Hear me speak Kinaray-a!

In the Kinaray-a mailing list, a Ronald Panaligan announced that he's planning to publish a Kinaray-a dictionary. Kinaray-a, just for a reminder, is a West Visayan language spoken in Antique province on the island of Panay. It is one of the 13 most spoken Philippine languages.

Anyway, there was one problem.

How is he going to graphically represent the "schwa" vowel? This vowel is found in many Philippine languages and once existed in virtually all of them.

Many Karay-as usually write the letter "u."

But it's ambiguous with the /u/ sound.

People have proposed û and ö.

I have proposed simply e. That's how it's used in a number of Philippine languages, and the rate of ambiguity is less. For one, the average Joe (or José, in this case) are usually not inclined to write accent marks on words.

Furthermore, in textbooks aimed at teaching Kinaray-a, one cannot indicate stress by placing accent marks on "û" and "ö" since there are already ones. But one can do so with "e." For example, is it pronounced "béket" or "bekét"?

Anyway, there was some discussion on whether or not this sound is similar to Ilokano and Pangasinan. The Karay-as claimed there is a difference. I asked if they could record their voices, but no one stepped up. So I offered to record mine using the same vowel I pronounce Ilokano words with. One of the list members Dixcee promised me her California Golden Balls. Did I win them?

The link is here: http://members.aol.com/linggwistik/private/kinaray-aschwa.wav

I said:

iririmaw tatûn (let's get together)

Bûkût takûn Karay-a (I am not Karay-a)

Ang bûdlay kanatûn nga mga Pinoy, kon diin pa ang gûtûk rudtu pa
tatûn gustu magdasûk. (I have no clue!)

She said I didn't pronounce "tatûn" and "takûn" correctly and it's a draw on the balls. Darn. What the hell are California Golden Balls, anyway?

But yes, now you all have the honor of listening me speak Kinaray-a with quite possibly a heavy Tagalog accent laced in with an American twang here and there.

Whatever Mr. Pinaligan chooses, I will just have to accept. I really would like a Kinaray-a dictionary. :-)

In other news - I am done with summer classes. I did extremely well. I am off from school for the next month. In the fall I will be finishing up the 3rd installment of intermediate French along while exploring philosophy and anthropology. I'm quite excited about the anthropology class.