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.

MUTDA: Mga Tulang Asi

I apologize again for the length of time between posts. I attribute this to being busy with school and work (and partly to laziness, but don't tell anyone. Ok?). I am off from work for the next six weeks, and there are a bunch of projects that I'd love to get finished during this summer.

I am in school again and am currently taking French, statistics, and political science for the summer quarter. My spring quarter grades surprised me. They were much better than my winter quarter grades; I got a 4.0! So, I was extremely happy. Usually there's that one cursed B that ruins the whole streak. Hopefully I can pull this off again, but statistics, which involves math, really isn't my forté.

Moving on... During my hiatus from this blog, I purchased a copy of a poetry anthology in the Asi language of Romblon province. The title is Mutda: Mga Tulang ASI (Pearl: Asi poems). It was compiled by Ishmael Fabicon, a native of Banton Island whom I first met over 5 years ago in a Bikol mailing list. Lyndon Fadri and Abner Famiano also edited the anthology.

Asi is really a minority language; a little over 70,000 people speak it. So it's a real treat to have a publication in a minority language such as this since they are really hard to come by.

Here's a song that was included in the anthology. It's Kita Ay Magsadya by Quirino Ferranco.

Kita ay magsadya ag magkanta
Sa tunog, sonata't gitara
Kasubo'y war-on sa hunahuna
Maglibang kita sa kasadya
Masri kali'k damot, Oh palangga
Ag puso nakong nagyuyuha
Pag ako pinisil, kaling imo damot
Di ka mahangit it kaling pakipot

Maasran ka ak yuha
It ako mga mata
Ka naging dahilan, buksi ka ak rughan
Nak ka ak paghigugma ay gikan

Cool, huh?

What I love about Asi is its historical phonology as far as its consonants are concerned; I think this is why it is tentatively considered a separate branch in the Visayan language family.

Linguist Jason Lobel explained Asi's consonants in his Sanrokan paper, but I'll give a brief run-down here.

Many of the words that normally start with /d/ in other Philippine languages like Tagalog, are rendered as /r/. So rather than dagat, isda, and sunod there is ragat, isra, and sunor.

Where other Philippine languages have /l/, Asi has /y/. So there is yamig, yang, suyat, mahay, and wayo for lamig, lang, sulat, mahal, and walo.

Medial /y/ in most Philippine languages is /d/ in Asi. Examples: hadop (hayop), maado (maayo), nidog (niyog), and sida (siya).

And then there are a lot of familiar words that have undergone at least two of these changes: badar (bayad), raya (dala), layo (yado), and yud-a (luy-a).

What a beautiful language - I hope there will be more Asi books in the future.