect is the reduction of/A/ prominent, but an often unnoticed feature of this dialect is the labialisation of/n/ and/ŋ/ into/m/, when these phonemes come before/p/,/b/ and/m/, velarisation of/m/ and/n/ into/ŋ/ before/k/,/ɡ/ and/ŋ/, and the dentalisation of/ŋ/ and/m/ into/n/ before/t/,/d/ and/n/ and sometimes, before vowels and other consonants as well.[citation needed]
Public health safety reminders on the city hall ofDavao
A branch of Mindanaoan Cebuano inDavao is also known as Davaoeño (not to be confused with the Davao variant ofChavacano which is called "Castellano Abakay"). Like the Cebuano of Luzon, it contains someTagalog vocabulary, which speakers may use even more frequently than in Luzon Cebuano. Its grammar is similar to that of other varieties; however, current speakers exhibit uniquely strong Tagalog influence in their speech by substituting most Cebuano words with Tagalog ones. This is because the older generations speak Tagalog to their children in home settings, and Cebuano is spoken in other everyday settings, making Tagalog the secondary lingua franca. One characteristic of this dialect is the practice of sayingatà, derived from Tagalogyatà, to denote uncertainty in a speaker's aforementioned statements. For instance, a Davaoeño might say"Tuá manatà sa baláy si Manuel" instead of"Tuá mantingáli sa baláy si Manuel". The wordatà does exist in Cebuano, though it means 'squid ink' in contrast to Tagalog (e.g.atà sa nukos).[citation needed]
Other examples include:Nibabâ ko sa jeep sakanto,tapos niulî ko sa among baláy ("I got off thejeepney at the street corner, and then I went home") instead ofNinaog ko sa jeep saeskina,dayon niulî ko sa among baláy. The wordsbabâ andnaog mean "to disembark" or "to go down",kanto andeskina mean "street corner", whiletapos anddayon mean "then"; in these cases, the former word is Tagalog, and the latter is Cebuano. Davaoeño speakers may also sometimes addBagobo or Mansakan vocabulary to their speech, as in"Madayawng adlaw, amigo, kumusta ka?" ("Good day, friend, how are you?", literally "Good morning/afternoon") rather than"Maayong adlaw, amigo, kumusta ka?" The wordsmadayaw andmaayo both mean 'good', though the former is Bagobo and the latter Cebuano.[citation needed]
One of the famous characteristics of this dialect is disregarding the agreement between the verb "To go (Adto, Anha, Anhi, Ari)" and locative demonstratives (Didto, Dinha, Dinhi, Diri) or the distance of the object/place. In Cebu Cebuano dialect, when the verb "to go" is distal (far from both the speaker and the listener), the locative demonstrative must be distal as well (e.g.Adto didto. Not "Adto diri" or "Anha didto"). In Davaoeño Cebuano on the other hand does not necessarily follow that grammar. Speakers tend to sayAdto diri instead ofAri diri probably due to grammar borrowing fromHiligaynon becausekadto/mokadto is the Hiligaynon word for "come" or "go" in general regardless the distance.[53]
Language map showing theNegros Island almost separating the two provinces (Negros Occidental and Negros Oriental) linguistically
The Cebuano dialect inNegros is somewhat similar to Standard Cebuano (spoken by the majority of the provincial areas of Cebu), with distinctHiligaynon influences. It is distinctive in retaining/l/ sounds and longer word forms as well. It is the primary dialectal language of the entire province ofNegros Oriental and northeastern parts ofNegros Occidental (while the majority of the latter province and its bordered areas speaks Hiligaynon/Ilonggo), as well as some parts ofSiquijor. Examples of Negrense Cebuano's distinction from other Cebuano dialects is the usage of the wordmaot instead ofbatî ("ugly"),alálay,kalálag instead ofkalag-kalag (Halloween),kabaló/kahibaló andkaágo/kaantígo instead ofkabawó/kahíbawó ("know").[citation needed]
There is no specificLuzonian dialect of Cebuano, as speakers of Cebuano in Luzon come from many different regions in Central Visayas and Mindanao. Cebuano-speaking people from Luzon can be easily recognized in the Visayas primarily by their vocabulary, which incorporatesTagalog words. Their accents and some aspects of their grammar can also sometimes exhibit Tagalog influence. SuchTagalog-influenced Cebuano dialects are sometimes colloquially known as "Bisalog" (aportmanteau of Tagalog and Bisaya).[citation needed]
The termsaksak sinagol in context means "a collection of miscellaneous things" or literally "inserted mixture", thus the few other Cebuano-influenced regions that have a variety of regional languages use this term to refer to their dialects with considerable incorporated Cebuano words. Examples of these regions can be found in places likeMasbate.[citation needed]
^Reference to the language asBinisayâ is discouraged by many linguists, in light of the many languages within the Visayan language group that might be confounded with the term.
^Encina, Francisco (1801).Arte de la lengua zebuana. Sampaloc: s.n. p. 597.Aunque no es de importancia la escritura bisaya Zebuana; te la pondré aqui; para que entiendas lo que ellos escriben; pues la usan mui frecuentemente como se sigue.
^Marcilla, Cipriano (1895).Estudio de los antiguos alfabetos filipinos (in Spanish). Tipo-litografía del asilo de huérfanos. p. 11.
^Mojares, Resil B. (1973)."Cebuano Literature: A Survey of Sources".Philippine Quarterly of Culture and Society.1 (2):75–79.ISSN0115-0243.JSTOR29791057.Vernacular journalism in Cebu, on the hand, had its start with Vicente Sotto's Ang Suga (founded in 1901). [...] From 1901 to the present time, there have been no less than 150 commercial publications either purely or partly in Cebuano, published in Cebu and in other places, notably Manila, Bohol, the Misamis provinces, and Davao.
^abThompson, Irene (11 July 2013)."Cebuano". About World Languages. Retrieved16 September 2016.
^Steinkrüger, Patrick O. (2008)."Hispanisation processes in the Philippines". In Stolz, Thomas; Bakker, Dik; Palomo, Rosa Salas (eds.).Hispanisation: The Impact of Spanish on the Lexicon and Grammar of the Indigenous Languages of Austronesia and the Americas. Walter de Gruyter. pp. 203–236.ISBN9783110207231.
^Schoellner, Joan; Heinle, Beverly D., eds. (2007).Tagalog Reading Booklet(PDF). Simon & Schister's Pimsleur. pp. 5–6. Archived fromthe original(PDF) on 27 November 2013. Retrieved16 September 2016.
^"Language Specific Peculiarities Document for Cebuano as Spoken in the Philippines"(PDF).APPEN. Linguistic Data Consortium University of Pennsylvania:3–4 – via LDC Catalog.There are canonically only three vowel sounds in Cebuano: i, u, a. There is, however some inconsistency in representing them in the orthography. The i vowel in particular can be written as i or e. The u vowel is generally represented with u and sometimes o, especially in final syllables.
^abMorelos, Allan T. (1998)."English Loanwords in the Modern Cebuano Language: An Index of Cultural Change".Philippine Quarterly of Culture and Society.26 (3/4):324–336.ISSN0115-0243.JSTOR29792425.English words and phrases which have been well-assimilated and integrated in the cultural vocabulary of the Cebuano language are not just a record of the modifications in the material circumstances of the lives of the Cebuano-speaking populace but have also chronicled changes in the ideational content of Cebuano culture.
^"Cebuano". Ethnologue. Retrieved28 December 2016.
^Dingwall, Alastair (1994).Traveller's Literary Companion to South-East Asia. In Print Publishing, Limited. p. 372.ISBN9781873047255.
^Blake, Frank R. (1905). "The Bisayan Dialects".Journal of the American Oriental Society.26 (1905):120–136.doi:10.2307/592885.JSTOR592885.
^Gonzalez, Andrew (1991). "Cebuano and Tagalog: Ethnic Rivalry Redivivus". In Dow, James R. (ed.).Focus on Language and Ethnicity. Vol. 2. Amsterdam/Philadelphia: John Benjamins Publishing. pp. 115–116.ISBN9789027220813.
Wolff, John U. (1972).A Dictionary of Cebuano Visayan(PDF). Ithaca, New York: Cornell University, Southeast Asia Program and Linguistic Society of the Philippines.hdl:1813/11777. Archived fromthe original(PDF) on 30 September 2018. Retrieved7 May 2017 – via Gutenberg.ph.
_(cropped).jpg)
.jpg)
.jpg)
